Middle English (jan 1, 1150 – dec 31, 1500)

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Middle English was a significantly older form of modern-day English. It came to exist after the Norman Conquest, which lasted until the late 15th century. Old Norse helped the development of the English language from a synthetic language with free word order to a more analytic strict language. Basically, it is one of the reasons why we order our sentences in such a way. It was created to organize Old English and make it less complicated. An idolized example of Middle English is the text in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The language’s grammar was shifted in simpler manner and took after the Norman French vocabulary, especially with ideas and morals of laws, politics, arts, and religion. It still contained its Germanic roots and pronunciation and spelling were also changed with considerably longer vowels. Middle English was transitioned from Old English in the early 12th century to the 15th century called Late Middle English. Dialects were created through the centuries, like in the 14th Century London, who based their speech on the counties in the East Midlands.

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