Hubbry Logo
Anglo-Norman languageAnglo-Norman languageMain
Open search
Anglo-Norman language
Community hub
Anglo-Norman language
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman language
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia
Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Normaund
Manuscript miniature of the coronation of Henry III, accompanied by a short account of his reign in Anglo-Norman prose
RegionGreat Britain and Ireland
EthnicityAnglo-Normans
Extinct15th century AD[1]
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3xno
xno
Glottologangl1258
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Anglo-Norman (Norman: Anglo-Normaund; French: Anglo-normand), also known as Anglo-Norman French and part of the French of England (including Anglo-French) was a dialect of Old Norman that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, other places in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period.[4][5]

Origin

[edit]

The term "Anglo-Norman" harks back to the time when the language was regarded as being primarily the regional dialect of the Norman settlers. Today the generic term "Anglo-French" is used instead to reflect not only the broader origin of the settlers who came with William the Conqueror, but also the continued influence of Parisian French from the Plantagenet period onwards.[6][7]

According to some linguists, the name Insular French might be more suitable, because "Anglo-Norman" is constantly associated with the notion of a mixed language based on English and Norman. According to some, such a mixed language never existed. Other sources, however, indicate that such a language did exist, and that it was the language descended from the Norman French originally established in England after the Conquest.[8][9]

Although Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French were eventually eclipsed by modern English, they had been used widely enough to influence English vocabulary permanently. This means that many original Germanic words, cognates of which can still be found in Nordic, German, and Dutch, have been lost or, as is more often the case, exist alongside synonyms of Anglo-Norman French origin. Anglo-Norman had little lasting influence on English grammar, as opposed to vocabulary, although it is still evident in official and legal terms where the ordinary sequence of noun and adjective is reversed, as seen in phrases such as Blood Royal, attorney general, heir apparent, court martial, envoy extraordinary and body politic.[10]

The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom still features in French the mottos of both the British Monarch, Dieu et mon droit ("God and my right"), and the Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense ("Shamed be he who thinks evil of it").

Dieu et mon droit was first used by Richard I (who spoke Anglo-Norman, but cannot be proved to have been able to speak English) in 1198 and adopted as the royal motto of England in the time of Henry VI. The motto appears below the shield of the Royal Coat of Arms.

Use and development

[edit]

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.[11]

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

[edit]

General history in medieval England

[edit]

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 [when?] adoption of Anglo-Norman as a written and literary language probably owes something to this history of bilingualism in writing.[citation needed]

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.[12]

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.[13][14]

Language of the king and his court

[edit]

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.[15]

Language of the royal charters and legislation

[edit]

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.[15]

Language of administration and justice

[edit]

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.[15]

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.[16] 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.[17]

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.[18][19][20]

Event Anglo-Norman phrase English translation
House of Lords bill sent to House of Commons Soit baillé aux Communes. Let it be sent to the Commons.
Lords bill agreed to by Commons without amendment A ceste Bille les Communes sont assentus. To this bill the Commons have assented.
Lords bill agreed to by Commons with amendments A ceste Bille avecque des Amendemens (or avecque une Amendement) les Communes sont assentus. To this bill with [an] amendment[s] the Commons have assented.
Lords bill agreed to by Lords, after Commons then Lords have amended it (see Parliamentary ping-pong) A ceste Amendement (or ces Amendemens) avecque une Amendement (or des Amendemens) les Seigneurs sont assentus. To all these amendments the Lords have assented.
Lords disagree with the Commons Ceste Bille est remise aux Communes avecque des Raisons (or une Raison). This bill is returned to the Commons with [a] reason[s].
Commons bill sent to Lords Soit baillé aux Seigneurs. Let it be sent to the Lords.
Commons bill returned with Lords' amendments A ceste Bille avecque des Amendemens (or une Amendement) les Seigneurs sont assentus. To this bill with [an] amendment[s] the Lords have assented.
Supply bill returned to Commons agreed pending Royal Assent by Commission A ceste Bille les Seigneurs sont assentus. To this bill the Lords have assented.
Royal Assent is given for a public bill Le Roy/La Reyne le veult. The King/Queen wills it.
Royal Assent is given for a supply bill Le Roy/La Reyne remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence et ainsi le veult. The King/Queen thanks his/her good subjects, accepts their bounty, and wills it so.
Royal Assent is given for a private bill Soit fait comme il est désiré. Let it be done as it is desired.
Royal Assent is withheld Le Roy/La Reyne s'avisera. The King/Queen will consider it.

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

[edit]

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.[15] 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.[21]

Characteristics

[edit]

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.[22]

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.[23][24]

Anglo-Norman morphology and phonology can be deduced from its heritage in English. Mostly, it is done in comparison 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 /a/ 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:

English < Norman = French
cabbage < caboche = chou, caboche
castle < caste(-l) = château
cauldron < caudron = chaudron
causeway < cauchie = chaussée
catch < cachi = chasser
cattle < *cate(-l) = cheptel (Old French chetel)
fork < fouorque = fourche
garden < gardin = jardin
kennel < kenil = chenil (Vulgar Latin *canile)
wicket < viquet = guichet
plank < planque = planche, planque
pocket < pouquette = poche

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 /ei/ (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by /wa/ 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 /tʃ/ in medieval French, where Modern French has /ʃ/, but English has preserved the older sound (in words like chamber, chain, chase and exchequer). Similarly, j had an older /dʒ/ sound, which it still has in English and some dialects of modern Norman, but it has developed into /ʒ/ 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.[25] 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

[edit]
See also: 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.[15]

Influence on English

[edit]
Main article: Influence of French on English
According to one study, about 28% of English vocabulary comes from French, including Anglo-French. Such percentages vary greatly depending on what amount of rare and technical words are included in the calculation.

