Development of the English Vocabulary from the 12th to 19

French Influence on the Vocabulary in Middle English

The French language was brought to England by the Norman conquerors. The Normans remained masters of England for a sufficiently long time to leave a deep impress on the language. The Norman rulers and the immigrants, who invaded the South-Western towns after the Conquest, spoke a variety of French, known as “Anglo-Norman”. This variety died out about two hundred years later, having exerted a profound influence upon English. In the 13th and 14th c. English was exposed to a new wave of French influence; this time it came from Central, Parisian French, a variety of a more cultivated, literary kind.
The effect of these successive and overlapping waves was seen first and foremost in a large number of lexical borrowings in ME. At the initial stages of penetration French words were restricted to some varieties of English: the speech of the aristocracy at the king’s court; the speech of the middle class, who came into contact both with the rulers and with the ruled; the speech of educated people and the population of South-Eastern towns. Eventually French loan-words spread throughout the language space and became an integral of the English vocabulary. Early borrowings were mostly made in the course of oral communication; later borrowings were first used in literature — in translations of French books.
The total number of French borrowings by far exceeds the number of borrowings from any other foreign language (though sometimes it is difficult to say whether the loan came from French or Latin). The greater part of French loan-words in English date from ME.
During the initial hundred and fifty years of the Norman rule the infiltration of French words into the English language progressed slowly. Early ME texts contain very few French words: only twenty French words are found in ORMULUM (c. 1200, North-East Midland). More words are recorded in manuscripts coming from the southern regions: 150 words in Layamon’s BRUT and up to 500 words in ANCRENE RIWLE (South-West Midland). On the whole, prior to the 13th c. no more than one thousand words entered the English language, whereas by 1400 their number had risen to 10,000 (75% of them are still in common use). The majority of French loan-words adopted in ME were first recorded in the texts of the 14th c. Chaucer’s vocabulary, which amounts to 8,000 words, contains about 4,000 words of Romance origin, i.e. French and Latin borrowings.
Among the earliest borrowings are Early ME prisun (NE prison), Early ME castel (NE castle), Early ME werre (NE war), Late OE prýto, prūt (NE pride, proud).
The French borrowings of the ME period are usually described according to semantic spheres.
To this day nearly all the words relating to the government and administration of the country are French by origin: assembly, authority, chancellor, council, counsel, country, court, crown, exchequer, govern, government, nation, office, parliament, people, power, realm, sovereign and many others. Close to this group are words pertaining to the feudal system and words indicating titles and ranks of the nobility: baron, count, countess, duchess, duke, feudal, liege, manor, marquis, noble, peer, prince, viscount. It is notable that very few words of these semantic groups are native, e.g. lord, lady, king, queen, earl, knight. (OE cniht originally meant ‘boy’, ‘servant’, OE earl ‘man’, ‘warrior’.) These borrowings show that the Normans possessed a far more elaborate administrative system and a more complex scale of ranks.
The host of military terms adopted in ME is a natural consequence of the fact that military matters were managed by the Normans and that their organisation of the army and military service was new to the English. The examples are: aid, armour, arms, army, banner, battle (from O Fr and ME battaille), captain (from earlier cheftain), company, dart, defeat, dragoon, ensign, escape, force, lance, lieutenant, navy, regiment, sergeant, siege, soldier, troops, vessel, victory and many others. It is interesting that some of the loan-words from French were originally borrowed from Germanic languages at an earlier stage of history, e.g. ME werre (from O Fr werre, Mod Fr guerre) entered O Fr, or rather its parent-language, the spoken Latin of Gaul, at the time of the first Franconian kingdoms. (Other words with similar histories are: guard from O Fr guarde, cf. O Scand vördhr; garden from O Fr garden, jardin, cf. OHG garto).
A still greater number of words belong to the domain of law and jurisdiction, which were certainly under the control of the Normans. For several hundred years court procedure was conducted entirely in French, so that to this day native English words in this sphere are rare. Many of the words first adopted as juridical terms belong now to the common everyday vocabulary: acquit, accuse, attorney, case, cause, condemn, court, crime, damage, defendant, false, felony, guilt, heir, injury, interest, judge, jury, just, justice, marry, marriage, money, penalty, plaintiff, plead, poor, poverty, properly, prove, rent, robber, session, traitor.
