Middle English is the form of the English language that people spoke and wrote in England from roughly 1150 to 1500. It sits between Old English (the language of Beowulf, which sounds like a foreign language to us) and Modern English (the language we use today).

If you could travel back to 1400 and listen to people talking, you'd recognize some words but struggle to understand full sentences. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in Middle English around 1390. Here's how it looked: “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote” (which means “When April with its sweet showers”). You can spot familiar words like “April,” but the spelling and grammar feel strange.

Middle English changed dramatically after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when French-speaking rulers brought thousands of French words into English. That's why we have both “pig” (from Old English) and “pork” (from French), or “cow” and “beef.” The language also simplified its grammar during this period, dropping many complex Old English word endings.

By 1500, the printing press and other changes pushed English toward its modern form. When you read Shakespeare (who wrote around 1600), you're reading Early Modern English, not Middle English. Middle English is that fascinating stage when English was transforming from something completely foreign into something we'd almost recognize.