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.[15]

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.[26]

Influence in Ireland

[edit]

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).[27] 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.[28]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Anglo-Norman language

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Anglo-Norman was a variety of spoken and written in from the late 11th to the , brought by the Norman conquerors following their victory at the in 1066. As the prestige language of the ruling class, it supplanted Latin in secular administration and became the medium for legal proceedings, royal charters, and courtly literature, while persisted among the lower strata. Distinct from continental Norman dialects due to its insular evolution, Anglo-Norman exhibited unique orthographic features, such as the frequent use of "ch" for /tʃ/ and vowel shifts influenced by , reflecting its role as an immigrant tongue adapted to a bilingual environment. The language's prominence facilitated the integration of Norman governance into English society, producing a trilingual textual culture alongside Latin and English, with Anglo-Norman dominating records like the Domesday Book's narratives and early treatises. Its literary output encompassed religious texts, such as verse saints' lives and the in a related dialect, as well as secular romances and chronicles that bridged Norman and English traditions. By the mid-14th century, socioeconomic shifts—including the , rising , and statutes like the 1362 Parliament's use of English—accelerated Anglo-Norman's decline as a , though it persisted in legal contexts as "" until the 17th century. Anglo-Norman's enduring legacy lies in its profound lexical impact on English, contributing over 10,000 words—predominantly in domains of power like (government), (judge), and (beef)—while exerting minimal influence on syntax or core . This borrowing enriched Middle English vocabulary without supplanting its Germanic base, fostering the hybrid character of modern English and underscoring the causal role of conquest-driven elite in linguistic evolution. Scholarly assessments, drawing from evidence rather than ideological narratives, affirm its status as a functional administrative tool rather than a mere prestige overlay, with variations reflecting regional and scribal practices across .

Origins

Norman Conquest and Initial Imposition

The of England commenced with Duke William of Normandy's invasion in September 1066, following his claim to the throne after the death of , and reached its decisive moment with the defeat of King Harold Godwinson's army at the on 14 October 1066. William's subsequent coronation on 25 December 1066 solidified his rule, enabling the systematic displacement of Anglo-Saxon elites through military suppression of rebellions, such as the Northern uprising in 1069–1070, which involved the resulting in widespread devastation. This power shift replaced most Anglo-Saxon earls and thegns with approximately 200 Norman barons and knights, who received feudal tenures directly from or as subinfeudatories. The linguistic imposition arose causally from this elite replacement, as the incoming spoke —a Romance dialect derived from Latin with Norse influences—distinct from the Germanic prevalent among the conquered populace. William's distribution of over 4,000 manors to his followers by 1086, as documented in the , tied landholding to oaths of rendered in Norman French, establishing the dialect as a practical and symbolic marker of loyalty, status, and administrative authority within the feudal pyramid. This entrenched Anglo-Norman (the localized variant evolving in ) as the vernacular of governance and interpersonal elite discourse, supplanting Old English in spoken courtly and seigneurial contexts by the early 1070s, though Latin persisted for formal charters and ecclesiastical records. Empirical evidence of this transition appears in the of 1086, a comprehensive survey ordered by to assert fiscal control, which, while composed in , integrates over 100 Norman French terms for legal, tenurial, and economic concepts (e.g., aiel for , warde for guardianship) absent in pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon documentation, reflecting the ' terminological overlay on inherited systems. By revealing that only about 5% of recorded landholders retained Anglo-Saxon identities—often as under-tenants—the survey underscores how feudal grants not only consolidated military power but also linguistically isolated the native majority, positioning Anglo-Norman as the conduit for commands, judgments, and negotiations that defined post-Conquest authority.

