TEMA N.

º 42
THE NORMAN CONQUEST. INFLUENCE OF
FRENCH ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
LOANWORDS AND CALQUES.

ESPECIALIDAD: INGLÉS
Preparación curso 2021/2022 – Tema 42

Contenido
1. INTRODUCTION 2
2. THE NORMAN CONQUEST 2
2.1. BACKGROUND 2
2.2. SUCCESSORS TO THE THRONE 2
2.3. THE ARRIVAL OF THE NORMANS 3
3. THE INFLUENCE OF FRENCH ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 3
3.1. THE USE OF FRENCH BY THE UPPER CLASS 3
3.2. MIDDLE ENGLISH: A PERIOD OF GREAT CHANGE 3
3.3. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON THE VOCABULARY: BORROWINGS 4
3.4. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX 4
3.5. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON PRONUNCIATION 5
4. CALQUES 5
5. CONCLUSION 5
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 5

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1. INTRODUCTION
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that emerged from the dialects spoken by
several different Germanic tribes (Angles, Jutes and Saxons) who settled in Britain in the 5th century CE. However, the
English language is not merely a product of the dialects brought to England by the aforementioned peoples. These
formed its basis, the sole basis of its grammar and the source of by far the largest part of its vocabulary. Other elements
entered into it as well.
As of 2020, modern English is spoken by 1.27 billion speakers around the globe and more than 50 countries list it as
an official language.
Although the contents of this topic are not present in the current curriculum, our student should be aware of the fact
that English, just as any other language, is the result of the intermingling of linguistic codes throughout time.

2. THE NORMAN CONQUEST

2.1. BACKGROUND

In 911, French Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple (Carolus Simplex) allowed a group of Danes (Norsemen) to settle
in Normandy under their leader Rollo. Their settlement proved successful, and they quickly adapted to the indigenous
culture, renouncing paganism, converting to Christianity, and intermarrying with local population. Over time, they
even gave up their own language and learned French.
In 1002, King Aethereld II of England (also called The Unready) married Emma, the sister of Richard II, Duke of
Normandy and, when driven into exile by the Danes, took refuge with his brother-in-law, the duke of Normandy. His
son Edward, who had thus been brought up in France, was almost more French than English. When in 1042 the Danish
line died out and Edward, known as the Confessor, was restored to the throne from which his father had been driven,
he brought with him a number of his Norman friends, enriched them, and gave them important places in the
government. A strong French atmosphere pervaded the English court during the twenty-four years of his reign.
2.2. SUCCESSORS TO THE THRONE

When in January 1066 Edward the Confessor died childless, England was again faced with the choice of a successor.
At his succession Edward had found England divided into a few large districts, each under the power of a powerful
earl. The most influential of these nobles was Godwin, earl of the West Saxon earldom. He was a shrewd, capable man
and was soon Edward’s principal adviser. His eldest son, Harold succeeded to his title and influence and during the last
twelve years of Edward’s reign exercised a firm and capable influence over national affairs. The day after Edward’s
death Harold was elected King.

His election did not long go unchallenged. William, the Duke of Normandy at this time, was a second cousin to the late
king. Although this relationship did not give him any right of inheritance to the English throne, he had nevertheless
been living in expectation of becoming Edward’s successor. Edward seems to have encouraged him in this hope. While
William had been on a brief visit in England, Edward had assured him that he should succeed him. Even Harold had
been led, though unwillingly, to acknowledge his claim.

Only by force could William hope to obtain the crown to which he believed himself entitled. In September he landed
at Pevensey, on the south coast of England, with a formidable force.

2.3. THE ARRIVAL OF THE NORMANS

His landing was unopposed. Harold was occupied in the north of England meeting an invasion by the king of Norway,
another claimant to the throne, who had been joined by a brother of Harold’s, Tostig, returning from exile. Hardly had
Harold triumphed in the battle over the invaders when word reached him of William’s landing.

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Harold was killed during the ensuing battle (battle of Hastings) and on Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned king
of England.

One of the most important consequences of William’s victory was the introduction of a new nobility. Many of the
English higher class had been killed on the field at Hastings. Those who escaped were treated as traitors, and the places
of both alike were filled by William’s Norman followers. This process was repeated several times during the next four
years while the Conquest was being completed. For several generations after the Conquest the important positions
ant the great estates were almost always held by Normans or men of foreign blood.

