English And French

Made Adi Wijaya Kusuma

202241121075 / 16
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 HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND
FRENCH
• in 1042, England was reoriented towards France and the former Roman
empire, and away from Denmark and the north of Europe. Undoubtedly
the best-remembered single event was the Norman conquest of England,
which followed the battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. English and
French remained in close contact for over 300 years. When English
reemerged as the written language of England, and as the spoken
language of the upper classes, it was deeply influenced in many different
ways by French. These influences were to prove permanent.
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND
FRENCH
• It has long been known that the Romance languages, including the ‘big
four’ of French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian along with Romanian and
a whole host of other more minor languages and dialects are descended
from Latin.
• The short version is that people in the Roman Empire spoke Latin. And
when the Empire began to crumble, local variations appeared, which over
time developed into separate languages.
 LITERACY IN THE MEDIEVAL
PERIOD
In England, as land passed from English to Norman owners, and high offices
of church and state were taken over by Normans, French became the spoken
language of the ruling class, and English remained as the spoken language
of the ruled. The duchies would also have different kinds of French, and the
French brought to England from Normandy was markedly different
fromfrancien, the French of the He de France. Some time after 1250, Walter of
Bibbesworth wrote a treatise to help ladies improve their French (Clanchy,
1979: 151-2). His compilation of a list of French words marks the beginning of
French lexicography. John Barton produced a French conversation manual
for foreign travellers in about 1400. The French linguistic tradition effectively
began in fourteenthcentury England (von Wartburg, 1946: 114)
 LANGUE D’OIL – “OLD FREANCE”
• the oïl languages formed what’s known as a ‘dialect continuum’. This
means people spoke many dialects throughout the region. Those
geographically closer to each other were more mutually intelligible and
those further away less so.
• Exactly what happened next is open to debate. But it seems that a
common version of langue d’oïl appeared and assumed the role of
literary and juridical language. 
 LANGUE D’OC – “THE OTHER
FREANCE”
• langue d’oc was never a single, unified language and consisted of a
range of dialects across the region where it was spoken.
• However, as the concept of France as a nation began to crystalise, the
standardised version of langue d’oïl began to encroach on areas that
traditionally spoke langue d’oc.
• Beginning with the French Revolution and continuing through the
Napoleonic period, the standard language became central to the idea of
French nationhood. And langue d’oc gradually went into decline.
 ENGLISH UNDER FRENCH
INFLUENCE
The length and nature of the contact between English and French resulted in
the large-scale borrowing into English of French words and expressions, and
even grammar and other features of usage. There are two routes from French
to English: through speech and through writing. Early borrowings are
consistent with what one might expect from a relatively stable situation in
which French is the language of the rulers, and English the language of the
ruled. English speakers coming into contact with French-speaking superiors
would need to learn some key French expressions. By the fourteenth
century, French was the language of the national enemy, and as the upper
classes adopted English they retained many of the linguistic habits of
French.
 ENGLISH VOCABULARY
Early French loans reflect the contact between rulers and ruled. The
Peterborough Chronicle entry for 1137 contains the words chancellor, prison
and justice, and the proclamation of Henry III (1258) has sign and seal. From
the beginning English and French elements are mixed, the Chronicle entry
has sotlice (French sot 'foolish' + English lice 'ly'), and the Proclamation has
crowning (French crown + English ing). It was John Wallis (1653) who first
observed that animals with English names (e.g. ox, pig, sheep) took on
French names (cf. beef, pork, mutton) when served up as meat on the lord's
table.
 REVOLUTION OF ENGLISH AND
FRENCH
• Beginning with the French Revolution and continuing through the
Napoleonic period, the standard language became central to the idea of
French nationhood. And langue d’oc gradually went into decline.
• Nowadays, people still speak modern dialects of langue d’oc, usually
referred to collectively as Occitan. But the number of speakers is
dwindling.
• Across the Spanish border, Catalan, a closely related language, long
considered a dialect of Occitan, has around four million native speakers
and is in good shape
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