History of English (1st lecture)
1_ Circumstances which led to the subjugation of English after the Norman Conquest.
Norman Conquest was followed by the subjugation of English and the establishment of Norman French.
William the conqueror's accession to the throne of England led to several results. The most important was the introduction of a new nobility (Normans) in place of the old one. Normans belonging to various strata of society had settled in England after the conquest. The governing class consisted entirely of Normans. They continued to use French language for some 200 years after the conquest. French become a mark of social distinction. English was looked down upon by the ruling Normans. Through intermarriage and association with the ruling class, English men began to speak French. This state of affairs led to the subjugation of English.
Another reason was the continued contact with the continent (Europe). The English kings spent a lot of their time in France.
For e.g.:
1- William was the king of England and the duke of Normandy .
2- Henry 1 united the two domains.
English kings also married outside England.
What was true of the royalty applied also to the nobility. This led to the creation of an Anglo French aristocracy. Churchmen and merchants were compelled to go abroad. All these led to a close contact with the continent. And this contact led to the continued use of French in England.
English became the speech of the mass of the people.
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2_ Influence of the Norman Conquest on the development of the English language.
The Norman Conquest [1066- 1200] of England had a great effect on the English language. It was followed by the subjugation of English and the establishment of Norman French as the language of the rulers of the country. Hence English was greatly influenced by French.
A – Influence on vocabulary.
1- English was enriched by the use of a large number of French words.
2- Knowledge of French introduced the English to the continental literature.
3- French loan words reflects the relation between the French and English- that of master and servant.
4- The words relating to law, government and property.
5- Military terms.
E.g. war, battle, arms.
6- All the commonest designation of classes of tradesmen.
E.g. the butcher, the barber, the tailor.
7- The terms denoting family relationships.
8- The French word 'face' was adopted.
9- The literary adoption of French words had begun in the twelfth century day.
10- The custom of adopting Latin words by way of French paved the way for extensive borrowings from Latin.
11- English rejected a large number of words of Anglo Saxon origin.
B - Influence on Grammar:
1- English adopted the endings for forming the feminine nouns like tigress, lioness etc. The ending has been used for designations of persons as in poetess, authoress, mana geress etc
2- English adopted an additional mode of expressing the notion of the possessive case. The additional expression was the son of David.
3- The plural 'you' was substituted for the singular 'thou' in the second person. This many be traced to Latin language where a great person was addressed ' you' instead of 'thou' corresponding to the 'we' used by such a person in place of I.
C – Decay of inflectional system:
The decay of the old English inflexional system has been partly due to French influence. When the inflexions were lost there were no means of distinguishing the noun in the nominative case from the noun in the accusative case except by assigning a fixed place to each in the sentence.
D – Replacement of grammatical gender:
The decay of inflections made it difficult to recognize the gender of a noun. In this way the grammatical gender was replaced by natural gender.
E – Changes in orthography:
(the system of spelling in a language.
Some of the English spelling conventions go back to old English while others have been introduced by Norman French scribes after the Norman conquest. This accounts for the different spellings of the /s/ sound in mouse and mice.
Again the French scribes were responsible for the introduction of - th spelling to represent the
(…….) and (……..) occurring in thing and this respectively.
The long sound ( u: ) of old English came to be written under French as o u. thus old English ' hu:s' became hous and mu:s became mous.
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Conclusion:
The Norman Conquest was an event of the most far-reaching consequences on the English language.