The Norman Conquest of 1066, by William the Conqueror, triggered the transition from Old English to Middle English. This was because William the Conqueror made Britain into his homebase, at the time, moving his court and nobles into the country. By overpowering the enemy with a brutal hand, and stripping the Anglo Saxon Earls of their property, and handing it out to the Normans, and those that supported him.
Past descendants of the Vikings, who had established themselves in France about 200 years before. (Normans originating from the word Norsemen). Abandoning their own Norse tongue for French, a branch of Indo-European that was originally Latin and not Germanic, and erasing all traces of any Norse in Normandy.
Speaking Anglo-Norman or Norman French, the Normans spoke a version of French which had a rural dialect with a mix of Germanic. Very different from the French spoken in Paris during the period, that was also known as Francien. After King John lost the French part of Normandy to the King of France in 1204, the dialect became even more noticeable, as England and increasingly sequestered from the rest of continental Europe.
For more than 300 years, Anglo-Norman French was the spoken language of nobility and royalty of England. It wasn't until Henry IV came to the throne in 1399 that English was used as the mother tongue. Anglo-Norman was the language spoken in the court, administration and culture, and Latin was the written language used by the Church for keeping records, such as the "Doomsday Book". Where William the Conqueror recorded information about his new kingdom.
The rest of the population were peasants and the lower classes, and spoke in English. Thought of by the Normans to be a vulgar tongue, both languages would grow over time, and gradually merge together as Anglo-Saxons and Normans began to intermarry. This is where the emergence of Middle English starts.
The Impact of French (Anglo-Norman)
Over 10,000 words were imparted from the Normans, and around three-quarters are still in use today, including a number of abstract nouns ending in the following suffixes:
-age, -ance, -ence, -ant, -ent, -ment, -ity, -tion.
Or prefixes starting with:
con-, de-, ex-, trans-, pre-.
Here some of the most popular words taken from the Normans:
mansion, money, gown, boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite, banquet, herb, spice, sauce, roast, biscuit, art, colour, language, literature, poet, chapter, question, crown, castle, prince, count, duke, viscount, baron, noble, sovereign, heraldry, parliament, government, governor, city, court, judge, justice, accuse, arrest, sentence, appeal, condemn, plaintiff, bailiff, jury, felony, verdict, traitor, contract, damage, prison, army, armour, archer, battle, soldier, guard, courage, peace, enemy, destroy, authority, obedience, servant, peasant, vassal, serf, labourer, charity, mansion, money, gown, boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite, banquet, herb, spice, sauce, roast, biscuit.
Anglo-Saxon words that were strangely still used at that time included; cyning (king), cwene (queen), erl (earl), cniht (knight), ladi (lady) and lord.
At that same time common trades such as baker, miller, and shoemaker would use Anglo-Saxon names, the superior trades of mason, painter, tailor, and merchant would use French names. Strangely animals like sheep, cow, ox, calf, swine, deer kept their English names until they were cooked and the names became French, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, venison.
Often French words would take the place of Old English ones such as; crime replaced firen, place replaced stow, people replaced leod, beautiful replaced wlitig, uncle replaced eam,
Words survived in both Old English and French with different senses such as: the Old English doom and French judgement, hearty and cordial, house and mansion. And sometimes new words would be formed from both French (gentle) and (man) Germanic. Which would make up the English word gentleman.
Many words existed with roughly the same meaning, along with new French based synonyms such as; maternity in addition to the Old English motherhood, infant to child, amity to friendship, battle to fight, liberty to freedom, labour to work, desire to wish, commence to start, conceal to hide, divide to cleave, close to shut, demand to ask, chamber to room, forest to wood, power to might, annual to yearly, odour to smell, pardon to forgive, aid to help.
The English language was becoming a flexible language combining Anglo-Saxon and Norman French doublets, some are still in use today; law and order, lord and master, love and cherish, ways and means.
By the 13th century, bilingual lists were being written and compiled.
Pronunciation was carried over from the gutteral Anglo-Norman, and gentler Francien dialect.
Anglo-Norman words such as; quit, question, quarter, etc, were pronounced with the familiar “kw” sound.
Francien words such as; “ch”, so that charrier became carry, chaudron became cauldron.
Suffixes were used by the Normans such as; “-arie” and “-orie” instead of the French “-aire” and “-oire”, so that English has words like victory, as compared to victoire, and salary as compared to salaire.
Norman words such as; estate, hostel, forest and beast, retained the “s”.
Common Old English letter pattern of “hw” was changed to “wh”. hwaer became where, hwaenne became when and hwil became while. Adding “w”, and changing hal to whole.
By the reign of Norman King Henry II and queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th Century, more Francien words from central France were imported these include; chase and the Anglo-Norman catch; royal and real; regard and reward; gauge and wage; guile and wile; guardian and warden; guarantee and warrant.
