A study on the changing of french loanwords in english

English has become a common language for the reason that it absorbed a great quantity of foreign vocabulary or phrases in the process of formation and development.. It is said that about

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH

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GRADUATION THESIS

TOPIC: A STUDY ON THE CHANGING OF

FRENCH LOANWORDS IN ENGLISH

Name of student : Nguyễn Thùy Dung Date of birth : 25/06/1992

Class : K18-BPD1 Supervisor : M.A Lưu Chí Hải

HÀ NỘI - 2015

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and the whole content in the study has not been submitted from any other studies Where other sources of information has been used, they have been acknowledges

Hanoi, 4th May 2015

First of all, I would like to thank Management Board of the English Faculty at Hanoi Open University for giving me a great opportunity to study

on the loanwords in English

I am very grateful to all the teachers at the English Faculty of Hanoi Open University for their interesting and useful lectures which help me to develop ideas for the fulfillment of this paper

In addition, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Lưu Chí Hải, from whom I received enormous kindness and guidance

In particular, my special thanks go to my parents and my sister who have encouraged and supported me in all aspects

Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends who have shared with me a lot during my studies

Hanoi 4th May 2015

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objects of the study 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Research questions 4

5 Methods of the study 4

6 Design of the study 4

PART B DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER I AN OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY AND LOANWORDS 6

1.1 Vocabulary 6

1.1.1 Definition of vocabulary 6

1.1.2 Source of English Vocabulary 6

1.2 Definition of loanwords 7

1.3 Reasons for language borrowing 10

1.4 Methods of loanwords’ absorption 11

1.4.1 Direct borrowing 12

1.4.2 Indirect borrowing 13

1.5 Classification of English borrowings 14

1.5.1 On the degree of linguistic aspects 14

1.5.2 On the degree of assimilation 16

1.6 The origin of French language in English 17

CHAPTER II THE ANALYSIS ON THE CHANGING OF FRENCH LOANWORDS INTO ENGLISH LANGUAGE 20

2.1 Middle English Period (1066-1500) 21

2.1.1 Changes in terms of social background 21

2.1.2 Changes in terms of pronunciation 30

2.1.3 Changes in terms of spelling 32

2.1.5 Changes in terms of grammar 34

2.2 The Early Modern English period (1500-1800) 35

2.2.1 Changes in history background 35

2.2.2 Changes in terms of pronunciation 37

2.2.3 Changes in terms of grammar 38

2.3 The Modern English/The Late Modern English (1800-present) 39

2.3.1 Changes in history background 39

2.3.2 Changes in terms of pronunciation 40

CHAPTER III APPLICATION OF STUDYING FRENCH LOANWORDS IN ENGLISH 43

3.1 Applying in studying English for students and further research on loanwords in English 43

3.2 Applying in translating English – French and French – English texts 44 3.3 Applying in teaching English 45

3.4 Applying in being a reference for further study 45

PART C CONCLUSION 47

REFERENCE 49

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages exist over the world; however, only 13 out of 6,500 languages are considered as the most populous language, including Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi and English, etc Among those languages, English has always been chosen as the official language in many countries and extensively used by more than 2 billion people nowadays More and more people believe that English is a dominant business language and it is necessary for them to learn English to enter a global workforce Furthermore, learning English also gives people opportunities to access the knowledge source that is currently available in English on the Internet Therefore, it will allow everyone to achieve an incredible amount of information that people may not find in different languages

When different cultures have become involved in each other, the result will be a trade of transferring linguistic material from one language to another language The exchange of words has happened between many cultures and left its marks in many modern languages, and English is not an exception in this development English has become a common language for the reason that it absorbed a great quantity of foreign vocabulary or phrases in the process of formation and development It is said that about 80 percent of English vocabulary are borrowed from different foreign languages The loanwords obviously had great benefits for the language since they enriched the English vocabulary sources in different fields and made its impression various, enabling English users to express the ideas relevantly and vividly

