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The English language that is spoken today
is the direct result of 1066
and the
Norman Conquest. Modern English is vastly
different from that
spoken by the
English prior to the Conquest, both in its word-
hoard and
its
grammar.
In
order
to
understand
what
happened,
and
why,
it
is
necessary
to
look
at
both
English
and
Norman
French
before
1066,
and
then
the
Middle
English that resulted from their
interaction.
Old English
Old
English was a highly inflected member of the West
Germanic language
family. It had two
numbers, three genders, four cases, remnants of
dual
number
and
instrumental
case,
which
could
give
up
to
30
inflectional
forms
for every adjective or pronoun. Its
syntax was only partially dependent
on
word order and has a simple two tense, three mood,
four person (three
singular,
one
plural)
verb
system.
The
spelling
of
Old
English
is
strictly
phonetic.
As a result of the Viking wars and the
subsequent settlement of many
speakers
of
Old
Norse,
a
North
Germanic
language,
the
introduction
of
new
words
and
a
simplification
of
the
grammar
had
already
started
to
take
place.
This
was
more
marked
in
those
areas
in
the
North,
Midlands
and
East
Anglia
where
the
Danes
and
Norwegians
settled
in
large
numbers.
Although
the
two
languages
were
mutually
understandable,
a
modern
day
comparison
would
be
a Geordie talking to a
Cockney
with neither
making any concession
to the
other.
The
language
had
four
major
dialects:
Northumbrian,
Mercian,
West
Saxon,
and
Kentish. As the kings of Wessex (West Saxons)
gradually emerged as
kings
of
all
England,
West
Saxon
dominated
the
written
form
of
the
language.
As
such, it gradually became less reflective of the
spoken language,
especially in the
Danelaw.
Norman French
A
legacy
of
the
Roman
Empire
was
the
fact
that
the
area
west
of
the
Rhine
spoke
Latin.
The
Latin
they
spoke,
however,
was
not
the
highly inflected
Classical
Latin,
used
by
the
church
and
scholars,
but
the
common,
or
Vulgar
Latin of the soldiers and the market
place. This Vulgar Latin, as it had
no
one controlling or regulating its use, brought in
words from the
languages
of
the
local
populace.
For
this
reason
Italian,
Catalan,
Spanish,
Portuguese and
French, though similar, even by 1066 were not the
same.
French had brought in many words
from the Gauls who originally occupied
the land. In addition they had suffered
conquest and settlement from
various
Germanic Tribes such as the Goths and Vandals, and
finally the
Franks, who gave the
country its new name. From these peoples came
additional words.
There
were
two
major
divisions
in
French:
langue
d'oil
in
the
north;
langue
d'oc
in
the
south
(oil
and
oc
being
variations
of
'yes').
Langue
d'oc
was
nearer
to Catalan than it was to Langue d'oil.
Langue d'oil had three major dialects,
namely those of Picardy, Ile de
Paris
and
Norman.
The
Northmen
(Danes
and some
Norwegians)
who had
taken
the
land and settled there influenced Norman French.
Its proximity to
England had also
allowed some English words to slip in, noticeably
nautical terms.
Middle
English
By
1100
English
had
changed
sufficiently
to
be
classed
as
a
'new'
version
of English,
descended from, but quite different to, Old
English.
Middle English had five major
dialects, Northern, West Midland, East
Midland, Southwesterm and Kentish. It
was characterised by the extreme
loss
of
inflections,
almost
complete
standardisation
of
the
plural
to
's'
and the introduction of
a large number of Norman French and Low German
words. The French came, of course, from
the French speakers who now
controlled
the government, the law and the church. The Low
German from
the large number of Flemish
the Normans had first hired as mercenaries
and then used to settle those parts of
the country they had harried and
depopulated.
So,
how
had
the
changes
come
about?
When
the
Norse
had
settled
in
England
they
brought
with
them
a
language
that
was
from
the
same
linguistic
family,
and
indeed
enabled
them
to
be
understood
by
their
English
neighbours.
The
culture was also similar, not
surprising considering that the original
English had come from Scania, Denmark
and the North Sea coast bordering
Denmark. In addition the new comers
supplemented, rather than replaced,
both the aristocracy and the commons.
As a result assimilation was very
quick
and
easy
even
before
the
fighting
stopped.
The
Normans
brought
with
them
an alien culture and language. Add to this their
social status as
the new ruling class,
and it is no shock to find that assimilation was
slower, and the new society and
language that emerged was so radically
changed from that which they found when
they arrived uninvited in 1066.
English, which had been a written
language since the conversion to
Christianity, was rapidly dropped as
the language for royal and legal
charters and proclamations, not
reappearing until Simon De Montfort's
Parliament issued the Provisions of
Oxford in 1258. The replacement
language
was
usually
Latin,
though
often
duplicated
in
French.
French
was
the
language
of
the
royal
court,
the
legal
system
and
the
church.
The
use
of
French
was
reinforced
by
the
fact
that
many
of
the
new
aristocracy
and
religious
houses
had
extensive
holdings
in
France.
This
state
of
affairs
changed
slightly
in
1204
when
King
John
lost
Normandy,
but
did
not
really
end
until after the
English were
finally
expelled from France
at the end
of the Hundred
Years War in 1453.
The
result
of
English
disappearing
as
a
written
language
was
the
removal
of any restraints on language
development. This assisted the
simplification
of
the
grammar
as
the
folk
strove
to
find
the
simplest
way
to
communicate with people who did not speak English
as their first
language. The process
that had started with the compromises needed to
allow English and Norse to understand
each other better gathered speed
as the
Anglo-Scandinavians sought to communicate with
both their
linguistic cousins, the
Flems, and the alien Normans and French. This
development
was
not
dissimilar
to
that
of
Vulgar
Latin
as
it
changed
into
the
various Romance languages as mentioned earlier. By
the time the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
stopped being written at its last stronghold in
Peterborough in 1154, its West Saxon
English was already obsolete.
The
ruling classes spoke French, as did the many
merchants that flocked
to England
following the Conquest. Those that dealt with
them, or had
ambitions
to
join
them,
had
to
learn
at
least
some
of
the
language.
However,
it cannot be
assumed that the ruling classes and the merchants
did not
quickly
come
to
at
least
understand
English
if
not
speak
it.
It
would
have
been
very
difficult
to
oversee
an
estate
or
buy
and
sell
unless
you
could
communicate,
though
it
was
noted
at
the
time
that
there
was
a
flourishing
job market for translators.
This may have sufficed
for
many of those who
arrived with William
the Bastard, but surely not for their children,
brought up by an English wet nurse and
with English servants. It is hard
to
imagine that those children did not absorb the
language at the same
time as they
supped the milk. It should also be borne in mind
that many
of the Normans married
English wives, often the widows or daughters of
the previous English landholder. In
such a household both parties would
need to learn at least a smattering of
the others native language. At a
lower
level,
the
need
to
learn
at
least
simplified
English
was
essential.
Many a Norman or
Frenchman was
granted
a holding (which
he would
re-name