* and *v* represented the phonemes /u/ and /v/. French introduced two novel graphemes to Middle English, *q* and *z*. Although the phoneme /z/ was new to ME, the sound /kw/ was already prevalent in such Old English words as cwic and cwen. After the introduction of *q*, these native English words came to be spelled quicke andquene in Middle English. The Anglo-Norman grapheme *w* was newly borrowed into English orthography in the Middle English period. Although this grapheme was new to the language, its phoneme was not. Old English scribes had used the runic wynn to represent this sound. French introduced several new digraphs to the English orthography. A diagraph is a two-letter combination used to represent a single sound. French introduced the combinations *ou* and *ow* to represent the phoneme /u/, in loans such as hour and round. This spelling was so prevalent in loan-words that it spread even to native English words: Old English Middle English hu how hus house hlud loud brun brown While Old English used the diagraph *sc*, French loans used the letter combination *sh*, and this spelling came to entirely replace the earlier spelling. Thus, OE scamu became ME shame. The common French diagraph *ch* replaced the Old English *c* in words such as ceap and cinn. In Middle English, those words came to be spelled cheap and chin. One more diagraph, *gu* was introduced by the French in the form of such loan words as guard and guide. Thus, even native English words adopted this spelling (OE gylt fi ME guilt ) as well as non-French loans (ON guest, guild ). Morphology Not only did French contribute to the words in the English language, it also contributed to its morphology. Words in Old English were highly inflected, but these inflections were largely lost during Middle English and the structure of words was drastically changed. Some researchers speculate that the onslaught of French loan-words contributed to the loss of English inflectional endi...
