Middle English I — Southern and Kentish dialects

Abstract

In OE, the evidence of the writings suggests that there were four main dialectal areas: West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian. In ME, they remained roughly the same, except that the Mercian Midlands of England showed enough differences between the eastern and western parts for there to be two distinct dialects. So the five principal dialects of ME were: Southern, Kentish (the SE of England), East Midlands, West Midlands and Northern (see Map 4). The dialects of Northern English spoken in southern Scotland were known as Inglis until about 1500, when writers began to call it Scottis, present-day Scots.