Anglo-Norman language

Use and development

Though in regular use at the royal court, Anglo-French was not the main administrative language of England: Latin was the major language of record in legal and other official documents for most of the medieval period. However, from the mid-13th century to the early 15th century, Anglo-French was much used in law reports, charters, ordinances, official correspondence, and trade at all levels; it was the language of the King, his court and the upper class. There is evidence, too, that foreign words (Latin, Greek, Italian, Arabic, Spanish) often entered English via Anglo-Norman.

The language of later documents adopted some of the changes ongoing in continental French and lost many of its original dialectal characteristics, so Anglo-French remained (in at least some respects and at least at some social levels) part of the dialect continuum of modern French, often with distinctive spellings. Over time, the use of Anglo-French expanded into the fields of law, administration, commerce, and science, in all of which a rich documentary legacy survives, indicative of the vitality and importance of the language.

By the late 15th century, however, what remained of insular French had become heavily anglicised: see Law French. It continued to be known as "Norman French" until the end of the 19th century even though, philologically, there was nothing Norman about it.

Among important writers of the Anglo-Norman cultural commonwealth is Marie de France.

The languages and literature of the Channel Islands are sometimes referred to as Anglo-Norman, but that usage is derived from the French name for the islands: les îles anglo-normandes. The variety of French spoken in the islands is related to the modern Norman language, and distinct from the Anglo-Norman of medieval England.

Trilingualism in medieval and modern England

General history in medieval England

Many of the earliest documents in Old French are found in England. In medieval France, it was not usual to write in the vernacular because Latin was the language of the Church, education, historiography and it was used for records. In medieval England, Latin also remained in use by the Church, the royal government, and much local administration in parallel with Middle English, as it had been before 1066. The early adoption of Anglo-Norman as a written and literary language probably owes something to this history of bilingualism in writing.

In the first centuries after the Norman Conquest of England, the French-speaking elite primarily relied on Latin for record-keeping rather than their own language, while English continued to have a written tradition and was used in religious services until 1154, when the Angevins came into power. Englishmen seeking words associated with government, culture, or entertainment would likely use French terms in their English speech to operate in upper-middle-class social settings would not only learn some French but also imitate the Frenchified English of bilingual speakers.

Nevertheless, educated Englishmen in the 12th and 13th centuries could read and speak French to some extent. This explains why the first French loanwords entering English were introduced through written texts and passive knowledge of the language rather than active use. However, as French began to be used for record-keeping in England due to its growing prestige during the mid-13th century, approximately 90% of the total 10,000 French loanwords in English began to be documented in the language.

Around the same time, as a shift took place in France towards using French as a language of record in the mid-13th century, Anglo-Norman also became a language of record in England, although Latin retained its pre-eminence for matters of permanent record (as in written chronicles). From around this point onwards, considerable variation begins to be apparent in Anglo-Norman, which ranges from the very local (and most anglicised) to a level of language which approximates to and is sometimes indistinguishable from varieties of continental French. Typically, therefore, local records are rather different from continental French, with diplomatic and international trade documents closest to the emerging continental norm. English remained the vernacular of the common people throughout this period. The resulting virtual trilingualism in spoken and written language was one of medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English.

Language of the king and his court

From the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) until the end of the 14th century, French was the language of the king and his court. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the royal family's ties to French culture. Nevertheless, during the 13th century, intermarriages with English nobility became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English and French nationalism, the status of French diminished.

French (specifically Old French) was the mother tongue of every English king from William the Conqueror (1066–1087) until Henry IV (1399–1413). Henry IV was the first to take the oath in (Middle) English, and his son, Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English. By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite.

Language of the royal charters and legislation

Until the end of the 13th century, Latin was the main language of all official written documents. Nevertheless, some important documents had their official Norman translation, such as Magna Carta of 1215. The first official document written in Anglo-Norman was a statute promulgated by the king in 1275. With effect from the 13th century, Anglo-Norman therefore became used in official documents, such as those that were marked by the private seal of the king whereas the documents sealed by the Lord Chancellor were written in Latin until the end of the Middle Ages. English became the language of Parliament and of legislation in the 15th century, half a century after it had become the language of the king and most of the English nobility.

Language of administration and justice

During the 11th century, development of the administrative and judicial institutions took place. Because the king and the lawyers at the time normally used French, it also became the language of these institutions.

