Norman Conquest | French (Anglo-Norman) Influence | Middle English After the Normans | Resurgence of English | Chaucer and the Birth of English Literature .... read more
Middle English (ME) is collectively the varieties of the English language spoken after the Norman Conquest (1066) until the late 15th century; scholarly opinion varies but the Oxford English Dictionary specifies the period of 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. read more
Middle English used the Latin alphabet, just like Modern English. However, Middle English used various letters (the runic letters thorn [þ], eth [ð], and wynn [ƿ]; ash [æ], and yogh [ȝ]) that are no longer used in Modern English. read more
Yogh stood for a sort of throaty noise that was common in Middle English words that sounded like the "ch" in "Bach" or Scottish "loch." French scholars weren’t fans of our weird non-Latin letters and started replacing all instances of yogh with “gh” in their texts. read more