The Effect of the Norman Conquest on the English Language - Essay Example

23 October Assignment English is the most widely spoken language in the world today; almost every country follows this language as its primary mode of communication. The reason that English is spoken so widely throughout is mainly due to the effect of the Norman Conquest in the year 1066. The language can be divided into Old English, Norman French, Middle English and Modern day English. However, it must be noted that prior to the Conquest, the language that was spoken was a little different from the Modern day English that is spoken today; despite the variations in the language however, even after 500 years, the French have had a great impact over the English language as discussed within the scope of this paper. Over the past few centuries, the English language has received modifications from a number of languages around the world. It has accepted within it a number of words arising from different etymologies and originating in foreign lands. Latin and German have achieved the status of influencing the English language a great deal however the French language has been undermined in this sense. But it is imperative to understand that this is the language that holds maximum amount of importance over English today. The Angles, Jutes and the Saxons were the three main German tribes who had settled in Britain around 450 A.D and had given birth to the dialects that formed the English language. According to Bill Bryson, the Norman Conquest in 1066 was the final catalyst that gave the push to the formation of the English language as a complete whole on its own. William the Conqueror took over England and at the time, so did the French language, over the administration and upkeep of the land. It was the only language that was spoken and preached and remained in place for a period of over 300 years. Old English, the English that was supported by the tribes mentioned above, was spoke side by side however it was not given as much importance and was used as a colloquial form of speaking during events that were not given any prestige. (Lawless, Laura) Old English consisted of only two numbers, three genders, four cases, and 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. Furthermore, the spelling that was used for the language was based only on phonetics and was very different from the spelling used in English today. (Boxell, Geoff) The Vikings and Old Norse settlements brought about better upbringing of the language as more and more people began to get acquainted with the same. New words began to get introduced in the language and grammar began to take shape. In areas like the North, Midlands and East Anglia where there were large settlements of Danes and Norwegians, the language began to flourish and be used on a daily basis. Four major dialects formed a part of Old English, namely; Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. However, with time, French grammar began to prove tough on a number of people, especially of German origin and thus English began to establish itself with its simple grammatical use. Also, there were a number of people that spoke German and Latin that took to English as discussed further. The areas that lay west of the Rhines spoke a very vulgar version of Latin that soldiers used in the market place. Classical Latin was also used by scholars and in churches but that was a very polished form, unlike the one that people used on an everyday basis. Since this Latin was extremely raw in nature, there was no control over the usage of the language and thus local people used words from in and around and brought forward 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. Boxwell writes, “The 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.” (Boxwell, Geoff) There were two major divisions in French with the language spoken in the north and the one spoken in the south; the one of the south was a little similar to Catalan. The French of the north consisted of three main dialects namely those of Picardy, Ile de Paris and Norman. The Northmen (Danes and some Norwegians) who had taken the land and settled there, were the ones that ultimately influenced Norman French. Its proximity to England had also allowed some English words to slip in, especially nautical terms and words because of heavy travelling and shipping of goods. After some odd seventy or eighty years, Old English began to develop into Middle English, under the purview of the French as a simpler and much more easy to use language. Thus it began to get accepted by the people. It consisted of the Northern, West Midland, East Midland, South western and Kentish dialects and could be characterised by the loss of inflections. It also lost out on a number of heavy German words and began to take its own shape. The language began to consist of a large amount of French because the hands of control o the government, administration as well as the church were in the hands of the French who began to influence the language greatly. Norse settlements in England brought about languages from their own linguistic families and these began to be understood in English soon enough. Furthermore, the culture of the Norse people was also very similar and thus began to be accepted by everyone living in and around the regions. This was mainly because the original English language arose from Scania, Denmark, and the North Sea coast that bordered the lines of Denmark. It was very easy for people to mingle and assimilate both among the aristocrats as well as the common people. “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”, writes Boxwell. English had mainly acquired the status of a written language since the conversion of the language’s faith to Christianity, however, the same was rapidly dropped as the language for royal and legal charters and proclamations, and not reappearing until Simon De Montforts Parliament issued the Provisions of Oxford in 1258. More often than never, the language was replaced by both Latin and French. This was because French had already been established as the language of the royal court, the legal system and the church, as mentioned above. Since a number of aristocrats and religious leaders had holdings of land and property in France, French had been reinforced as the language of the land. Despite this, when King