In like manner Norman prelates were gradually introduced into all important positions in the church, even the two
archbishops were Normans. Likewise, merchants and craftsmen from the continent settled in England in considerable
numbers. It is quite impossible to say how many Normans and French people settled in England in the century and a
half following the Conquest, but because the governing class in both church and estate was almost exclusively made
up from among them, their influence was out of all proportion to their number.

The Norman Conquest is significant for several reasons. William was the new King of England, but he was still the Duke
of Normandy in France, which put him and his successors in the awkward position of ruling one country, while still
serving as a vassal of another country’s ruler – the King of France. This dilemma set up England and France for hundreds
of years worth of warfare (Anglo-French wars). In the fourteenth century English won its way back into universal use,
and in the fifteenth century French all but disappeared.

3. THE INFLUENCE OF FRENCH ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

3.1. THE USE OF FRENCH BY THE UPPER CLASS

For 200 years after the Norman Conquest, French remained the language among the upper classes in England. At first
those who spoke French were those of Norman origin, but soon through intermarriage and association with the ruling
class numerous people of English extraction found it to their advantage to learn the new language, and before long
the distinction between those who spoke French and those who spoke English was not ethnic but largely social. The
language of the masses remained English.
We must bear in mind that the language brought by Normans was a French dialect (Norman French) with Germanic
influence quite different from Parisian French. This explained some of the phonetic and spelling changes that found
their way into English.

3.2. MIDDLE ENGLISH: A PERIOD OF GREAT CHANGE

The Middle English period (1150-1500) was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more
extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. Some of them were the result
of the Norman Conquest and the conditions which followed in the wake of that event. Others were a continuation of
tendencies that had begun to manifest themselves in Old English. The changes of this period affect both its grammar
and its vocabulary. Those in the grammar reduced English from a highly inflected language to an extremely analytical
one. Those in the vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the Old English word-stock and the addition of
thousands of words from French and Latin. Some of the most prominent changes are:
 Decay of inflectional endings and levelling of inflections. Endings of the noun and adjective marking
distinctions of number and case and often of gender were so altered in pronunciation as to lose their
distinctive form and hence their usefulness.
 Loss of grammatical gender due to the decay of inflections.
 Losses among the Strong Verbs. Many of them died out and others became weak (help, flee, walk, climb).

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3.3. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON THE VOCABULARY: BORROWINGS

While the loss of inflections and the consequent simplification of English grammar were thus only indirectly due to the
use of French in England, French influence is much more direct and observable upon the vocabulary. The number of
French words that poured into English was unbelievable great.
 Governmental and Administrative Words: government, govern, administer, crown, estate, empire, realm,
reign, royal, prerogative, authority, sovereign, majesty, tyrant, usurper, treaty, alliance, councillor, duchess,
count, princess, prince, mayor, constable, marquis, chancellor, parliament, tax, subsidy, repeal, record, court,
council, assembly, peer, noble, vassal, homage, peasant, slave, servant, etc.
 Ecclesiastical Words: religion, theology, sermon, homily, sacrament, baptism, communion, confession,
penance, prayer, lesion, devotion, sacrilege, incense, image, divine, reverend, piety, temptation, salvation,
immortality, preach, chant, miracle, trinity, creator, saviour, saint, mystery, faith, redemption, etc.
 Law: justice, judgement, plea, suit, plaintiff, prison, punishment, depose, blame, dower, legacy, just, innocent,
fraud, estate, perjury, arrest, seize, imprison, indictment, verdict, advocate, warrant, trespass, felony, decree,
award, evidence, proof, pledge, etc.
 Army and Navy: peace, enemy, arms, battle, combat, skirmish, siege, defence, ambush, retreat, soldier,
garrison, guard, spy, banner, array, harness, vanquish, besiege, defend, chieftain, mail, dart, stratagem,
sergeant, etc.
 Fashion, meals, and Social Life: fashion, dress, habit, gown, robe, garment, cape, cloak, collar, petticoat,
embellish, boots, ornament, jewel, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, pearl, diamond, coral, crystal, lace,
embroidery, dinner, supper, feast, appetite, taste, spice, clove, lemon, orange, tart, saucer, plate, poultry,
venison, beef, sole, mutton, pork, bacon, chandelier, forest, park, pheasant, quail, squirrel, tournament,
pavilion, scent, etc.
 Art, Learning and Medicine: sculpture, beauty, colour, figure, ceiling, chamber, palace, mansion, chimney,
tone, pinnacle, baptistry, tower, poet, rime, prose, romance, story, chronicle, paper, geometry, grammar, noun,
clause, study, logic, gender, compile, physician, plague, debility, pestilence, anatomy, stomach, remedy,
ointment, etc.
 Other categories: mountain, noise, number, piece, feeble, hasty, honest, abundant, fierce, country, courage,
flower, person, reason, square, amiable, double, curious, age, air, error, face, sum, substance, tavern, tempest,
dozen, ease, or calendar.
 Differentiation in Meaning. Where both the English and the French words survived they were generally
differentiated in meaning (doom vs judgment, to deem vs to judge, to ask vs to demand, to wish vs to desire,
to shun vs to avoid, hearty vs cordial, smell vs odour/ scent, might vs power, and ox, sheep, swine and calf –
the animal- vs beef, mutton, pork, and veal – the meat of the animal).
 While some trades retained their Anglo-Saxon names (baker, miller, shoe-maker), other adopted French
names (mason, painter, tailor, or merchant).

