what was so important about Old English and Middle English that we felt the need to label them and what are the main differences?
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We label things. It’s much easier to talk about something if you give it a name.
People who read things written in Latin tend to separate Early Latin from Late Latin and often include a Middle Latin as well. (Plus a “non-native speaker” Latin that is sometimes called Medieval Latin and maybe even a Renaissance Latin.) Just because they’re different enough to cause difficulties if you just rush in assuming they’re the same.
The main differences have been discussed in general, but the main idea is that Old English is Germanic, Middle English is a Germanic/French mishmash.
Modern is what we speak now. You want to make distinctions where things before the break are pretty much the same, and then in the next pigeonhole they’re pretty much the same, but different from the previous pigeonhole. I would imagine that, from the point of view of 31st century English speakers, they speak “Modern English”. Beowulf was in Old English, Chaucer in Early Middle English, Shakespeare to the 23rd century is High Middle English, 23rd to 28th century is Late Middle English.
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