Content introduction chapter I peculiar use of noun in middle english

Loanwords and the growing influence of Latin
The flow of French loanwords into English reduced during the 15th century, but the overall rate of foreign borrowing did not decline because of the growing influence of Latin. Thanks chiefly to its role as the language of religion, scholarship and science, Latin words would eventually have a much greater impact on English than French. Today, just over 30,000 words (excluding derived forms) have French identified as part of their history in the OED; for Latin, the corresponding figure is over 50,000. In literature, a style developed in which authors attempted to emulate the great classical writers, with intricate sentence patterns and erudite, euphonious vocabulary. The 15th-century poet John Lydgate described it as ‘aureate’.
When we take into account borrowings from other languages, such as Old Norse and Dutch, we begin to get a sense of the scale of the lexical change that had taken place during Middle English. At the end of the Old English period the size of the lexicon stood at something over 50,000 different words. Many words then fell out of use, but the rate of replacement was such that by the end of the Middle English period we see this total doubled. By 1450, something like half of the available word-stock was non-Germanic. Thanks to the nature of English grammar, which continued to give a high profile to such words as the, of, and and have, the fundamental Anglo-Saxon character of the language was maintained. And in vocabulary, too, if we were to order Middle English words in terms of their frequency of use, we would find that around half of the most commonly used words were from Old English.⁵
The real importance of the Middle English period was the way in which this additional vocabulary became the primary means of introducing new concepts and new domains of discourse into the language, as well as giving novel ways of expression to familiar concepts within old domains of discourse. The period was offering people a much greater linguistic choice. In 1200, people could only ask; by 1500 they could question (from French) and interrogate (from Latin) as well. During Middle English we see the evolution of a language which is increasingly exploiting the potentialities of regional, social and stylistic variation. At one extreme there was a learned, literary style, typically formal and elaborate, characterised by a lexicon of French and Latin origin, and employed by the aristocratic and well-educated. At the other, there was an everyday, popular style, typically informal and casual, full of words with Germanic roots, and used by ordinary folk. The stage was set for the 16th-century literary exploitation of these resources, notably in the poems and plays of Shakespeare.
The Old English period began in 449 AD with the arrival of three Germanic tribes from the Continent: the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They settled in the south and east of Britain, which was then inhabited by the Celts. The Anglo-Saxons had their own language, called Old English, which was spoken from around the 5th century to the 11th century.
Old English was a Germanic language, and as such, it was very different from the Celtic languages spoken by the Britons. It was also a very different language from the English we speak today. It was a highly inflected language, meaning that words could change their form depending on how they were being used in a sentence.
Old English grammar also had a complex system, with five main cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and two numbers (singular and plural).
The Anglo-Saxons also had their own alphabet, which was known as the futhorc. The futhorc consisted of 24 letters, most of which were named after rune symbols. However, they also borrowed the Roman alphabet and eventually started using that instead.⁶
The vocabulary was also quite different, with many words being borrowed from other languages such as Latin, French, and Old Norse. The first account of Anglo-Saxon England ever written is from 731 AD – a document known as the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which remains the single most valuable source from this period.
Another one of the most famous examples of Old English literature is the epic poem Beowulf, which was written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. By the end of the Old English period at the close of the 11th century, West Saxon dominated, resulting in most of the surviving documents from this period being written in the West Saxon dialect.
The Old English period was a time of great change for Britain. In 1066, the Normans invaded England and conquered the Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were originally Viking settlers from Scandinavia who had settled in France in the 10th century. They spoke a form of French, which was the language of the ruling class in England after the Norman Conquest.
The Old English period came to an end in 1066 with the Norman Conquest. However, Old English continued to be spoken in some parts of England until the 12th century. After that, it was replaced by Middle English.