John lost Normandy in 1204, the language of the State began to dissolve from French to pure English. Nonetheless, the use of English was finally expelled from France at the end of the Hundred Years War in 1453. The inference that was achieved from the removal of English further removed all restraints on language development. This helped in English grammar being simplified because the common people tried to find a way for themselves to communicate with each other in an easy manner with people who did not speak English as their first language. This thus allowed compromises between the English and the Norse speaking people and helped them to understand one another better. Their communication levels gathered speed as it became better, and in the process, the Anglo-Scandinavians sought to communicate with 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. Most of the aristocracy and ruling classes spoke France. Not only them, but also a number of merchants and sailors that flocked into England after the Norman Conquest spoke French as their first language as well. All the people belonging to the common households of society at the time that wished to join the maritime trade began to learn French following the same. But this does not rule out the fact that these classes of people did not know how to speak or understand English as it was flourishing at a very fast pace at the time because communication was one of the main objectives at the time for the purpose of buying and selling of estates overseas because of the language barrier that it might have posed on the people. Thus, it could also be noted that there were a number of translators at the time who were finding it easy to get jobs because of this new market that was being created. A number of Normans, following the Conquest, got married to English speaking people. William the Bastard also brought along with him people. Even if they did not speak English, their children surely did because they were brought up by English speaking nannies and servants. It is hard to imagine that those children did not absorb the language at the same time as they supped the milk. In such households it became vital for people 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 a manor) as reward for services rendered during the Conquest. With a totally English workforce and possibly an English wife and no French speakers for miles learning English would have been the number one priority. In past history, a number of documented evidences have provided proof of the following; in 1160 there was an English knight who had to retain a Norman to teach his son French, around 1175 a noble woman warned her husband of danger in English, not French as might have been expected; in 1191 one of four knights in a legal dispute were not able to speak French when appearing at a court where the proceedings were being conducted in that language; by 1200, there were a number of phrase books in the market that taught French as a foreign language and around the same time, the poet Bruts The Owl and the Nightingale appeared and signalled the rebirth of Middle English as a literary language. By the end of the thirteenth century a poet wrote: Lewde men cunne Ffrensch non, Among an hundryd unneþis on (Lewd [common] men ken [(understand] French not Among a hundred only one) Middle English has formed the base for the modern English that people speak across the world today; the only difference is that the language today has undergone a vast amount of changes by view of expansion and acceptance of far more number of words. Middle English can also be called the base for the English that is written today. A large number of French words have been accepted into the language rather than replacing it altogether, thus, allowing shade of meaning not available to other languages. Thus we can either deem or judge a matter to be right or wrong, with to deem being a personal opinion whilst to judge is a formal declaration. “Cattle become beef and swine pork when killed and dressed for the table, yet conversely a flower is a bloom when put on display. Hopefully it will have a pleasant French odour, aroma or scent rather than a Middle English smell or worse, an Old English stench! Also adding to the store of words were French words that had been given and English beginning or ending.” For example, the French gentle joins the English man/woman to give gentleman/woman, or gets an English ending to become gently, or even more bedecked with English as ungentlemanly. (French Borrowings in the English Language) The habit of using words from other languages rather than creating our own has continued until this day so that it has been claimed that in The Concise Oxford Dictionary there are words from 87 languages, great small, and often dead. The total number of words in Modern English is estimated to be between 400,000 and 600,000, and many of them have more than one meaning! The nearest language in word count is French with a mere (as in a restricted amount, rather than a lake) 150,000. (Wright, Elizabeth) Despite this the language is still basically Germanic and most basic words are still derived from Old English. Yet another reason because of which most people find it tough to understand Old English is because it has been taken from the roots of the East Midland and not the West in which most of the original sources were written. One may wonder how the language would have developed had the Norman Conquest not taken place. Despite it gaining a certain amount of simplification, it would have been tough had the Norse not intervened and converted the same into the wonderful tool of usage by way of which it has provided much relief to most parts of the world today. Works Cited Boxwell, Geoff. "The Effect of the Norman Conquest on the English Language." The Geoff Boxell Home Page. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. . Lawless, Laura K. "How French Has Influenced English." Free French Lessons - Learn French at About - How to Speak French - Learn, Speak, Teach French. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. . "French Borrowings in the English Language." Coolreferat.com. Web. 24 Oct. 2011. . Wright, Elizabeth. “Rustic Speech and Folk Lore.” Web. 24 Oct. 2011. < . Burbeck, James. “The French Revolt and the Empire.” The War Times Journal. Web. 24 Oct. 2011. . Read More