Languages in Late Medieval England: The Discourse of the Rise of English and the Decline of French

Abstract

The primary purpose of this essay is to survey an important aspect of one of the most representative trends in medieval English scholarship upon entering the 21st century. It has come to our attention that the polyglot nature of the linguistic landscape in medieval England should not be understood merely as the co-existence of two or more languages but as truly multilingual actualities. Because of the dominance of the teleological discourse of the “triumph of English” in modern historical writings on the English language and literature, the narratives of the celebrated rise of English in late medieval England have often been accompanied by a narrative of the decline of French. This essay shows instances in which this master narrative is dismantled and also critically introduces works that have productively engaged in the various ramifications of multilingualism as it becomes the keyword in approaching the English and French languages and their literary cultures in the age of Chaucer.