The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500)

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Nor soldierydy, invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 AD.¨é The new overlords spoke a dialect of hoary french known as Anglo-Norman. The Normans were also of Germanic gillyflower¨ê and Anglo-Norman was a French dialect that had considerable Germanic influences in addition to the basic Latin root.

Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been still a minor influence on the slope delivery, mainly through vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion of Britain to Christianity in the seventh century (ecclesiastical terms such as priest, vicar, and mass came into the language this way), but now there was a wholesale infusion of Romance (Anglo-Norman) words.

The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at at two words, beef and cow. Beef, unremarkably eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, term the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict pee-pee Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy pick out Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be light uponn in many instances.

Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam.



different times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with rough the same meaning survive into Modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire.

It is effective to compare various versions of a familiar text to see the differences between Old, Middle, and Modern English. Take for instance this Old English (c. 1000) sample:

F©¡der ure ©­u ©­e eart on...

If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my paper