Linguistic Derivation from Old Norman

Anglo-Norman originated as the insular variety of , a northern of (langue d'oïl) spoken in from the 10th to 11th centuries. This arose after the Norse Viking leader received the grant of in 911, when Scandinavian settlers assimilated linguistically into the Gallo-Romance-speaking population, adopting its Romance structure while incorporating a substrate of lexical elements, particularly in domains like seafaring, warfare, and governance—examples include skip influencing maritime terms and thing for assembly concepts. Despite this overlay, remained fundamentally Romance-based, deriving from via Gallo-Romance intermediaries, with phonological and morphological traits shaped by regional substrate languages rather than wholesale Norse grammatical imposition. Pre-Conquest Old Norman exhibited divergences from central and southern Old French dialects, retaining conservative Gallo-Romance features such as less extensive palatalization of velar consonants (/k/ and /g/ before front vowels) and preservation of Latin-derived diphthongs like /œ/ in words such as cheval (horse), contrasting with innovations in Francien (the Parisian dialect that evolved into standard French). Orthographic practices also reflected Norse influence through the frequent use of the letter w to denote /w/ or /gw/ sounds absent in core Romance phonology, as in warden (to guard), a trait carried over from Norman scribal traditions. These distinctions positioned Old Norman as akin to Picard in northern France, with vocabulary and syntax emphasizing administrative and feudal terminology suited to ducal governance. The form of Old Norman transported to England by William the Conqueror's followers in thus constituted Anglo-Norman's direct progenitor, manifesting in early insular usage through spoken commands, oaths, and rudimentary records before fuller textual attestation. While no purely vernacular texts survive from the immediate Conquest era—the Bayeux Tapestry's inscriptions (c. 1070–1080) being in —administrative fragments and legal formulae from the late , such as those in the Domesday Book's ancillary notes, preserve Old Norman's phonological markers, including affrication of /k/ to /ts/ in certain clusters (e.g., tiel for such). This derivation underscores Anglo-Norman's status as an emigrant dialect, initially faithful to its continental root before insular isolation prompted further divergence.

Domains of Usage

Elite Spheres: Court, Administration, and Law

In the royal court and central administration, Anglo-Norman emerged as the operational language of the Norman and Angevin monarchs, supplanting Latin for practical governance tasks among the French-speaking . It facilitated the king's council, household management, and issuance of writs, with examples appearing in chancery documents from Henry I's reign (1100–1135), where French supplanted pure Latin formulas in narrative sections of charters. This usage underscored its role as a marker of status and continuity of Norman rule, persisting through the 13th century as the medium for administrative correspondence and policy articulation. Anglo-Norman's administrative application extended to codifying feudal structures, introducing precise lexicon for obligations like (servitium militum) and aids (auxilium), which replaced vaguer Anglo-Saxon customs with enforceable continental norms. These terms, embedded in royal grants and inquisitions, enabled systematic tracking of tenurial rights and dues via instruments such as the inquest post mortem, thereby reinforcing the crown's fiscal and jurisdictional oversight across fragmented lordships. In the legal sphere, Anglo-Norman—later termed —dominated proceedings in the king's courts, serving as the for barristers' arguments, judgments, and case reports from the late . Records pertaining to the Pleas of the Crown, encompassing royal prosecutions for felonies and trespasses against the peace, were documented in this idiom, as seen in early eyre rolls and proceedings under Henry II (1154–1189) and successors. Its technical vocabulary ensured consistency in interpreting statutes and customs, distinguishing elite from vernacular oral traditions. This institutional entrenchment lasted until Edward III's Statute of Pleading (1362), which required all court pleas and juror oaths to proceed in English, driven by complaints over lawyers' opacity in French amid rising native proficiency. The shift marked Anglo-Norman's retreat from core , though Latin endured for formal enrollments.

Penetration into Broader Society

The dominance of Anglo-Norman among the nobility following the of 1066 did not extend substantially to the lower classes, as demonstrated by the scarcity of French-derived place names, which form only a minor fraction of England's despite centuries of elite rule. This persistence of predominantly Anglo-Saxon and early elements in place names reflects the continued vernacular usage by rural communities and common landowners, who retained local naming conventions unaltered by Norman influence. In rural contexts, comprising the bulk of the population, endured as the primary spoken language, with linguistic evidence from early 14th-century inquiries indicating that only 9.4% of rural commoners employed French, compared to 75% overall reliance on English in sampled communities. Folk and local records further corroborate this exclusivity, showing no widespread fluency among peasants, whose daily interactions and oral traditions remained anchored in the evolving English vernacular rather than adopting the conquerors' tongue. By the 13th century, urban merchant strata displayed limited bilingual capabilities, manifesting primarily through in trade documents and interactions, such as mixing Anglo-Norman terms with English in subsidy rolls and commercial ledgers, without supplanting English as the base language. Analysis of 14th-century petitions, often drafted in Anglo-Norman for submission to authorities, underscores this confinement, as the language served as a formalized medium accessed via scribes or intermediaries, emblematic of hierarchical power dynamics rather than multilingual adoption.

