throughout its long history the english language has undergone many changes in this video we'll look at one of the factors that played an important role in the change from old to middle english language contact i will start by illustrating some of the differences between old english and middle english next i'll talk about how and why english borrowed words from scandinavian languages before moving on to talk about the influence of french but first how does middle english differ from old english to begin this video i'll illustrate the differences between old english and middle english by reading out two passages from famous works of medieval literature we will start with the opening lines of the alding's poem beowulf from the early middle ages quat wei gardiner in year dachum if we fast forward to the later middle ages english sounded as follows juan that april with a sure sorter the throat of march hath pierced to the rotor and bathed at every vine in switch liquor of which vertu engendered the floor those were the opening lines from the 14th century middle english poem the canterbury tales written by jeffrey chaucer clearly a lot has changed between old and middle english in terms of pronunciation grammar and vocabulary in this video i want to look in particular at why middle english uses a different lexicon that is different words than old english does and as we shall see this has a lot to do with cultural contact to make a long story short speakers of english got into contact with speakers of other languages and this affected the english language in many ways one of these ways is the borrowing of words words from other languages entered the english language and these loan words have contributed significantly to changes in the language when it comes to the change from old english to middle english the influence of two languages in particular are irrelevant that of norse and that of french we'll start with the influence of norse or old norse to be exact the scandinavian language that was brought to england by these people the vikings chances are that you already know a little about vikings early medieval scandinavians that traveled throughout europe and beyond in order to trade explore and of course when the vikings show up in england at the end of the 8th century they indeed do so as raiders and they burn and pillage various monasteries across england along with their longboats axes and helmets they also brought along their language commonly referred to as old norse perhaps unsurprisingly some of the scandinavian loan words that entered the inch language have to do with the violent reputation of the vikings they include ransack slaughter die some old norse loan words may reveal something of the opinion that vikings held concerning the speakers of english weak ugly awkward while the vikings may have a reputation as violent marauders many of them also settled in england and peacefully lived side by side with the english and as a result many common day-to-day words are said to derive from old norse these include sky window husband and happy while many of these scandinavian loanwords may have been borrowed during the aldings period they often first make an appearance in middle english texts alongside words of another origin french so let's now turn to french and how that influenced the transition from old to middle english the french influence on the english language really gets going after the year 1066 the year of the so-called norman conquest led by william the conqueror the french-speaking normans managed to conquer england as depicted by the famous 11th century bio tapestry and in doing so the normans replaced the english-speaking upper class with french-speaking normans and for a long time the nobility in england spoke french and so when these nobles eventually began speaking english they still used a lot of french words that have to do with matters of aristocracy french loan words include words having to do with government chancellor council parliament they might have to do with law accuse attorney judge they have to do with religion relic service virgin and they have to do with arts and fashion beauty fashion and music according to the oxford english dictionary over ten thousand french words entered the english language in the later middle ages after 1066 that is about 30 percent of all middling's words with that let us return to the two passages i compared at the beginning of this video the all things passage in beowulf contains no loanwords whereas the middling's passage from the canterbury tales is made up largely of words that are not originally english there is one scandinavian loanword rota and no fewer than eight loan words from french april march percid weiner liquor vertu engendrid and floor with that let's conclude this video over many years the various cultural contacts of the speakers of english have enriched and changed the english language dramatically aside from loanwords from scandinavian and french english took over words from many other languages including latin spanish german hindi japanese and dutch this is an ongoing process and the language is still changing as a result of it who knows in 500 years time english may yet again have borrowed so many words that it will be as different from our language today as all english was from middle english because language always changes you