Note: If you haven’t yet (and feel up to it), read the previous post entitled A History of English Lesson.
The northern dialect of Old French spoken by the invaders became known in England as the Anglo-Norman dialect that was spoken in majority by the nobility. According to linguist Diana King
“For the next 300 years [following the Norman Conquest], no English King used English” (42).
Indeed, Anglo-Norman remained a language spoken by the ruling classes rather than by the lower classes who continued to use English. A series of events, including the Hundred Year’s War, the Black Death, and the emergence of English poetry, slowly led to a renewed dominance of English. By the end of the fourteenth century, it had become reestablished as the official written and spoken language of England.
Anglo-Norman Text
According to linguist Edward Finnigan,
“Languages in contact often borrow from one another”
and in fact, borrowing is a form of word creation that enables a language’s vocabulary to expand (459). By the time English replaced Anglo-Norman for official uses in 1362, a great number of Norman French words had become part of the English vocabulary, especially in the domain of the law. Words such as “justice, just, judge, jury, court, suit, sue, plaintiff and defendant, a plea, plead, (…), attorney, fee, accuse, crime, guile, felony, etc” all possess a French origin (Jepersen 84).
French was influential in many other domains of the English vocabulary and according to King “more than ten thousand words came into the language from Norman French, and most of them are still in use today” (45). These include words associated with the government such as “country, duke, duchess, liege, parliament, prince and sovereign” or words associated with the military such as “arms, armor, peace, war, battle, army and navy, and the various ranks – admiral, captain, lieutenant, officer, sergeant and soldier” (King 45).
Wasn't Chaucer way cool?
Because Norman French was spoken mostly by the elite, French words became associated with luxury items and activities such as “gourmet”, “bacon, beef, veal, mutton, pork and sausage” — which were types of meat rarely available to the common classes — “leisure, art, architecture, ornament, design, costume, color and paint, as well as joy and pleasure, and fruits and flowers” (King 46). French words continued to be borrowed throughout the Middle English period and had a great influence on the English vocabulary. In fact, the English poet Chaucer is known for having consistently used an average of ten percent and sometimes as much as fifteen percent of French words in his writings (Serjeanston 151).
Sources: Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2004. Print. / Jepersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. 2nd ed. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1912. Archives.org. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. / King, Diana Hanbury. English Isn’t Crazy! The Elements of Our Language and How to Teach Them. Timonium: York Press, 2000. Print. / Serjeanston, Mary S. A History of Foreign Words in English. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1968. Print.
Also See: Anglo-Norman on Wikipedia.
I know you kept apologizing for being boring, and I certainly understand why you felt the need. I worry about the same thing every time I post any of my articles.
It was totally unnecessary, though (unless your classmates are being forced to read this, I guess). Anyway, I thought it was fascinating. It’s amazing how much you were able to convey in such a short space, actually.
Of course, this kind of stuff interests me. I’ve studied it all before. I loved the specific focus on the French role, though. And it reminded me so much of the first few chapters of Ivanhoe, where Scott goes into so much detail about the politics of language as part of his set-up for an action-adventure novel. For a word nerd like me, it’s just awesome.
Thanks for sharing the link! I look forward to reading more.