Trilingual Framework in England

Following the of 1066, operated within a trilingual framework characterized by distinct functional domains for Latin, Anglo-Norman French, and , aligned with social hierarchy and institutional roles. Latin prevailed in ecclesiastical writings, scholarly treatises, and much of early administrative record-keeping due to its status as the of the Church and international learning. Anglo-Norman French dominated secular elite contexts, including royal courts, legal proceedings, and baronial correspondence, serving as the prestige language of the conqueror class. , meanwhile, persisted as the everyday vernacular among peasants, artisans, and rural communities, largely confined to oral transmission and informal literacy until the . This division stemmed directly from the Conquest's replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman lords, who imposed French as a marker of authority, thereby interrupting native linguistic continuity and embedding class-based rather than fostering egalitarian . Trilingualism manifested materially in 13th-century manuscripts, which frequently integrated texts across the three languages to accommodate mixed audiences in education, administration, and record-keeping, underscoring the framework's pragmatic yet stratified nature. For instance, legal and historical compilations often juxtaposed Latin preambles with French procedural content and occasional English glosses, reflecting the elite's need to navigate multiple spheres while marginalizing full English integration. The system's rigidity reinforced Norman hegemony by confining English to subordinate roles, as the conquerors' descendants—despite gradual insular adaptation—prioritized French for power retention, with Latin providing trans-local legitimacy. from administrative rolls shows French comprising over 90% of 12th–13th-century royal charters, while English appeared sporadically in local manorial contexts, illustrating functional segregation over fusion. Tensions in this framework surfaced during political crises, such as the 1258 , where barons compelled Henry III to reform governance; the core provisions were drafted in Anglo-Norman to align with elite norms, but their proclamation via royal letters marked the first official tripartite issuance in Latin, French, and English to reach clerks, nobles, and commons alike. This concession highlighted Anglo-Norman's entrenched administrative role amid baronial pressure, yet it did not immediately erode the hierarchy, as English remained ancillary. Demographic catastrophe via the (1348–1350), which eradicated 30–50% of England's population—reducing it from approximately 4–6 million to 2–3 million—fundamentally disrupted this equilibrium by decimating French-proficient elites and clergy, while labor shortages elevated English-speaking survivors in bargaining power and social mobility. The resulting upheaval, including peasant revolts and wage escalations, causally shifted institutional incentives toward vernacular accessibility, culminating in the 1362 Pleading in English Act, which mandated courtroom proceedings in English to address comprehension barriers for jurors and litigants. This legislative pivot, enacted under III, signaled the framework's unraveling, as English encroached on Anglo-Norman's legal bastion and paved the way for its dominance in parliamentary and educational domains by century's end.

Linguistic Properties

Phonological and Orthographic Features

Anglo-Norman phonology diverged from continental through simplifications in vowel and systems, driven by insular isolation and substrate contact with English. ai and ei typically reduced to monophthongs /e:/ and /e/, respectively, a feature observable in early insular manuscripts and contrasting with the retention of diphthongal qualities in many continental dialects. The open vowels /a/ and /ɔ/ merged into /a/, as evidenced by orthographic and rhyming patterns in 12th-century texts, further eroding distinctions present in . Consonantal developments included the eventual loss of palatal contrasts, such as /ɲ/ versus /nj/ and /ʎ/ versus /lj/, which were not maintained in and thus faded in later Anglo-Norman under bilingual influence, unlike in continental French where these persisted longer. This substrate effect simplified the phonological inventory, with English speakers adapting French sounds to native categories, leading to a marked divergence from central French norms by the 13th century. Orthographic conventions in Anglo-Norman reflected these phonological shifts and regional scribal practices, often blending Norman traits with English habits. Writers substituted u for continental o or ou (e.g., tut for tour), and k for ch (e.g., kar for cher), preserving archaisms or Western French variants not standardized in . English-influenced spellings appeared, such as yogh (ȝ) for /z/ sounds and y for /i/, particularly in trilingual s from the onward, distinguishing insular texts from continental ones. These features, deducible from comparative manuscript analysis, highlight Anglo-Norman's adaptation to England's linguistic environment without adopting full continental reforms.

Grammatical and Syntactic Elements

Anglo-Norman grammar preserved core elements of , including a two-case system distinguishing nominative from oblique forms for nouns and adjectives, though this binary distinction eroded progressively from the early onward, with oblique forms increasingly generalized across functions amid phonological reductions and contact-induced simplification. Verb conjugations exhibited analogous shifts, marked by leveling of paradigms where distinct and number endings merged under analogical pressure, reducing synthetic complexity as observed in textual corpora from the period 1200–1350. These changes reflected broader analytic tendencies, accelerating in insular contexts where speakers, often bilingual with English, favored invariant forms over inflectional variation. Syntactically, Anglo-Norman diverged from continental through expanded periphrastic constructions, such as avoir à + infinitive for futurates, which gained prominence earlier than in central dialects and facilitated looser embedding compared to the more rigid verb-second tendencies of mainland varieties. patterns showed hybridity, with increased subject-verb-object sequencing influenced by substrate English structures, departing from the flexible or object-verb orders common in Old French prose. This syntactic drift, documented in administrative and legal texts, underscores adaptations arising from prolonged and imperfect acquisition in non-native speaker communities. Gender agreement displayed notable variances, particularly in later stages, where adjectival and possessive concord faltered—e.g., masculine mon or son appearing with feminine nouns—due to erosion of phonological cues like final schwa and interference from English's lack of . Corpus analyses from the Anglo-Norman Hub and Dictionary textbase reveal error rates rising to 20–30% in 14th-century samples for determiner-noun pairs, contrasting with higher fidelity in 12th-century insular texts and continental parallels. Such discrepancies highlight contact-driven simplification, prioritizing semantic over formal agreement in hybrid usage domains.