In general, English has two major characteristics including flexibility and diversity; thus, the feature of any type of languages can be seen in the use

of English English contains a rich vocabulary resource because of its ability

to absorb new words from other languages, as well as to accept the customs and cultural concepts of foreign nations These basic features, thus, provide English a potential of borrowing foreign languages According to many surveys, there is a mutual dependence between language and culture The linguistic development would exist unless there were culture and the culture exchange between different countries Thanks to its complex and specific formation and development, the most outstanding feature of English is the mixture of vocabulary, which is named “world-wide vocabulary”

In fact, the quantity of borrowing words in English is numerous and it comes from a great variety of language sources It illustrates that the field of loanwords in English is very diverse According to many linguistic figures, Latin, French, Germanic and other languages established up to 29 per cent, 29 per cent, 26 per cent, 16 per cent, respectively The data shows that the connection between English and French is very close The integration of French into English, in the aspects of time and historical background, leads to

a great change of French words entering the English

In Vietnam, learning French is quite popular, along with learning English The researching in French language is also an interesting field that stimulates students majoring in linguistic For example, a topic about French loanwords in English is rather new to students in Vietnam though there are few documents and research related to this field available Therefore, it is necessary to study the topic carefully and provide correct and helpful information about the origin, development and influences of loanwords in English In this paper, I expect to introduce main aspects of loanwords in English vocabulary source, which help people understand the important role

of these words in varying expression

2 Aims and objects of the study

The overall aim of the study is to collect valid and reliable information

on the topic of French loanwords in English, including its origins, historical background, classification and development To be more specific, the study elaborates the history of the process of absorbing borrowed words from French in English in different periods It also analyses the process of absorbing loanwords in English and their influences on English pronunciation, grammar, meaning and word-formation

During the process of collecting data and information, the research may have some specific purposes The first aim is to understand the process of accepting and forming new words from other languages in English The second aim is to provide more information on the origins, the historical background of the integration of French loanwords in English The final aim

is to clarify the changes of French loanwords when being imported to English

In short, I hope the thesis will be a helpful document for students to understand further about the importance of loanwords in English and the use

of these words in studying English

The field of loanwords plays an important part in developing English language and enlarging the language’s vocabulary source Hence, this study will particularly focus on an objective, the loanwords from different countries

in English

3 Scope of the study

The study was conducted to provide knowledge and information on French loanwords in English language The intended audience of this thesis includes teachers, students of Hanoi Open University or other universities and colleges, who are interested in the topic and expect to read some correct definitions and theories as well as the viewpoints of a student majoring in

English Thus, in the thesis, I hope to provide them an overview of French loanwords in English, which may become a crucial factor to enrich the amount of vocabulary for English language learners

4 Research questions

• When were French words borrowed into English?

• Why were French words absorbed in English?

• What are changes of French loanwords when being absorbed in English?

5 Methods of the study

• Gathering and summarizing information available on the Internet or in relevant books, documents, newspaper

• Arranging and classifying the data in an appropriate order for every chapter

• Data analysis

6 Design of the study

My graduation paper is divided into three main parts:

Part A: Introduction

This part has introduced:

1 Rationale

2 Aims and Objects

3 Scope of the study

4 Method of the study

5 Design of the study

Part B: Development

Chapter I An overview of English vocabulary and loanwords

Chapter II The Analysis on the Changing of French loanwords into English language

Chapter III Application of studying French loanwords in English

Part C: Conclusion

In Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, “vocabulary” is defined as

“a set of carefully chosen words used to write the explanations in some dictionaries”

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, “vocabulary” refers to “the words that make up a language”

1.1.2 Source of English Vocabulary

In terms of Etymology, the vocabulary of English is considered as various and diversified source of language It is made up of two types of words including the native stock of words and the borrowed stock of words (loanwords)

Several previous analysis of linguists shows that the amount of borrowed words is much larger than the amount of native words In fact, native words constitute only 30% of the total number of words in the English vocabulary; however, the 30% native words form a great quantity of the most common words used in spoken and written languages In addition, the native words have a great variety of grammatical and lexical valence The loanwords are considered to be highly polysemantic and productive in creating word clusters and set expressions Native words are divided into 3 basic groups:

• The words which have cognates (words of the same etymological root, of common origin) in many Indo-European languages

• The words which have cognates with words of the language of the Germanic group

Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European group

For example:

- words indicate parts of human body, including head, hand, arm, finger;

