Lecture Word Stock of Middle English Period. Phonetic peculiarities of Middle English

th 
Century 
In the 14
th 
century, when English revived as the official and the written language, the four 
main dialects, Northern, Southern, West Midland and East Midland, were struggling for 
supremacy but none of them was destined to predominate. 
The Early Middle Englishrecords made in London – beginning with the London 
Proclamation of 1258 – show that the dialect of London came from an East Saxon dialect, or, in 
terms of the Middle English division, from the south-western variety of the Southern dialect 
group. Later records show that the speech of London becomes more mixed, with East Midland 
features gradually prevailing over the Southern features. 
2.3. Changes in the Alphabet and Spelling 

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During thе 13
th 
and 14
th 
centuries manу changes were made in the English alphabet and 
the graphic system. They pertain to the number of letters used by the scribes, the shapes of letters 
and their sound values. These innivations bring the written form of the word much closer to what 
we are accustomed to in Modern English. Since for quite a long time practically all writing in 
England was in the hands of Anglo-Norman scribes, many of the changes – though not all – 
appeared due to French influence. 
Several Old English symbols were discarded: the two runes P (“thorn”) and p (“wen”) 
as well as letters j (“yogh”) fell into disuse and gave place to the diagraph th, the doubled letter 
u (w “double u”) and g respectively. The ligature эe went out of use, as did the diacritics 
indicating the length of vowels. A number of new letters and especially diagraphs were added to 
indicate the old sounds or the new sounds arising in Middle English: k, v, q (in the digraph qu) j, 
the diagraph gh, etc. Some of the letters and diagraphs were borrowed directly from French: ou 
to denote [u:], ch for [tj]; others appear to have been introduced in order to avoid confusion: thus