Lexical Composition and Divergences

The lexicon of Anglo-Norman derived principally from the Norman dialect of , which retained a substrate of vocabulary introduced during the Viking settlements in around the 10th century, including terms such as dun (feather/down, influencing later forms like duvet). This core was augmented by insular adaptations in post-1066, where administrative and legal necessities prompted neologisms and semantic shifts not paralleled in continental French; for instance, specialized terms for governance like escheker (, from a accounting tool) emerged in Anglo-Norman texts by the late to denote fiscal administration. Such innovations totaled thousands of forms unique to British usage, as cataloged in the Anglo-Norman Dictionary, reflecting borrowings or calques from in practical domains rather than poetic registers. Divergences from continental Old French arose through retention of archaic forms unaffected by later Parisian sound changes, such as preserving /ts/ clusters in words like justise (justice), alongside semantic specializations tied to England's trilingual environment. A notable example is the culinary-administrative lexicon, where Anglo-Norman boeuf denoted prepared cattle meat in elite contexts by the 13th century, diverging in usage from the live animal term retained in English cū (cow), a pattern emblematic of Norman aristocratic detachment from agrarian labor and evident in household accounts like those of the Pipe Rolls from 1155 onward. Legal-administrative vocabulary further diverged via hybrid formations, incorporating Germanic elements via Norman channels—e.g., garant (warrant/guarantee, from Frankish roots amplified in insular law texts)—to describe novel institutions like royal warrants, comprising a substantial portion of terms in documents such as the 13th-century Close Rolls. These insular specifics emphasized functional neologisms over literary imports, with etymological analyses indicating that administrative compounds (e.g., sergeanty for feudal service types) adapted roots to English tenurial systems by the , fostering a geared toward bureaucratic precision rather than continental eloquence. Etymological records from medieval charters confirm that such terms, often unattested in French sources outside Britain, highlight Anglo-Norman's evolution as a creolized administrative medium, distinct from the more conservative of continental dialects.

Literary and Textual Tradition

Canonical Works and Genres

The most prominent canonical works in Anglo-Norman literature consist of verse romances, adapted chansons de geste, and fabliaux, with production peaking in the amid royal patronage. Under Henry II (r. 1154–1189), whose court in and supported vernacular composition, authors like produced extended narratives blending historical chronicle with dynastic legitimacy. This era saw romances emerge as a dominant genre, often drawing on Celtic or continental motifs to glorify chivalric ideals and Norman heritage, before output diminished sharply after 1300 due to shifting linguistic preferences. Wace's Roman de Rou (c. 1160–1174), commissioned by Henry II, exemplifies the romance form through its 17,000-line verse history of the Norman dukes from (d. c. 930) to the early , fusing factual chronicle with propagandistic elevation of conquest narratives. The poet, a Jersey-born cleric active in , revised the work into its final octosyllabic form by the mid-1170s, incorporating eyewitness details of events like the (1066). Similarly, Wace's earlier (c. 1155) versified Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin , extending to Arthurian lore while prioritizing monarchical continuity over mythic embellishment. Chansons de geste, epic cycles celebrating feudal heroism, circulated in Anglo-Norman adaptations, with insular variants of tales like Fierabras surviving in manuscripts that reflect localized modifications for English audiences. These texts, often thousands of lines long, preserved core motifs of combat and loyalty from continental originals but adapted and to Anglo-Norman usage, as evidenced by fragments and full copies from the 12th–13th centuries. Fabliaux, concise verse tales of 100–400 lines featuring ruse, , and clerical critique, yielded at least eighteen extant Anglo-Norman specimens, edited from unique manuscripts like those in collections. Examples include Du chevalier qui fit les cons parler, highlighting the genre's satirical edge against bourgeois pretensions, with compositions clustered in the late 12th to early 13th centuries before the form's eclipse. Overall, these genres underscore Anglo-Norman's role in bridging oral epic traditions with courtly innovation, though fewer than 100 full literary manuscripts endure from the period.

Production of Non-Fictional Texts

The Prose Brut , composed in Anglo-Norman around the early and extending to events up to 1332 in later versions, provided a comprehensive vernacular account of British from the mythical Brutus to contemporary reigns, circulating widely in over 150 manuscripts and serving as a key historical reference for lay elites. Adaptations of earlier Latin works, such as elements drawn from Norman ducal histories, informed these prose narratives, prioritizing factual over poetic embellishment to document royal lineages and conquests. Partial Bible translations into Anglo-Norman, including glosses and excerpts from Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers dating to the late 12th and 13th centuries, facilitated devotional reading among bilingual nobility and clergy, supplementing Latin texts without supplanting . Manuscripts like British Library Harley 2253 preserve these prose renditions, which emphasized literal fidelity to scripture for personal edification rather than liturgical use. Practical treatises on medicine, preserved in 12th- and 13th-century manuscripts such as MS O.1.20, translated Latin authorities like Platearius's Practica Brevis and Roger Frugard's Chirurgia into Anglo-Norman, offering diagnostic and surgical guidance for physicians attending vernacular-speaking patients. These texts included protocols for patient visits and shorter regimens, reflecting empirical adaptations for Anglo-Norman contexts over abstract theory. Agricultural manuals, exemplified by Walter of Henley's Husbandry (circa 1280), detailed estate management in Anglo-Norman prose, covering , care, and steward duties with quantifiable advice such as seeding rates and harvest yields to optimize feudal productivity. Accompanying works like the anonymous Seneschaucie extended this to legal oversight of manors, underscoring Anglo-Norman's role in codifying applied knowledge for landed administration.

