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The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. [2] This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with the High and Late Middle Ages.
The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily inflected language , the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English . Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e.
Early Scots was the emerging literary language of the Early Middle English-speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English. During this period, speakers referred to the language as "English" (Inglis, Ynglis, and variants).
The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English.
Old English (Ænglisċ, Anglisċ, Englisċ) is the earliest form of the English language. It was brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers, and was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland until the mid-12th century, by which time it had evolved into Middle English.
The Middle English creole hypothesis is a proposal that Middle English was a creole, which is usually defined as a language that develops during contact between two groups speaking different languages and that loses much of the grammatical elaboration of its source languages in the process.
Middle English literature is written, then, in the many dialects that correspond to the history, culture, and background of the individual writers. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture and administration, English literature by no means died out, and a number of important works illustrate the development of the language.
This table omits the history of Middle English diphthongs; see that link for a table summarizing the developments. The table is organized around the pronunciation of Late Middle English c. 1400 AD (the time of Chaucer) and the modern