- words indicate animals: bear, fox;

- words describe natural phenomena: rain, frost;

- words describe furniture: house, bench;

- words are adjective: green, blue, old, good, small, high;

- words are verbs: see, hear, tell, say, drink, give

• The English element proper,

For example: bird, boy, girl, woman, lord, always

1.2 Definition of loanwords

Borrowing words is considered an effective linguistic phenomenon to enrich the vocabulary of a language English has borrowed a large quantity of new words from different languages over the world in the course of its development The vocabulary and expression borrowed from French take up a considerable portion of the loanwords currently existing in English language

According to thehistoryofenglish.com, loanwords are defined as “words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language (the source language)” Another term of “loanwords” is “borrowings” The word

“borrowing” refers to the process of people accepting new words from a source language into their native language It is clear that the words “loan” and “borrowing” are metaphors since there is no literal lending process in the development of any language The methods of “transferring” or “returning”

words between one and another language are not existed Loanwords, purely, became a part of a language as the community speaks a different language beside their own mother tongue

Borrowing may be internal and external The internal one is concerned

with the importance of: dialectal terms, or of archaisms (words belonging to

earlier stages of the respective language), as opposed to the external type, concerning loans/loanwords proper (terms coming from foreign languages) According to Wikipedia, A loanword is “a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language without translation”

Although the number of loanwords are less numerous than the nature words of most language, they are commonly used by people since they express certain purposes of users

According to dictionaries, there are many definitions for the term

“loanwords” For instances, Webster’s New Word College Dictionary, third edition defines it “loanword” as “a word of one language taken into another and naturalized” (Neufeldt, 1995) “Naturalized” means “to introduce into common use or into the vernacular” (Neufeldt, 1995) Loanwords are often even more widely known than native words because their borrowing served a certain purpose, for example to provide a name of a new invention (P.12)

“Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged of the English Language” gives another definition of the term “loanword”, as “a word in one language that has been borrowed or taken over from another language” In Longman Dictionary

of Contemporary English, “loanwords” mean “a word taken into one language from another” (Summers, 1993)

Besides, in Longman Dictionary of language Teaching & Applied linguistics, “loanword” is defined as “Borrowing is a word or phrase which has been taken from one language and used in another language When a

single word is borrowed, it is called a loanword.” (Richards, 2000) During many periods of history, the definition of “loanword” was a highly controversial topic loans while other would prefer to draw a conclusion that borrowings refer to both phonetic loans and translated loans

The word “loanwords” itself, actually, is a type of a loanword It originated in a German word “lehnwort”, which means precisely loanword In this case, the meaning of the German words (lehn + wort), the English equivalents are used Obviously, the speakers of “borrowing” language must

be able to understand and speak two languages (their native language and the

“lending” language) so that words can be borrowed from the “lending” language

A majority of linguists supports the opinion that all imported or coined for new objects, ideas and experiences should be called “loanwords”, including hybrid, phonetic and semantic loans A Swiss linguist, Saussure, mentioned in his study that there is no natural boundaries in languages, as well as “intercourse” actually exists between a language and its importation of foreign languages in the general process of developing languages Saussure’s aim was to prove geographical diversity and coexistence of languages without merging; therefore, he did not give many details on language importation However, the statements might be regarded as one of the initial and convincing opinions on language borrowing in linguistic perspective

Sapir (2001) indicated that the act of “borrowing” words is the most specific way to show the influence of one language on another It is obvious that a language new borrowed words and terms from other kinds of languages

as a result of cultural borrowings For instance, when Christianity was first introduced to England, some religion-related words, namely, bishop and angel, has become gradually common by English priests and Christians The

word-borrowing process has continued until the present day when each cultural wave contributed a great number of loanwords to the language

1.3 Reasons for language borrowing

The reasons for a language such as English to borrow words from other languages are manifold In this case, Katamba notes that there is no purely linguistic reason for borrowing He believes that no limit exists to the number

of words that can be generated in any language (Katamba, 1994) But still, whenever the need for a new term arises, due to the contact between people from different cultures, the formation of a neologism, composed of elements

of the own language, is only rarely done The first reason for borrowing a suitable word from other language is to find a suitable term for an unfamiliar thing, animal, or cultural device Then borrowing seems to be the easiest solution to this problem

