DATA BASE - ENGLISH NATIONAL LANGUAGE
Did Normans really speak French or English?
For about 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and their high nobility spoke only one of the languages called Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. Various contemporary sources suggest that within 50 years of the invasion most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language of government and law largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he learned French only as a second language.
Read a passage below and write out the examples of both French and English words in ME.
| English | French | English | French | |
A tendency for French-derived words to have more formal connotations has continued to the present day; most modern English speakers would consider a "cordial reception" (from French) to be more formal than a "hearty welcome" (Germanic). Another homely example is that of the names for meats, such as beef and pork from French boeuf and porc. The animals from which the meats come are called by Anglo Saxon words, such as cow and pig. This might be because Anglo-Saxon peasants raised the animals; Norman-French lords ate the meat.
Crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire.
| The Norman influence reinforced the continued changes in the language over the following centuries, producing what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was an increase in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". English spelling was also influenced by Norman in this period, with the / θ / and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth), which did not exist in Norman. |
English literature started to appear in 1200, when a changing political climate and the decline in Anglo-Norman made it more respectable.
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The most famous writer from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer and
of his works, The Canterbury Tales is the best known.
The other prominent authors of that period are Wycliff (with his translation of the Bible), Gower and Langland.
Middle English dialects
There is no single "Middle English" any more than there is a single or standard Old English; there are, instead,
ü Kentish,
ü London,
ü Midlands,
ü Southwestern,
ü East Anglian and
ü Northern varieties of Middle English, each with its peculiarities.
In the 14th century there were three main groups of dialects in English: Northern, Midland and Southern. Read an extract below and complete the chart.
| Northern | Midland | Southern |
The Southern group included the Kentish and the South-Western dialects. Kentish was a direct descendant of the OE dialect known by the same name, though it had extended its area. The South-Western group was a continuation of the OE Saxon dialects, - not only West Saxon, but also East Saxon. The East Saxon dialect was not prominent in OE but became more important in ME, since it made the basis of the dialect of London in the 12th and 13th c.
The group of Midland ('central') dialects corresponding to the OE Mercian dialect is divided into West Midland and East Midland.
The northern dialects had developed from OE Northumbrian. In early ME the Northern dialects included several provincial dialects, e.g. the Yorkshire and the Lancashire dialects and also what later became known as Scottish.
The domination of the French language in England came to an end in the course of the 14th c. English was reestablished as the main language of administration and writing, and one of the regional dialects, the London dialect, prevailed over the others. Little by little the Normans and the English drew together and intermingled.
In the 14th c. Anglo-Norman was a dead language:
The number of people who knew French had fallen; Anglo-Norman and French literary compositions had lost their audience and had to be translated into English.
In 1362 Edward III gave his consent to an act of Parliament that English should be used in the law courts, since 'French has become much unknown to the realm'. In 1399 king Henry IV used English in his official speech when accepting the throne.
Slowly and inevitably English regained supremacy in the field of education.
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Rise of the London dialect
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