English, Middle English

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The English of the period between the Norman Conquest of 1066 a.d. and the arrival of printing in England in 1476 is generally referred to as Middle English, as opposed to Old English (before 1066) and New or Modern English (after c. 1500). This article presents a descriptive account of Middle English, covering its external history and an outline of its graphology, phonology, grammar, and lexicon. There is also a discussion of recent work in the subject.

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Jeremy J Smith is Professor of English Philology at the University of Glasgow. His publications include An historical study of English (1996), Essentials of early English (1999), and An introduction to Middle English (with Simon Horobin, 2002). He is currently working on a new survey of Middle English transmission (with Simon Horobin and Merja Stenroos) and a study of the actuation of sound change in the history of English.
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