Another reason for just borrowing a term might also be the question of identity This is especially the case with bilingual speakers who, by using a foreign element in their speech, make a statement about their own self-perception (Katamba, 1994) In this context, code-switching also becomes an irreplaceable part borrowing If a word is habitually used in code-switching, it

is likely to pass over from one language to the other before becoming fully integrated into the borrowing language

Moreover, a further, often underestimated reason for borrowing is prestige Katamba notes here that people have “always liked to show off” (Katamba, 1994) Gramley indicated that these terms frequently come from the languages called “languages of classical learning (Gramley, 2001)

On the one hand they serve to enrich the language, but on the other hand the words make certain stylistic registers more inaccessible to the masses The meaning of some of these highly prestigious words is often not

directly obvious to the average speaker of English, and thus, their meaning has to be learned

Amongst the above mentioned reasons for borrowing from foreign languages, the most obvious and maybe also the most profound one is the introduction of new concepts for which there are no suitable words in the task language Concerning this, Katamba writes that that at various periods in world history different civilisations have been pre-eminent in one field or another (like for example sciences, trade, military, and medicine) He claimed that the normal course of development was then that the language of this civilisation became the lingua franca for that specific field during the period

of their pre-eminence (Katamba, 1994) This is also reflected by the concentration of borrowings in certain semantic fields from that language to others

The obvious thing here is a very basic distinction that can be made between borrowings Direct borrowing is when a language takes over a term

directly from another language The English word omelette is an example for

direct borrowing because it has been taken over from French directly, without any major phonological or orthographical changes (Katamba, 1994)

1.4 Methods of loanwords’ absorption

Language is rarely self-sufficient; therefore, the method of mutual borrowing between languages is a widespread phenomenon English imported

a lot of foreign vocabulary from Old English to Mediaeval English to modern English The importation of new words has greatly enriched the vocabulary source of English French loanwords integrated into English though several times and became an important part of English, making up for the lack of English vocabulary The language has also been witness to the interaction of culture, politics and economy between the two European countries French

language influenced the English language only by the means of borrowing words Not in all cases, the French words and terms are borrowed into English with its original spelling and notions It is more often the case that only parts

of its meaning are transferred Occasionally, the spelling of French words is kept but its meaning in English is changed And other times, the opposite is the case With the purpose of avoiding confusion about the many different types of lexical borrowings, it is crucial to understand the different ways in which French words can enter the English language

There are two types of borrowing, which are direct borrowing and indirect borrowing

1.4.1 Direct borrowing

Direct borrowing means the spelling and the meaning of the loanwords are borrowed at the same time, in other words, new words entered English without distortion Take examples, some words like chargéd affairs (agency), café, coup déta (coup) (Katamba, 1994) are directly transferred from French words

Direct borrowings can be classified into foreign words, loanwords, pseudo-loanwords and mixed compounds

The borrowing of an English terms with its original spelling and meaning is the most common case in lexical borrowing Nevertheless, it is rather uncommon that the French words is borrowed into English with all of its meaning Normally, the words which is borrowed is only used in the recipient language with one of its meanings in the donor language These words are regarded as foreign words and loanwords

The difference between a foreign word and a loanword is the degree of integration into English language It is quite easy to identify a foreign word because it does not subject to any phonological, orthographical,

morphological and semantic changes in the recipient language In contrast, a loanword has experienced some of the changes mentioned above

The pseudo-loanwords was adapted in such a way into English that their original meanings are no longer readily recognized by indigenous French speakers due to the new circumstances in which they were being used in English (Wikipedia) Some example can be listed here, namely, bon viveur (a fashionable man), entrée (first course), rendez-vous (meeting/appointment), etc

In his book, Haugen divides loanwords into three main types predicated on their extent of morphemic substitution, including loanwords (the morphemic importation free of substitution), loan blends (the morphemic substitution and importation) and loan shifts (the morphemic substation without importation)

In this article, the most importance, however, is the criterion used by Haugen

to differentiate the three types The concepts of importation and substitution are defined as follows:

