The Middle English are separate in three periods, like following:
- Norman invasion (1066), French conquest and unification of England; Norman = North-man, descendants of Danes, spoke French influenced by Germanic dialect
- William in full control of England within ten years
- death of many Anglo-Saxon nobles
- end of internal conflicts and Viking invasions; control of the Welsh
- Frenchmen in all high offices
- Anglo Saxon Chronicle written until 1154
- imposition of feudal system, vassalage, peasants bound to the land
- increase in dialectal differences
- kings of England spoke French, took French wives and lived mostly in France, French-speaking court
- Henry II Plantagenet (r. 1154-1189), married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, father of Richard I, the Lionheart (r. 1189-1199) and John Lackland
- assassination of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170
- lack of prestige of English; Latin was written language of the Church and secular documents; Scandinavian still spoken in the Danelaw, Celtic languages prevailed in Wales and Scotland
- development of bilingualism among Norman officials, supervisors, some marriages of French and English, bilingual children
- examples of French words: tax, estate, trouble, duty, pay, table, boil, serve, roast, dine, religion, savior; pray, trinity
- very little written English from this period
- King John (John Lackland) (r. 1199-1216), loss of Normandy in 1204
- many Norman landholders chose to stay in England, spoke Anglo-French dialect
- barons revolt against John, Magna Carta (1215), origins and development of Parliament
- Henry III (r. 1216-1272), son of John; francophilia of Henry III, many Frenchmen given official positions
- Edward I (r. 1272-1307), son of Henry III, conquered Wales and waged war with Scotland
- decline of French cultural dominance in England
- rise in use of English, smoothing out of dialectal differences, beginning of standard English based on London dialect; crusades, pilgrimages contributed to increase in communication and formation of common language.
- French remained official language of England until second half of 14th c.; by mid to late 14th c. English was normal medium of instruction; in 1362 English became official language of legal proceedings, everyone in England spoke English by end of 14th c., displacing of French, Norse, and Celtic languages
- persistence of dialectal differences, increase in English writing, more common in legal documents than French or Latin by 15th c.
- emergence of London/East Midland dialect as standard spoken and written language, compromise dialect, London as commercial center, seaport, proximity to Westminster court
- printers' activity (William Caxton 1474), increased literacy
- Edward III (Windsor) (r. 1327-1377), his claim to French throne led to Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), English victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), Agincourt (1415), role of Joan of Arc (1429), eventual French victory, loss of all English continental holdings, French no longer significant to the English
- Black Death 1348-1351, death of one third of English population, social chaos, labor shortages, emancipation of peasants, wage increases, rise in prestige of English as language of working classes
- Richard II (1377-1399) (grandson of Edward III), John of Gaunt (1340-1399) (son of Edward III), Richard II deposed by Henry IV (Bolingbroke)
- War of the Roses (1455-1485), York vs. Lancaster, Richard Duke of York vs. Henry VI
- Henry VI executed 1471
- Edward II's brother Richard III (1483-85) killed by Lancastrian Henry VII (Tudor), Henry marries Elizabeth of York (daughter of Edward IV), fathers Henry VIII;
- 1509 begins reign of Henry VIII, end of Middle English period
The dialects of Middle English are usually divided into three large groups: Southern (subdivided into Southeastern, or Kentish, and Southwestern), chiefly in the counties south of the River Thames; Midland (corresponding roughly to the Mercian dialect area of Old English times) in the area from the Thames to southern South Yorkshire and northern Lancashire; and Northern, in the Scottish Lowlands, Northumberland, Cumbria, Durham, northern Lancashire, and most of Yorkshire.
During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today. This French vocabulary is found in every domain, from government and law to art and literature – learn some. More than a third of all English words are derived directly or indirectly from French, and it's estimated that English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words.