During the late 14th century, English became the main spoken language, but Latin and French continued to be exclusively used in official legal documents until the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, the French language used in England changed from the end of the 15th century into Law French, that was used since the 13th century. This variety of French was a technical language, with a specific vocabulary, where English words were used to describe everyday experience, and French grammatical rules and morphology gradually declined, with confusion of genders and the adding of -s to form all plurals. Law French was banished from the courts of the common law in 1731, almost three centuries after the king ceased speaking primarily French. French was used on moots in the Inner Temple until 1779.

Anglo-Norman has survived in the political system in the use of certain Anglo-French set phrases in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, where they are written by hand on bills by the Clerk of the Parliaments or Clerk of the House of Commons to endorse them during their progress to becoming law, or spoken aloud by the Clerk of the Parliaments during a gathering of the Lords Commissioners, to indicate the granting of Royal Assent to legislation.

The exact spelling of these phrases has varied over the years; for example, s'avisera has been spelled as s'uvisera and s'advisera, and Reyne as Raine.

Language of the people

Though the great mass of ordinary people spoke forms of English, French spread as a second language due to its prestige, encouraged by its long-standing use in the school system as a medium of instruction through which Latin was taught. In the courts, the members of the jury, who represented the population, had to know French in order to understand the plea of the lawyer. French was used by the merchant middle class as a language of business communication, especially when it traded with the continent, and several churches used French to communicate with lay people. A small but important number of documents survive associated with the Jews of medieval England, some featuring Anglo-French written in Hebrew script, typically in the form of glosses to the Hebrew scriptures.

Characteristics

As a langue d'oïl, Anglo-Norman developed collaterally to the central Old French dialects which would eventually become Parisian French in terms of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Before the signature of the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539, French was not standardised as an administrative language throughout the kingdom of France.

Middle English was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman and, later, Anglo-French. W. Rothwell has called Anglo-French 'the missing link' because many etymological dictionaries seem to ignore the contribution of that language in English and because Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French can explain the transmission of words from French into English and fill the void left by the absence of documentary records of English (in the main) between 1066 and c. 1380.

Anglo-Norman continued to evolve significantly during the Middle Ages by reflecting some of the changes undergone by the northern dialects of mainland French. For example, early Anglo-Norman legal documents used the phrase "del roy" (of the king), whereas by about 1330 it had become "du roi" as in modern French.

Anglo-Norman morphology and phonology can be exemplified by using its heritage in English as compared with continental Central French. English has many doublets as a result of this contrast:

• warranty – guarantee
• warden – guardian
• catch – chase (see below)

Compare also:

• wage (Anglo-Norman) – gage (French)
• wait – guetter (French, Old French guaitier)
• war (from Anglo-Norman werre) – guerre (French)
• wicket (Anglo-Norman) – guichet (French, from Norman)

The palatalization of velar consonants before the front vowel produced different results in Norman to the central langue d'oïl dialects that developed into French. English therefore, for example, has fashion from Norman féchoun as opposed to Modern French façon (both developing from Latin factio, factiōnem). In contrast, the palatalization of velar consonants before that affected the development of French did not occur in Norman dialects north of the Joret line. English has therefore inherited words that retain a velar plosive where French has a fricative:

Some loans were palatalised later in English, as in the case of challenge (< Old Norman calonge, Middle English kalange, kalenge, later chalange; Old French challenge, chalonge).

There were also vowel differences: Compare Anglo-Norman profound with Parisian French profond, soun sound with son, round with rond. The former words were originally pronounced something like 'profoond', 'soon', 'roond' respectively (compare the similarly denasalised vowels of modern Norman), but later developed their modern pronunciation in English. The word veil retains the (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by voile, loisir.

Since many words established in Anglo-Norman from French via the intermediary of Norman were not subject to the processes of sound change that continued in parts of the continent, English sometimes preserves earlier pronunciations. For example, ch used to be in medieval French, where Modern French has , but English has preserved the older sound (in words like chamber, chain, chase and exchequer). Similarly, j had an older sound, which it still has in English and some dialects of modern Norman, but it has developed into in Modern French.

The word mushroom preserves a hush sibilant not recorded in French mousseron, as does cushion for coussin. Conversely, the pronunciation of the word sugar resembles Norman chucre even if the spelling is closer to French sucre. It is possible that the original sound was an apical sibilant, like the Basque s, which is halfway between a hissing sibilant and a hushing sibilant.

The doublets catch and chase are both derived from Low Latin *captiare. Catch demonstrates a Norman development while chase is the French equivalent imported with a different meaning.

Distinctions in meaning between Anglo-Norman and French have led to many faux amis (words having similar form but different meanings) in Modern English and Modern French.

