1. Middle English dialects – a thumbnail sketch

During the Middle English period (roughly 1100–1500) the English language is characterized by a complete lack of a standard variety. By contrast, during much of the Old English period, the West Saxon dialect had enjoyed a position as a written standard, and the transition to Early Modern English is marked by the emergence of the middle class dialect of London as the new standard variety of the language.

The lack of a written standard in Middle English is a natural consequence of the low status of English during this period. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the ruling classes spoke (Norman) French, while English lived on as the spoken language of the lower classes. In the absence of a high-prestige variety of English which might serve as a target for writers of English, each writer simply used his own variety of the language.

During the Old English (OE) period three major dialect groups can be recognized :

• West Saxon, in the south-west of England;
• Kentish;
• Anglian, roughly speaking north of the Thames. Anglian can be further subdivided into Mercian and Northumbrian, the Humber forming the boundary between the two dialect areas.

	The dialects of
	Old English	Middle English
	Anglian:
	Northumbrian	Northern
	Mercian	East Midland   West Midland
	West Saxon	South-western
	Kentish	South-eastern

The Middle English dialects can be divided into five major groups:

• South-Western (SW) (or simply Southern), a continuation of OE West Saxon;
• South-Eastern (SE) (or Kentish, though it extended into neighbouring counties as well), a continuation of OE Kentish;
• East Midland (EM), in the eastern part of the OE Mercian area;
• West Midland (WM), in the western part of the OE Mercian area;
• Northern (N), north of the Humber.

In general, southern Middle English dialects tend to be more conservative (i.e. preserve more of the phonological and morphological features of Old English) and northern dialects more progressive. The same difference can be discerned between the southern and northern parts of the East and West Midland dialect areas. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the West Midland dialect, which is primarily preserved in two major text groups. One of these is early (c. 1220) and from the southern part of the West Midland area (represented here by Ancrene Riwle); the other one is later (c. 1375) and from the northern part of the West Midland area (represented here by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). The language variants of the two text groups differ in many respects, the early group having much in common with the South-Western dialect, the later group having more in common with the Northern dialect. Features representing the two forms of the West Midland dialect are separated by a semicolon in the presentation of forms and dialect features below.

Middle English dialect differences can be of three types:

• phonological: the recognition of the Middle English dialects listed above is primarily based on phonological differences, i.e. on the extent to which various sound changes took place before or during the Middle English period in different parts of England.
• morphological: clear dialect differences can be found in the forms of the verb be, in present tense verb inflexion, and in various pronominal forms. See further §§97-99.
• lexical: the proportion of words of Scandinavian origin varies considerably, being highest in texts from areas with Scandinavian settlements during the Old English period (the Danelaw), i.e. chiefly the East Midland and Northern areas. By contrast, French loanwords, which entered the English language on a large scale only after the upper classes started using English again, do not serve to distinguish Middle English dialects. Instead, the proportion of such words varies with time, being higher in later texts. Information about the origin of individual words in the texts will be found in the glossaries.

The texts in this collection have been selected primarily as illustrative specimens of the different Middle English dialects. The reader should be prepared, however, for the presence in individual texts of features which are inconsistent with the general accounts of the dialect represented by the text. Such discrepancies may be due to different causes.

• In those cases where the author’s own manuscript has survived (as is the case with the Ormulum), and where his geographical origin can be determined, the text provides good evidence of the characteristics of the author’s dialect. Even so, apparent inconsistencies may arise as a result of some linguistic change (whether phonological, morphological, syntactic or lexical) which was in progress during the author’s lifetime. Such change in progress inevitably leads to variation between alternative forms and constructions.
• The picture becomes less clear when a text survives in one or more manuscripts copied by a scribe (or scribes) speaking a dialect different from that of the author. In such cases the copying scribe may introduce forms from his own dialect into the text, either unconsciously or in an effort to make his text more intelligible to his readers. Thus, any inconsistencies may be due either to variation in the author’s dialect (as outlined above) or to dialect mixture introduced by the copying scribe(s).
• A third possible source of inconsistencies is the great amount of orthographical variability that prevails throughout the Middle English period. Spelling could vary considerably, even within individual texts (the Ormulum is exceptionally consistent in this respect). Thus, what looks like evidence of phonological variation may be no more than the result of variation in spelling. Typical written representations of Old and Middle English speech sounds are listed here.