The Cambridge History of the English Language is the first multi-volume work to provide a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of English from its beginnings to its present-day worldwide use. Volume 2 deals with the Middle English period, approximately 1066–1476, and describes and analyses developments in the language from the Norman Conquest to the introduction of printing. This period witnessed important features like the assimilation of French and the emergence of a standard variety of English. There are chapters on phonology and morphology, syntax, dialectology, lexis and semantics, literary language, and onomastics. Each chapter concludes with a section on further reading; and the volume as a whole is supported by an extensive glossary of linguistic terms and a comprehensive bibliography. The chapters are written by specialists who are familiar with modern approaches to the study of historical linguistics.

"For its range of coverage, its lucid exposition, and its concern with methodological principles, this second volume of the Cambridge History of the English Language will be read. reread, and consulted for a good long time to come. It will need the strong binding Cambridge University Press has given it." Speculum-A Journal of Medieval Studies

"Like Volume I, this is certain to become a classic in the history of the English language....Written in a scholarly style that is useful for the expert anad lucid for the interested educated reader, this well-bound book has a comprehensive index, and excellent bibliography, and a useful glossary of linguistic terms. Highly recommended for public libraries and essential for academic libraries." Choice

"[T]he Cambridge History of the English Language is a notable project; anyone who teaches courses in the literature of the period will find it useful and anyone who teaches the history of the language will find it invaluable." Kathleen M. Ward, Sixteenth-Century Journal