During these Norman-ruled centuries in which English as a language had no official status and no regulation, English had become the third language in its own country. It was largely a spoken rather than written language, and effectively sank to the level of a patois or creole. The main dialect regions during this time are usually referred to as Northern, Midlands, Southern and Kentish, although they were really just natural developments from the Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish dialects of Old English. Within these, though, a myriad distinct regional usages and dialects grew up, and indeed the proliferation of regional dialects during this time was so extreme that people in one part of England could not even understand people from another part just 50 miles away.
NORTHERN This dialect is the continuation of the Northumbrian variant of Old English. By Middle English times English had spread to (Lowland) Scotland and indeed led to a certain literary tradition developing there at the end of the Middle English period which has been continued up to the present time (with certain breaks, admittedly).
NORTHERN This dialect is the continuation of the Northumbrian variant of Old English. By Middle English times English had spread to (Lowland) Scotland and indeed led to a certain literary tradition developing there at the end of the Middle English period which has been continued up to the present time (with certain breaks, admittedly).
Characteristics. Velar stops are retained (i.e. not palatalised) as can be seen in word pairs like rigg/ridge; kirk/church.
KENTISH This is the most direct continuation of an Old English dialect and has more or less the same geographical distribution.
Characteristics. The two most notable features of Kentish are (1) the existence of /e:/ for Middle English /i:/ and
(2) so-called "initial softening" which caused fricatives in word-initial position to be pronounced voiced as in vat, vane and