Path to Obsolescence

Causal Factors in Decline

The pandemic of 1348–1350 decimated England's population by an estimated 40–60%, creating acute labor shortages that elevated the socioeconomic status of surviving English-speaking peasants and artisans through higher wages and bargaining power. This shift disproportionately impacted the French-speaking nobility and clergy, reducing the relative number of Anglo-Norman proficient individuals and amplifying the influence of monolingual English speakers in governance and local administration. The resulting social upheaval culminated in the Statute of Pleading of 1362, which authorized English for courtroom proceedings, thereby eroding Anglo-Norman's longstanding monopoly in legal discourse. Parallel to these demographic pressures, the (1337–1453) intensified Anglo-French antagonism, prompting the English aristocracy to cultivate a distinct that rejected associations with continental French culture and language. Monarchs like Edward III (r. 1327–1377) actively promoted English in parliamentary addresses and military contexts to rally native support against French claims, accelerating the vernacular's ascent over Anglo-Norman in official spheres. This nationalist resurgence, fueled by wartime and battlefield necessities involving predominantly English-speaking levies, diminished the prestige of Anglo-Norman as a marker of elite . Compounding these external forces, Anglo-Norman's insular evolution fostered internal linguistic fragmentation by the early 1300s, as isolated pockets of Norman-descended families developed idiosyncratic dialects divergent from standardized continental French, rendering the variety increasingly archaic and unintelligible to French natives. This decay in , coupled with the elite's growing preference for English amid bilingual household shifts, undermined Anglo-Norman's viability as a cohesive medium for administration and .

Residual Forms and Law French

Following the decline of Anglo-Norman as a vernacular in the late , its specialized variant known as persisted as the primary language of English proceedings and documentation into the 17th century. This register, rooted in the insular Norman dialect, evolved into a fossilized blending archaic French morphology with ad hoc English and Latin insertions, as evidenced in court yearbooks and pleadings. Its survival stemmed from the common law's emphasis on stare decisis, where linguistic continuity preserved interpretive precedents amid broader societal shifts toward English, rendering reform inefficient despite growing incomprehensibility to practitioners. Law French dominated formal pleadings, procedural writs, and judicial records until at least 1650, with oral arguments in courts transitioning unevenly thereafter. Archival examples include 17th-century plea rolls and parliamentary bills retaining phrases like nisi prius (unless before) for trial scheduling and autrefois acquit (previously acquitted) for pleas, hybrids reflecting Anglo-Norman's syntactic patterns. These forms, documented in collections such as the Year Books of Edward II (extending into later compilations), demonstrate empirical persistence in legal archives, countering claims of abrupt extinction post-1362 Statute of Pleading. By the mid-17th century, however, parliamentary enactments increasingly incorporated English glosses, as seen in records from the , where archaic French terms coexisted with vernacular translations to maintain accessibility. The inertia of legal precedent—prioritizing unaltered transmission of writs and doctrines over communicative utility—sustained against the vernacular's dominance in administration and literature. This contrasts with causal pressures in non-juridical domains, where economic incentives favored English proficiency; in law, disruption risked invalidating centuries of , as reformers like noted in critiques of its obsolescence without advocating wholesale abandonment. Formal pleadings lingered in Law French until 1731, when procedural statutes mandated English exclusivity, marking the effective end of its institutional role. Vestigial terms, such as (to be informed) and (we command), endure in modern procedure, underscoring Anglo-Norman's non-total obsolescence through juridical encapsulation.

Enduring Impacts

Lexical and Semantic Contributions to English

The of 1066 facilitated the infusion of Anglo-Norman vocabulary into , with estimates indicating that approximately 28-30% of modern English words derive from French sources, predominantly via Anglo-Norman rather than continental . This borrowing was not superficial but involved etymological adaptation, where Anglo-Norman terms filled lexical gaps in governance, , and administration, domains where native lacked equivalent precision. For instance, "" entered English from Anglo-Norman parlement, originally denoting a formal discussion or assembly in feudal councils by the early , evolving to signify legislative bodies. Similarly, "" derives from Anglo-Norman justise, referring to the administration of under Norman rule, supplanting vaguer Germanic terms for judgment. Semantic contributions extended beyond direct loans, inducing shifts in meaning that integrated feudal hierarchies into English conceptual frameworks. The verb "demand," from Anglo-Norman demander (to claim or require), initially connoted enforcing feudal or obligations in 12th-century legal texts, later broadening to neutral requests in everyday usage by the , reflecting the normalization of Norman authoritative structures. Such shifts often paired with native synonyms, creating doublets like "" (from Anglo-Norman boef, denoting the meat of managed by Norman elites) versus Germanic "cow," preserving Germanic roots for live animals while adopting French for culinary or economic contexts. Recent linguistic analyses, including a 2025 reassessment of French impacts on Late verbs, highlight how these borrowings enhanced semantic nuance in administrative verbs without displacing core Germanic morphology. Empirically, Anglo-Norman's lexical input refined English for institutional precision—evident in over 10,000 legal and governmental terms retained today—but preserved the language's Germanic skeletal structure, with basic vocabulary (e.g., pronouns, numerals, common verbs) remaining predominantly native. This selective enrichment, driven by Norman dominance in elite spheres until the , avoided wholesale replacement, as bilingual in texts like the 13th-century demonstrates native terms coexisting with loans for functional complementarity.

