8. Middle English Vocabulary

The changes in the vocabulary in the Middle English period were mainly quantitative. This is the period when new words and new morphemes were actively borrowed and promptly assimilated grammatically. This made the vocabulary of the late Middle English quite different from that of the other Germanic languages.

French borrowings were especially numerous. They came quite naturally into the language in Middle English. Some spheres of life were for years if not centuries controlled by the French speaking elite. Some words came into English by way of oral communication of the conquerors with the native population. It was the language of school education, so all educated people knew and used the French words in order to make their ideas more precise, the more so because there was actually no English counterpart for many of them at the time. In some cases the borrowings ousted native English words, but frequently they coexisted with the native words, having only stylistic colouring. In the north, the lower number of French borrowings were observed.

The words of French origin penetrated in the spheres of life controlled at those times by the Normans. As can be seen, they were adopted very early, only some of them are dated by 14th or 15th century:

They were numerous in the sphere of government, court, jurisdiction, military and religious terminology. Words belonging to the sphere of building or construction occupy a special place among the borrowings from French. The Normans built a lot after the conquest. So, some of the words that had no lofty or bookish shade in French came into the English language as elements characteristic of higher life, for example:

barre (bar) 1175-1225

chambre (chamber) 1175-1225

chapele (chapel) 1175-1225

columne (column) 1400-50

Town crafts were usually named by words of French origin:

apothecary (apothecary) 1325-75

harbour (barber) 1275-1325

bocher (butcher) 1250-1300

Vocabulary pertaning to arts (which were a privilege of the higher classes) was rich in words borrowed from French:

art (art) 1175-1225

cisel (chisel) 1325-75

colour (colour) 1250-1300

School at that period was frenchified, and together with Latin words we may observe a lot of words the origin of which is French:

lessoun (lesson) 1175-1225

penne (pen) 1250-1300

Leisures and pleasures - that is another semantic sphere where the borrowed element is frequent:

carole (carol) 1250-1300

charme (charm) 1250-1300

comfort (comfort) 1175-1225

The names of domestic animals remain of native origin, for they lived in the country and English shepherd took care of them (ox, cow, calf sheep, swine (pig) are all native English) - but such words as

bee/l250-1300,

veel (veal) 1350-1400,

moton (mutton) 1250-1300,

pore (pork) 1250-1300,

bacoun (bacon) 1300-50 - that is the meat of those very animals were already processed and sold by a town

backer (butcher) 1250-1300.

Actually, words of French origin were found practically everywhere . Nouns and adjectives, verbs and particles - all parts of speech are found among the borrowings of the period:

feble (feeble) 1125-75 is an adjective,

pouere (power) 1250-1300 a noun,

large 1125-75 and

esy (easy) 1150-1200 adjectives;

cacchen (to catch) 1175-1225, chaungen (to change) 1175-1225,

deceiven (to deceive) 1250-1300,

a(p)prochen (to approach) 1275-1325 are verbs,

second 1250-1300 a numeral,

alas 1225-75 an interjection, and

just 1325-75 is a particle.

French borrowings have the status of literary words whereas native English words were common everyday vernacular. This can be seen when we compare such pairs of synonyms:

beginnen - commencen (to commence) 1250-1300;

comen - arriven (to arrive) 1175-1225;

do-act 1350-1400;

harm - injurie (injury) 1350-1400;

help - ayde ( aid) 1375-1425.