When is Old, Middle, and Modern English?

In the History of the Word in the Word Confusion posts, I’ve been noting whether a word was Old English, Middle English, or Modern English, but I haven’t noted what time periods those “eras” cover. An important consideration if you’re writing an historical novel and need to pay attention . . . ahem . . . to words that were in vogue or not.

Of course, you must determine for yourself how much flavor you want to give your story.

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Writing is . . .

. . . a lot of work . . . yeah, you already know that one, lol. What the posts on “Writing” are intended to do is explore the various mechanics of writing from plots to points-of-view to structure to character development to genres to voice to target audience to book types to character or story arcs to back stories to plot devices to themes to diction to copyright to flashforwards to flashbacks to framing the story or devices to memes to tropes to pace to perspective to settings to show versus tell to social context to continuity to storyboards to style to language to style sheets to syntax to tone to tropes and more . . .

It’s an evolving conversation, and sometimes I run across an example that helps explain better or another “also known as”. Heck, there’s always a better way to explain it, so if it makes quicker and/or better sense, I would appreciate suggestions and comments from anyone on some aspect of writing with which you struggle or on which you can contribute more understanding.

If you found this post on “When is Old, Middle, and Modern English?” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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History of English
Part of Writing: Language
Definition: The English language has evolved over time — and continues to evolve. It doesn’t make much different to many writers, but if you write historically, it will make a big difference — I never want to read that a Regency character is talking about “dimes”. POST CONTENTS Old English Middle English Modern English
Old English (OE)	Definition: Old English is commonly referred to as Anglo-Saxon with a largely Germanic vocabulary. Spanning AD 600 to 1100/1150, there were four distinct dialects of Old English: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, and West-Saxon. With the Norman Conquest in 1066, Old English began to die out, although written Old English continued until around 1150, evolving into Middle English. A.k.a. Anglo-Saxon
Return to top or post contents	Old English can also be divided into three periods: Early Old English, c. 600–950 Beginning with the collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain, it is the earliest historical form of the English language, originating from one of the West Germanic languages (its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon), and spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages Around 850, Norse invasions influenced the north of England with North Germanic words After AD 900, West-Saxon became widely used as a standard written language, and is sometimes referred to as Classic West-Saxon Examples of Early Old English can be found in Beowulf and works by Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf, and Aldhelm Old English, c. 950–1100 Alfred the Great kickstarted this period when he insisted on educating the people in the vernacular English language and not in Latin The eagerness of the Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their southern Anglo-Saxon neighbors influenced a more orderly language Late Old English, c. 1100–1100/1150 To this point, Old English had used grammatical gender, which involved a masculine and feminine article, much like the Spanish el hombre or la mujer or the French le livre or la table
Middle English (ME)	Definition:Spanning 1100/1150–1450/1500, roughly following the High to the Late Middle Ages, Middle English, the ancestor of Modern English, evolved from Old English in 1066 when the Normans brought Anglo-Norman, a dialect of Old French. The Conquest brought thousands of new words from Latin and predominantly from the French, as those were the sounds with which the Normans were most familiar — they were the primary and most predominate educated people who could read and write. Credit to: Crystal, 41, 61–66, 79).
Return to top or post contents	Middle English is usually divided into three periods: Early Middle English, c. 1100–1250, during which the Old English system of writing was still in use Central Middle English, period c. 1250–1400, Marked by the gradual formation of literary dialects In 1204, losing Normandy to the French, focused the English nobles into a modified English In 1349, the Black Death saw the rise of a middle class with English becoming even more common with everyone In 1362, English became the language of the courts Use of a more conventional spelling was greatly influenced by the Anglo-Norman writing system Borrowing and blending of large numbers of Anglo-Norman words Words used by the aristocracy have Anglo-Norman roots Words used by commoners have Germanic roots Especially marked by the rise of the London dialect, in the hands of such writers as John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer Late Middle English, c. 1400–1500, which was marked by the spread of the London literary dialect and the gradual cleavage between the Scottish dialect and the other northern dialects, Around 1400 was the beginning of the Great Vowel Shift with pronunciation changing as vowel sounds began to be made further to the front of the mouth and the letter e at the end of words became silent The basic lines of inflection as they appear in Modern English were first established, i.e., the extra letter or letters added to nouns to create the plural, verbs to express tense, and adjectives to provide comparison or proclaim the superlative It is theorized that natural gender evolved due to the many language influences of the varieties of Old English, Old Norse, and the Anglo-French with their conflicting grammatical genders; almost the only grammatical genders left in English are he, she, and it The declensions used in the noun, adjective, and pronoun became simpler The invention of the printing press, resulted in books becoming cheaper, literacy more common, and English more standardized in spelling and grammar Since printing presses were generally in the London area, the London dialect came to predominate
Modern English	Definition: Beginning around 1450, the Renaissance saw the revival of classical scholarship, and “writers introduced thousands of obscure classical words into English”, a.k.a., “inkhorn words because they took a lot of ink to write”, LOL, with Latin a very strong influence closely followed by Greek — people really needed to know their Latin. Credit to: Crystal, 69–70
	Modern English is broken up into three periods: Early Modern English, 1500–1700, a.k.a., Shakespearean English Shakespeare is responsible for a great many phrases which have become clichés Late(r) Modern English, 1700–1900 Two primary factors caused a huge increase in the number of words that entered the English language: The Industrial Revolution (England and the USA), which needed words for all those new-fangled gadgets and ideas The rise of the British Empire when many foreign words were adopted Present English, 1900– The rise of technology gave birth to yet more words The numbers of drafted British and American soldiers incorporated military slang into the language

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Writing Ideas and Resources on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for History of English

Some of these links may be affiliate links, and I will earn a small percentage, if you should buy it. It does not affect the price you pay.

Crystal, David. Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling, and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling. New York: St. Martin’s Press: 2013. <https://amzn.to/3jWiYKO>. Ebook.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica.

Mastin, Luke. “Late Modern English (c. 1800 – Present)” courtesy of The History of English.

⸻. “Old English (c. 500 – c. 1100).”

Sites of Interest

100 most frequent Middle English words.” Stanislaus State.

Gelderen, Elly van. “Sample Texts.”

“Grammar in Early Modern English.” Oxford English Dictionary with a slew of other posts to explore.

Jebson, Tony. “The Origins of Old English.” The History of English.

Lingojam has an English to Shakespearean generator in which you can type up an English sentence and it generates its equivalent in Early Modern English.

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Pinterest Photo Credits

Escribano by Jean Le Tavernier was resized with the levels and hue adjusted, saturated, and a transparency applied. It is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. “Sample Chart of Changes in English” by Dr L. Kip Wheeler, 1998-2018, with use granted for educational purposes, courtesy of Carson-Newman University.

Revised as of 23 Apr 2024
By: Kathy Davie