Extensions to Other Territories

The , initiated in 1169 under Dermot MacMurrough and Richard de Clare (Strongbow), , introduced the language to the island as the tongue of the conquering elite and administrators. This imposition was tied to feudal land grants and castle-building, with Anglo-Norman serving as the medium for legal records, charters, and aristocratic communication among settlers from . A key literary artifact is La Geste des Engleis en Yrlande, known as the Song of Dermot and the Earl, an anonymous Anglo-Norman verse chronicle composed around 1220 that recounts the initial conquest, including the 1169 landing at Bannow Bay and subsequent sieges. The poem, preserved in Library's Carew Manuscript 596, exemplifies the language's role in propagating narratives of Norman legitimacy in Ireland. Administrative persistence of Anglo-Norman in Ireland extended into the , evident in plea rolls and parliamentary records, though it coexisted with Latin for formal documents and Irish Gaelic among natives. By the mid-14th century, the (1366) mandated English usage to counter Gaelic resurgence and "hibernicization" of settlers, accelerating decline, yet vestiges lingered in legal contexts until Tudor-era reforms under , which enforced English exclusivity from the 1530s onward. Intermarriage and cultural assimilation diluted Anglo-Norman among the "Old English" descendants, leading to its obsolescence as a by the , supplanted by and forms. In the , acquired by the English crown post-1066 but retaining direct Norman ties, dialects such as (in ) and (in ) preserved core Norman French features longer than continental Anglo-Norman variants. These insular forms, diverging from Anglo-Norman's insular innovations due to less English admixture, endured in rural speech and into the , though administrative shifts to English by the mirrored broader obsolescence patterns. Unlike Ireland's conquest-driven implant, the islands' proximity to sustained dialectal continuity, with only limited Anglo-Norman lexical influence via English governance. By the 1500s, English dominance eroded even these remnants, confining survival to isolated pockets.

Modern Scholarly Reassessments

Recent revisions to the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND), hosted by the since 2020, have incorporated over 877 new entries with 909 senses and 1,873 citations, enhancing etymological analysis of insular French variants distinct from continental . Funded by an AHRC grant from July 2021 to March 2025, the project continues digitizing and updating sections, such as letters R and S, to address gaps in earlier editions and provide comprehensive coverage of Anglo-Norman used in Britain from the 11th to 15th centuries. These updates emphasize data-driven refinements, revealing semantic nuances in loanwords that prior scholarship overlooked due to reliance on Parisian French norms. Key collaborative initiatives, including the Oxford Anglo-Norman Reading Group, facilitate close textual analysis of understudied manuscripts, such as the Chronicle of Langtoft, to highlight divergences in Anglo-Norman syntax and vocabulary shaped by prolonged English contact. Similarly, the Anglo-Norman Text Society's 2023-2024 publication of the first volume of the Anglo-Norman Verse Psalter (British Library, Harley MS 4070), edited as the initial installment in a three-volume critical edition, uncovers insular adaptations in religious verse that deviate from Norman originals, prompting reassessments of regional linguistic evolution. These efforts counter earlier narratives minimizing Anglo-Norman's autonomy by privileging manuscript evidence over generalized French influence models. Contemporary debates, exemplified by a 2025 University of symposium, utilize large lexical datasets to reevaluate the semantic expansion of French-derived verbs in Late , demonstrating deeper post-Conquest integration than previously quantified, particularly in domains like governance and abstraction. This data challenges assumptions of superficial borrowing, attributing sustained French lexical vitality to elite bilingualism rather than transient imposition, and underscores Anglo-Norman's role in catalyzing English's hybrid semantic fields. Such analyses, grounded in computational corpus tools, revise Conquest-era impact assessments by quantifying calques and doublets that preserved Anglo-Norman specificities into the .