Although it is a Romance language, Norman contains a significant amount of lexical material from Old Norse. Because of this, some of the words introduced to England as part of Anglo-Norman were of Germanic origin. Indeed, sometimes one can identify cognates such as flock (Germanic in English existing prior to the Conquest) and floquet (Germanic in Norman). The case of the word mug demonstrates that in instances, Anglo-Norman may have reinforced certain Scandinavian elements already present in English. Mug had been introduced into northern English dialects by Viking settlement. The same word had been established in Normandy by the Normans (Norsemen) and was then brought over after the Conquest and established firstly in southern English dialects. It is, therefore, argued that the word mug in English shows some of the complicated Germanic heritage of Anglo-Norman.

Many expressions used in English today have their origin in Anglo-Norman (such as the expression before-hand, which derives from Anglo-Norman avaunt-main), as do many modern words with interesting etymologies. Mortgage, for example, literally meant death-wage in Anglo-Norman. Curfew (fr. couvre-feu) meant cover-fire, referring to the time in the evening when all fires had to be covered to prevent the spread of fire within communities with timber buildings. The word glamour is derived from Anglo-Norman grammeire, the same word which gives us modern grammar; glamour meant first "book learning" and then the most glamorous form of book learning, "magic" or "magic spell" in medieval times.

The influence of Anglo-Norman was very asymmetrical: very little influence from English was carried over into the continental possessions of the Anglo-Norman kings. Some administrative terms survived in some parts of mainland Normandy: forlenc (from furrow, compare furlong) in the Cotentin Peninsula and Bessin, and a general use of the word acre (instead of French arpent) for land measurement in Normandy until metrication in the 19th century, but these words are probably linguistic traces of Saxon or Anglo-Scandinavian settlements between the 4th and the 10th centuries in Normandy. Otherwise the direct influence of English in mainland Norman (such as smogler "to smuggle") is from direct contact with English in later centuries, rather than Anglo-Norman.

Literature

When the Normans conquered England, Anglo-Saxon literature had reached a very high level of development. The important Benedictine monasteries both wrote chronicles and guarded other works in Old English. However, with the arrival of the Normans, Anglo-Saxon literature came to an end and literature written in Britain was in Latin or Anglo-Norman. The Plantagenet kings encouraged this Anglo-Norman literature. Nevertheless, from the beginning of the 14th century, some authors chose to write in English, such as Geoffrey Chaucer. The authors of that period were influenced by the works of contemporary French writers whose language was prestigious. Chaucer – himself of Norman origin – is considered to be the father of the English language and the creator of English as a literary language.

Influence on English

The major Norman-French influence on English can still be seen in today's vocabulary. An enormous number of Norman-French and other medieval French loanwords came into the language, and about three-quarters of them are still used today. Very often, the Norman or French word supplanted the original English term, or both words would co-exist but with slightly different nuances. In other cases, the Norman or French word was adopted to signify a new reality, such as judge, castle, warranty.

In general, the Norman and French borrowings concerned the fields of culture, aristocratic life, politics and religion, and war whereas the English words were used to describe everyday experience. When the Normans arrived in England, their copyists wrote English as they heard it, without realising the peculiarities of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon pronunciation and spelling and so the spelling changed. There appeared different regional Modern-English written dialects, the one that the king chose in the 15th century becoming the standard variety.

In some remote areas, agricultural terms used by the rural workers may have been derived from Norman French. An example is the Cumbrian term sturdy for diseased sheep that walk in circles, derived from étourdi meaning dizzy.

Influence in Ireland

The Norman invasion of Ireland, beginning on 1st May 1169 at Bannow Bay, led to Anglo-Norman control of much of the island. Norman-speakers arrived to administrate the Angevin Empire's new territory. Several Norman words were borrowed into Irish, including household terms: garsún (from Norman garçun, "boy"); cóta (cote, "cloak"); hata (hatte, "hat"); gairdín (gardin, "garden"); and terms relating to justice (Irish giúistís, bardas (corporation), cúirt (court)).

Place-names in Norman are few, but there is Buttevant (from the motto of the Barry family: Boutez en avant, "Push to the fore"), the village of Brittas (from the Norman bretesche, "boarding, planking") and the element Pallas (Irish pailís, from Norman paleis, "boundary fence": compare palisade and The Pale). Others exist with English and Irish roots, such as Castletownroche, which combines the English Castletown and the Norman Roche, meaning rock.

Only a handful of Hiberno-Norman-French texts survive, most notably The Song of Dermot and the Earl, a chanson de geste (early 13th century), and the Statutes of Kilkenny from 1366.