1. Introduction to Middle English
Middle English is the English of roughly 1150–1500, the stage between Old English and Early Modern English. Its most famous voice is Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales.1
After the Norman Conquest, English lost most of its Old English inflections and absorbed an enormous French and Latin vocabulary. The result is far more readable to us than Old English — though the spelling was unstandardised and varied by region and scribe. Confidence: High.
2. Historical context
With French the language of the Norman ruling class, English survived as the everyday speech of most people and slowly re-emerged in writing. By Chaucer's day (late 1300s) it was again a literary language; Caxton's printing press (1476) began to fix its spelling.
3. Writing system
Middle English used the Latin alphabet. The Old English letters þ (thorn) and ȝ (yogh) lingered before dying out; “th” and “gh/y” replaced them. Because there was no standard spelling, the same word can appear many ways.
4. A few words
Reading Chaucer, much is recognisable once spelling settles down:
| Middle English | Modern English |
|---|---|
| whan | when |
| swich | such |
| eek | also |
| yclept | called, named |
| thee / thou | you (singular) |
| nas (ne was) | was not |
Confidence: High (per the Middle English Dictionary and standard editions).
5. Learning resources
A recommended starting stack:
- Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan) — the standard dictionary, free online
- Harvard Geoffrey Chaucer WebsiteBeginner — texts, glosses and audio of Chaucer's Middle English
- Middle English — overview — history, dialects and grammar
Where this guide is going
This orientation covers what Middle English is, its history, script and a taste of the vocabulary. A fuller course (pronunciation, remaining inflections, reading the General Prologue) is planned and marked incomplete for now.
6. Honest limitations
- A reading language: the goal is reading Chaucer and Langland, not conversation.
- Spelling is highly variable and dialectal; there is no single “correct” form.
- This guide is an orientation stub; the full course is not yet built.