References

  1. https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijl/article/download/9526/7843
  2. https://scholarworks.harding.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1060&context=tenor
  3. https://frenchofengland.ace.fordham.edu/introduction-to-the-language/
  4. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/1066-and-the-norman-conquest/
  5. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Norman-Conquest/
  6. https://www.thecollector.com/what-domesday-book-tell-norman-conquest/
  7. https://www.historyextra.com/period/norman/the-normans-had-a-profound-influence-on-britain-why-then-do-we-not-speak-french/
  8. https://regia.org/research/history/norman2.htm
  9. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/domesday-book/
  10. https://www.academia.edu/65577501/Norse_derived_maritime_vocabulary_in_Norman_French_and_Spanish
  11. https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/bayeuxtapestry/text.pdf
  12. https://paradox.poms.ac.uk/redist/pdf/chapter1.pdf
  13. http://www.lukemastin.com/thehistoryofenglish/history_middle.html
  14. https://www.jstor.org/stable/649903
  15. https://academic.oup.com/book/34968/chapter/298614630
  16. https://www.austlii.edu.au/nz/journals/AukULawRw/2011/8.pdf
  17. https://history.blog.gov.uk/2017/04/19/the-language-of-government-and-the-power-of-plain-english/
  18. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1017/S0038713400131537
  19. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Understanding_Elements_of_Place_Name_Terms_-_International_Institute
  20. https://hal.science/hal-01995230/document
  21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41054572
  22. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transactions-of-the-royal-historical-society/article/use-of-french-in-england-in-the-later-middle-ages/5703F7C8973E3C2C60794B7E7C14BE83
  23. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/languages.aspx
  24. https://anglo-norman.net/a-whiff-of-multilingualism-in-medieval-england/
  25. https://www.mhra.org.uk/pdf/yes-33-1-scahill.pdf
  26. https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1457&context=wwuet
  27. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/trilingualism-in-the-medieval-english-bureaucracy-the-useand-disuseof-languages-in-the-fifteenthcentury-privy-seal-office/FF1628E73C12DF8096DA60811ADCE3E5
  28. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-bright-side-of-the-black-death
  29. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml
  30. https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2014-WS-gram-hybrid/Ingham_handout.pdf
  31. https://www.persee.fr/doc/bamed_0240-8805_2012_num_81_1_1091
  32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44851478
  33. https://journals.openedition.org/corpus/1506
  34. https://shs.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-linguistique-appliquee-2011-2-page-107?lang=en
  35. https://access.archive-ouverte.unige.ch/access/metadata/1ddff9e3-2ad3-4fe2-84c0-12736bf8efd0/download
  36. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/lfab.9.c7/pdf
  37. https://resolve.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/4E65E3D6B1D67B05C8C4EB623F0A8338/9781846157950c12_p164-182_CBO.pdf/transmission_of_later_anglonorman_some_syntactic_evidence.pdf
  38. https://anglo-norman.net/lexical-borrowing-in-a-medieval-context/
  39. https://anglo-norman.net/anglo-french/
  40. https://www.dictionary.com/e/animal-names-change-become-food/
  41. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/flor/article/download/12566/20134/24262
  42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt9qdjzn
  43. https://www.britannica.com/art/Anglo-Norman-literature
  44. https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14387
  45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48603093
  46. https://www.britannica.com/art/chanson-de-geste
  47. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/474569/summary
  48. https://archive.org/details/eighteenanglonor0000unse
  49. https://anglo-norman.net/the-anglo-norman-prose-brut-tradition/
  50. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt284t5g
  51. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328967213_The_Anglo-Norman_Bible_Stories_in_Ms_Brit_Libr_Harley_2253
  52. https://www.reading.ac.uk/gcms/-/media/project/functions/research/graduate-centre-for-medieval-studies/documents/rms-2016-08-cleglu-reading-abbeys-anglo-norman-french-translation-of-the-bible-ms1c.pdf?la=en&hash=F33E36BCBC7AB7A629521043D56327AE
  53. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/4113
  54. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/3715
  55. https://archive.org/details/walterofhenleys00henl
  56. https://archives.library.wales/index.php/seneschaucy-legal-and-vaticinatory-texts
  57. https://hekint.org/2020/07/06/plague-epidemics-and-the-evolution-of-language-in-england/
  58. https://www.ciol.org.uk/plague-prestige-how-black-death-empowered-english-language
  59. https://eurasia.sil.org/culture-and-society/history_and_religion/the_rise_in_the_use_of_english_in_the_14th_century_how_the_langu
  60. https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/did-hundred-years-war-against-france-strengthen-sense-english-national-identity
  61. https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/article/the-three-languages-of-the-common-law/
  62. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/law_french
  63. https://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/en/blogue-blog/langue-du-droit-legal-terminology-eng
  64. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijld-2016-0002/html?lang=en
  65. https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/c4opee/til_a_survey_of_80000_words_estimated_the_origin/
  66. https://englishonline.britishcouncil.org/blog/articles/exploring-modern-english-words-with-french-origin-part-1/
  67. https://anglo-norman.net/the-missing-link-in-english-etymology/
  68. https://www.uis.no/en/research/events/language/reassessing-the-impact-of-french-on-the-semantic-development-of-late
  69. https://www.oed.com/discover/middle-english-an-overview/
  70. https://www.raymondhickey.com/IERC_Language_in_Ireland--Anglo_Norman.htm
  71. http://www.raymondhickey.com/IERC_Language_in_Ireland--Anglo_Norman.htm
  72. https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T250001-001/header.html
  73. https://www.persee.fr/doc/irlan_0183-973x_1990_num_15_1_912
  74. https://www.courts.ie/visit-and-learn/history-of-the-law-in-ireland
  75. https://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/jerriais.shtml
  76. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-in-britain-and-ireland/channel-islands-french/D2CC706166DD88D295893264202E6A80
  77. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Channel_Islands_Languages
  78. https://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/jerriais_history.shtml
  79. https://anglo-norman.net/
  80. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%252FP006574%252F1
  81. https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/modernlangs/research/current-research/anglo-norman-dictionary/
  82. https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/the-oxford-anglo-norman-reading-group/
  83. https://www.anglo-norman-texts.net/?p=378
  84. https://www.anglo-norman-texts.net/?p=397
  85. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367719961_Diachronic_Semantic_and_Morphological_Analysis_of_Abstract_Noun_Doublets_of_Norman-French_and_Anglo-Saxon_Origin
  86. https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=44021
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.