Words taken from Latin or through French directly included; scripture, collect, meditation, immortal, oriental, client, adjacent, combine, expedition, moderate, nervous, private, popular, picture, legal, legitimate, testimony, prosecute, pauper, contradiction, history, library, comet, solar, recipe, scribe, scripture, tolerance, imaginary, infinite, index, intellect, magnify and genius.
By the 13th and 14th centuries French additions were beginning to pop up such as; abbey, alliance, attire, defend, navy, march, dine, marriage, figure, plea, sacrifice, scarlet, spy, stable, virtue, marshal, esquire, retreat, park, reign, beauty, clergy, cloak, country, fool, coast, magic.
Middle English at the End of Norman Rule
Throughout the centuries ruled by Normans, English had become the third spoken language in the country, with no status or regulation. A number of distinct regional usages and dialects grew. These were from the Northern, Midlands, Southern and Kentish. Such was the expansion of dialects, that people in one part of England were misunderstood by people living just 50 miles away.
Literacy continued to increase, with the founding of Oxford and Cambridge universities between 1167 and 1209. With books being written by hand and expensive to buy for the common man. With the growth of commercial and political influence in the East Midlands and London made sure that these dialects succeeded. Chaucer's dialect of the 14th century which, is frankly quite difficult, is actually quite close to the dialect we use today. In contrast, the Kentish dialect of the same period looks like a foreign language.
The grammatical complexities and inflections of Old English gradually began to disappear, with noun genders almost completely dying out. With adjectives having 11 inflections being reduced down to just two for singular and plural. And only one is being practiced, just like it is in today's English language. With the pronounced stress in Old English often found on the lexical root of a word, moved to the beginning of words furthering the loss of suffixes that had begun after the Viking invasions. By the time of Chaucer, the modern English subject-verb-object would become normal.
English Makes a Comeback
After the Viking and Norman invasions 85% of Anglo-Saxon words were lost, and things looked pretty bleak for the English Language. And by 1154 the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which had been recording the history of the English population, had made its last entry. In spite of everything that had gone on, the English and not French language would show its resilience and emerge as the stronger of the two languages.
Over time the English language had become more "Normanised", and then after 1204 "Anglicised", due to King John's incompetence, losing part of Normandy to the King of France. Making the Norman nobles look to their own English properties, instead of the properties they had over in France, and gradually they became more English. Even though people were still speaking French and Latin, the main language spoken by all was English.
By the Hundred Year War against France (1337-1453), French had become the language of the enemy. Enter the "Black Death" of 1349-1350, which killed off about a third of the English population (which was 4 million at the time) and a disproportionate number of Latin speaking clergy. When the plague was over, the English merchant and labouring classes grew in importance and wealth, leaving behind the linguistic divide. In 1362 Edward III would address the Parliament in English, and by 1385 English was the language of instruction in all schools.
The Advent of English Literature and Chaucer
Usually considered to be the first great work of English literature, and the first evidence of creative validity of vernacular Middle English instead of French or Latin.
Of the 858 word prologue of the "Canterbury Tales", 500 different borrowed words occur from the French language. Some estimate Chaucer's vocabulary is 20-25% French in origin. But, the overall impression of his work is that of re-formed English, an unwavering versatile language that would be more than adequate to produce celebrated literature.
Chaucer brought many new words into the English language, up to 2,000 by some counts these included; paramour, difficulty, significance, dishonesty, edifice, ignorant, churlish, farting, friendly, learning, loving, restless, wifely, willingly, absent, accident, add, agree, bagpipe, border, box, cinnamon, desk, desperate, discomfit, digestion, examination, finally, flute, funeral, galaxy, horizon, infect, ingot, latitude, laxative, miscarry, nod, obscure, observe, outrageous, perpendicular, princess, resolve, rumour, scissors, session, snort, superstitious, theatre, trench, universe, utility, vacation, Valentine, village, vulgar, wallet, wildness.
By 1384 John Wyclif produced a translation of "The Bible" in English. It became a challenge to the latin version which was used, and was banned, but managed to be circulated. With over 1,000 English words first recorded, most of which were latin-based which included; barbarian, birthday, canopy, child-bearing, communication, cradle, crime, dishonour, emperor, envy, godly, graven, humanity, glory, injury, justice, lecher, madness, mountainous, multitude, novelty, oppressor, philistine, pollute, profession, puberty, schism, suddenly, unfaithful, visitor, zeal.
When the 14th and 15th centuries came around, the English language had transformed drastically. William Caxton, who introduced the printing press less than a century after Chaucer, with a clearer version of the English language and modern reader to understand today.
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A History of the English Language: Old English
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