View source for Middle English

{{Infobox language
| name             = Middle English
| nativename       = Englisch, Inglis, English
| region           = [[England]], some parts of [[Wales]],  [[Scotland|south east Scotland and Scottish burghs]], to some extent [[Ireland]]
| era              = developed into [[Early Modern English]], [[Scots language|Scots]], and [[Yola language|Yola]] and [[Fingallian]] in [[Ireland]] by the 16th century
| image            = Chaucer-canterburytales-miller.jpg
| imagesize        = 250px
| imagecaption     = A page from [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]''
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Germanic languages|Germanic]]
| fam3             = [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]]
| fam4             = [[Ingvaeonic languages|North Sea Germanic]]
| fam5             = [[Anglo-Frisian languages|Anglo-Frisian]]
| fam6             = [[Anglic languages|Anglic]]
| ancestor         = [[Proto-Indo-European]]
| iso2             = enm
| iso3             = enm
| glotto           = midd1317
| glottorefname    = Middle English
| iso6             = meng
| notice           = IPA
| ancestor2        = [[Proto-Germanic]]
| ancestor3        = [[Old English]]
| script           = [[Latin]]
}}
'''Middle English''' or '''ME'''<ref>{{Cite book|title=Introduction to Middle English|last=Horobin|first=Simon|year=2016|location=Edinburgh}}</ref> is an older type of the [[English language]] that was spoken after the [[Norman conquest of England|Norman invasion]] in [[1066]] until the [[1500s]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LDBF5TJZHzQC&dq=middle+english&pg=PP9|title=An Introduction to Middle English|last=Horobin|first=Simon|last2=Smith|first2=Jeremy J.|date=2002|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=978-0-19-521950-0|language=en}}</ref> It came from [[Old English]] after [[William the Conqueror]] came to [[England]] with his French nobles and stopped English from being taught in schools for a few hundred years. Over this time, English borrowed several [[Old French]] words and became part of the [[Anglo-Norman language]]. This period of the development was from the [[High Middle Ages]] to the [[Late Middle Ages]].

In the [[1470s]], the ''Chancery Standard,'' a type of English spoken in [[London]], started to become more common. This was partly because [[William Caxton]] brought the [[printing press]] to England in the 1470s. The type of English that people spoke in England between then and 1650 is called [[Early Modern English]]. There were many different [[dialect]]s of Middle English.

[[Geoffrey Chaucer]] wrote [[The Canterbury Tales]] in Middle English.

== Related pages ==
* [[Old Scots]], the northern dialect of him.
* [[Middle English literature]]
* [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]
* [[The Canterbury Tales]]
* [[Mirie it is while sumer ilast]], the earliest non-religious song in the English language, dating to ca. 1250 AD.

==Sources==
{{Reflist}}
*Brunner, Karl (1962) ''Abriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik''; 5. Auflage. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer (1st ed. Halle (Saale): M. Niemeyer, 1938)
*Brunner, Karl (1963) ''An Outline of Middle English Grammar''; translated by Grahame Johnston. Oxford: Blackwell

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{{History of English}}

[[Category:English language]]
[[Category:1060s establishments]]
[[Category:15th-century disestablishments]]