Consonants in old and middle english Research Paper

Consonants in old and middle english - Research Paper Example The second part of the paper has discussed the Middle English (1066-1500 CE). A table of consonants has been used to illustrate what consonants were like during the period. The inventory sounds of consonants of Chaucerian Middle English have been discussed in this section. Another feature highlighted in the section is the characteristics of Middle English. The paper has been concluded by justifying how the English language has developed after undergoing refine standardization for several periods. A consonant is a speech sound that is coherent to partial closure or complete closure of a vocal tract. Examples of consonants are t, p, k, h and s among others. Some consonants are pronounced at the front of the tongue, some at the back of the lip, some in the throat, some at the back of the tomgue and some are pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel. English is a language from West German, which originates from Anglo-Frisian Dialects. The language was brought to Britain by invaders and settlers from German (Fennell, 2001). These people settled in the present Netherlands and North West Germany. English is unique from other European languages of the same era in that it uses vocabularies. English is regarded as a borrowing language because most of its modern vocabulary originated from Anglo-Norman languages (Fennell, 2001). Middle English varied from old English because of the two invasions of the middle ages. The North Germanic language natives were responsible for the first invasion. These people conquered and colonized some parts of the Britain during 8th and 9th centuries A.D. The second invasion was caused by the Normans of the 11th Century, who were natives of old Norman. This language developed after sometime to English form and adopted the name Anglo-Norman. The new English vocabularies, which were used during the beginning of the Middle English times, influenced most organizations to a great extent. Some of the influenced organizations include;