Middle English is the period in the history of the English language between the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century.
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Did English ever have a word for 'yes' for negative questions?
The Germans have doch and the French have si as a word that means "yes" in response to a negative question, such as:
Don't you want some ice-cream?
Yes [I do]!
In English, we only have yes (as ...
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Time and tide wait for no man
In the old proverb:
Time and tide wait for no man.
Our first record of the proverb is from St Marher in 1225:
And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet.
When it was ...
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Is the “wit” in “to wit” the root of any other English words?
...and if not, where'd it go? One obvious venture is that the noun "wit", in the sense of cleverness and general know-how, has an etymological affinity with the Old English witen, "to know", and which ...
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When did we stop speaking Old English? [closed]
There is Old English, and there is the English we speak now. When did exactly did the British (or Americans) change from speaking Old English to speaking the current form of English?
