Middle English
The form of English spoken from approximately the 11th to 15th centuries, showing major changes from Old English including loss of inflections and French vocabulary influence.
Real World
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (c. 1390) is written in Middle English — students can read it with effort, unlike Old English, showing the impact of French vocabulary and simplified grammar after 1066.
Exam Focus
Link Norman Conquest (1066) directly to French lexical borrowing and inflection loss — examiners expect you to connect historical events to specific linguistic changes.
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