Chapter 5: History of English - Elly van Gelderen

A History of the English Language - A Companion Site

Chapter 5: From Old to Middle English

The most dramatic change in the English language—the transition from Old to Middle English—involves external and internal changes: a substantial portion of the (Germanic) Old English vocabulary is replaced by French and Latin words and the endings on nouns, verbs, and adjectives disappear. The latter is possibly the result of contact with Scandinavian and Celtic languages during the Old English period. This chapter investigates the changes between Old and Middle English caused by direct external influence.

Useful Links

Language History

EHistLing has a good illustrated overview of English language history and change.

Loanwords

Rice University has a page listing loanwords from many periods of English history.

Wordorigins.org has another list, broken down by language of origin.

Miscellanea

World Wide Words has a fun list of "weird words" and their origins, also mentioned in connection to chapter 1.

Background for title image provided courtesy of Tom Murphy VII and used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license. All other images are believed to be public domain.

Neither Elly van Gelderen, Tim Gades, nor ASU is responsible in any way for the information provided by the external links on this page, and make no claims as to its applicability or accuracy.