Late Middle Japanese (中世日本語, chūsei nihongo?) is a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Modern Japanese. It is a period of transition in which the language sheds many of its archaic features and becomes closer to its modern form.
The period spanned roughly 500 years extending from the 12th century through the 16th century. It is customarily split into an Early and Late division. Politically, the first half of Late Middle Japanese consists of the end of the Heian period known as Insei and the Kamakura period; the second half of Late Middle Japanese consists of the Muromachi period.
Read more about Late Middle Japanese: Background, Grammar
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“No such sermons have come to us here out of England, in late years, as those of this preacher,—sermons to kings, and sermons to peasants, and sermons to all intermediate classes. It is in vain that John Bull, or any of his cousins, turns a deaf ear, and pretends not to hear them: nature will not soon be weary of repeating them. There are words less obviously true, more for the ages to hear, perhaps, but none so impossible for this age not to hear.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“I will be all things to you. Father, mother, husband, counselor, Japanese bartender.”
—Mae West, U.S. screenwriter, W.C. Fields, and Edward Cline. Cuthbert Twillie (W.C. Fields)