3.4. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

 Introduction of French prefixes and suffixes such as -tion, -ous, -able or pre- (attention, generous,
understandable or prefer) that coexisted with those of Old English origin (-dom: kingdom, earldom, -ful:
resourceful, -ness: kindness, boldness; or for-: to forbid, to forget; with-: to withdraw, to withhold, or over-: to
overthink, overstatement, etc.
 In several set expressions, adjectives can be postponed since they trace their origin back to the French
language: attorney general, court-martial, president elect, or heir apparent, queen regnant, time immemorial,
director-general, notary public, or poet laureate.
 The use of the English personal pronouns thou and thee and their posterior replacement with ye runs parallel
to the use of vous in French.

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3.5. FRENCH INFLUENCE ON PRONUNCIATION

 The pronunciation differences between the harsher, more guttural Anglo-Norman (Norman French) and the
softer Francien dialect (Parisian French) were also carried over into English. Words like ‘quit’, ‘question’,
‘quarter’ were pronounced with the ‘kw’ sound in Norman French rather than the ‘k’ sound of Parisian French.
 The Normans tended to use a hard ‘c’ sound instead of the softer Francian ‘ch’, so that ‘charrier’ became
‘carry’, ‘chaudron’ became ‘cauldron’. The Normans would use the suffixes ‘-arie’ and ‘-orie’ instead of the
French ‘-aire’ and ‘-oire’, see ‘victory’ (< victoire), ‘salary’ (< salaire).
 They also retained the ‘s’ in words like ‘estate’, ‘hostel’, ‘forest’ and ‘Beast’, while in Parisian French had long
gone died out (‘état’, ‘hôtel’, ‘forêt’, ‘bête’).

4. CALQUES
Some English words or expressions taken word-by-word from the French language are: important, nonchalant, flea
market (marché aux puces), fortune, je ne sais quois, by heart (par cœur), that goes without saying (cela va sans dire),
usual, carte blanche, brilliant, etc.

5. CONCLUSION
Toward the close of the Old English period, an event occurred that had a greater effect on the English language than
any other in the course of history: the Norman Conquest in 1066. What the language would have been like if William
the Conqueror had not succeeded in making good his claim to the English throne can only be a matter of conjecture.
It would probably have pursued much the same course as the other Germanic languages, retaining perhaps more of
its inflections and preserving a predominantly Germanic vocabulary. In particular it would have lacked the greater part
of that enormous number of French words that today make English seem, on the side of vocabulary, almost as much
a Romance as a Germanic language.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
▪ Alexander, M. (2000). A History of English Literature. Palgrave-Macmillan
▪ Ashley M. (2014). A brief History of British Kings and Queens, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Robinson
▪ Barber, C. L. (1962). The Story of Language. Pan Australia
▪ Baugh, A.C.& Cable, T. (1978). A History of the English Language
▪ BBC. Bitesize – History
▪ Beddall F. (2006). A History of Britain. Longman
▪ Benjamin W. Fortson IV (2010). Indo-European Language and Culture, Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-
Blackwell.
▪ Tan P., Historical Variation in English, National University of Singapore

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