A large number of French words pertain to the Church and religion, for in the 12th and 13th c. all the important posts in the Church were occupied by the Norman clergy: abbey, altar, archangel, Bible, baptism, cell, chapel, chaplain, charity, chaste, clergy, divine, grace, honour, glory, lesson, miracle, nativity, paradise, parish, passion, pray, preach, procession, religion, rule, sacrifice, saint, save, sermon, tempt, vice, virgin, virtue.
Besides these spheres which reflect the dominant position of the Normans in Britain as conquerors and rulers, there are many others which reveal the influence of the Norman way of life on the English.
From the loan-words referring to house, furniture and architecture we see that the Normans introduced many innovations, which became known to the English together with their French names: arch, castle, cellar, chimney, column, couch, curtain, cushion, lamp, mansion, palace, pillar, porch, table, wardrobe. Some words are connected with art: art, beauty, colour, design, figure, image, ornament, paint. Another group includes names of garments: apparel, boot, coat, collar, costume, dress, fur, garment, gown, jewel, robe.
Many French loan-words belong to the domain of entertainment, which is natural enough, for the Norman nobles amused themselves with various pastimes. The borrowed chase competed with its native synonym hunt, which has survived as well; other examples are: cards, dance, dice, leisure, partner, pleasure, sport, tournament, trump. Some of these words can be described as relating to knighthood, such as adventure (ME aventure), array, chivalry, contest, courteous, honour, romance.
We can also single out words relating to different aspects of the life of the upper classes and of the town life: forms of address — sir, madam, and also mister, mistress (as well as master and servant); names of some meals — dinner, supper — and dishes. It was first noticed by J. Wallis (1653) that the names of meals are often French, whereas the names of the animals from whose meat they are cooked are English. Cf. beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, brawn, venison (French loan-words) and native English ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, bear, deer. The prevalence of French terms in cooking, as well as in clothes, can be accounted for by the fact that the French led the fashion in both these spheres, and that French professional cooks and tailors had settled in Britain. It is notable that town trades bore French names while simple country occupations retained their native names: cf. butcher, carpenter, draper, grocer, painter, tailor coming from French and the native miller, shepherd, shoemaker, smith.
Finally, many French loan-words cannot be referred to a definite semantic sphere and can only be listed as miscellaneous, e.g.: advice, air, allow, anxious, boil, carry, change, close, cover, cry, deceive, double, eager, enjoy, enter, envy, excuse, face, firm, flower, honest, hour, joy, large, letter, manner, move, necessary, nice, noise, obey, occupy, pale, pass, please, previous, push, river, remember, satisfy, search, scissors, single, sudden, sure, travel, treasure, very, use.
French influence led to different kinds of changes in the vocabulary. Firstly, there were many innovations, i.e. names of new objects and concepts, which enlarged the vocabulary by adding new items. Secondly, there were numerous replacements of native words by French equivalents, which resulted in a shift in the ratio of Germanic and Romance roots in the language, e.g. the loan-words very, river, peace, easy displaced the native OE swiþe, ēa, friþ, ēaþe. The adoption of a word synonymous with a native word did not necessarily lead to replacement. Most frequently the co-existence of a borrowed and native synonym ended in their differentiation, they were both retained as they differed in style, dialect, shades of meaning or combinability. This third kind of influence enriched the English vocabulary even more than the adoption of pure innovations. The influx of French words — as well as the later borrowing of Latin words — is one of the main historical reasons for the abundance of synonyms in Mod E. The difference between the native and borrowed words often lies in their stylistic connotations: French loan-words, particularly those which were adopted in Late ME (and later) preserve a more bookish, literary character; hence such pairs of words as French commence — native begin, conceal — hide, prevent —-hinder, search — look for, odour — smell, desire — wish.
The impact of French upon the English vocabulary was not limited to the borrowing of words or roots. The vocabulary was also enriched by the adoption of French affixes. Derivational affixes could not be borrowed as such; they entered the language in scores of loan-words, were unconsciously or consciously separated by the speakers and used in derivation. They could become productive in English only after the loan-words with those affixes were completely assimilated by the language; that is why the use of borrowed French affixes dates largely from the Early NE period.

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