If the loan is similar enough to the model so that a native speaker would accept it as his own, the borrowing speaker may be said to have imported the model into his language, provided it is an innovation in that language but insofar as he has reproduced the model inadequately, he has normally substituted a similar pattern from his own language this

given loan as a whole but to its constituent patterns as well, since different parts of the pattern may be treated differently

(Haugen 1950: 212)

By these three indirect borrowing methods, numerous French loanwords has been imported to English, which not only enlarges and develop the English vocabulary source but also has a great impact on native English

Weinreich (1964) distinguishes loanwords as a simple (non-compound) lexical items) and compound words The non-compound words, which are outright transfer of the phonemic sequence from one language to another, are very common in many languages The compound words are from analyzed compounds in which its elements are adapted to word- formative or syntactic patterns of the target languages The Italian linguist Masini claims that the lexicon can either simply absorb a feature of new language without transformations or adapt it to its system Nevertheless, in reality, whenever a language adopts a foreign expression, few traits of that language may experience changes

1.5 Classification of English borrowings

1.5.1 On the degree of linguistic aspects

Borrowings in the English language were divided into four groups, including phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, and morphemic borrowings

The most typical type among four borrowings is phonetic borrowings, which is also called loan words These are words borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning After that, the words go through assimilation; each sound in the loanwords is replaced with the corresponding sound of the borrowing language Sometimes, the spelling of loanwords could

loanwords is imported to English, the position of the stress is easy to be influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language Other features, including paradigm and the meaning of borrowed words could also be

changed in some situations For example, labour, travel, table, chair, people

are phonetic borrowings from French

Translation loans refer to word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign words or expressions Concerning this type of loanwords, native lexical units would be used to express the concept which are borrowed from other languages For example:

• to take the bull by the horns (Latin)

• fair sex (French),

• living space (German)

Semantic borrowings involves in those loanwords which their meanings exist in the borrowed language The semantic borrowings can appear when two relative languages, English and French for example, have common words with different meanings

Semantic borrowing happens when an English word was imported into other languages and developed a new meaning of it owns, then this new meaning was borrowed back into English

Morphemic borrowings mean the borrowings of affixes in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar

to the people speaking the borrowing language

However, David Crystal provides the most comprehensive typology of loans in “A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics” In his book, D.Crystal distinguished following classes:

• Loan words, where both form and meaning are borrowed, or

‘assimilated’, loan blends, where the meaning is borrowed, but only part of the form,

• Loan shift, where the meaning is borrowed and the form is native,

• Loan translation, where the morphemes in the borrowed word are translated item by item, also known as calque

1.5.2 On the degree of assimilation

New words, which are borrowed from a foreign language to another often adjust themselves, in order that they can get adapted to the recipient languages After a long process of changing, the foreign features of the borrowed words are eliminated, leading to the assimilation of loanwords Sometimes, the assimilation even changed the whole origin words, making people unable to recognize the origin of the borrowed words For example,

cup, cat, take, dinner are “common” words in the English language but they are not originated in England

Four factors directly affect the borrowings on the degree of assimilation, including:

• The group of languages the word was borrowed (if the word belongs

to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier)

• The way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker

• The frequency of the loanword’s usage in the language (the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated)

• The time the word exists in the language, the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is

Therefore, borrowings are divided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated

Completely assimilated borrowings are different from foreign words in the language Completely assimilated verbs usually happen when the

language adopt regular verbs, for example: correct -corrected To form a

plural noun from the root word, completely assimilated nouns add s-inflexion,

for example: gate- gates The stress of a completely assimilated French word

would be shifted from the last syllable to the last one

Semantic assimilation of borrowed words relies on the words existing

in the borrowing language Along with that, a borrowed word does not convey all its meanings into the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic

Partly assimilated borrowings are divided into four groups:

• Borrowings non-assimilated semantically

• Borrowings non-assimilated grammatically

• Borrowings non-assimilated phonetically

• Borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically

Non-assimilated borrowings are borrowings which are seldom used by Englishmen, For example: addio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende (Spanish), an homme a femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc

1.6 The origin of French language in English

Borrowings become a part of a language in a very natural way The process begins with the act of people using words from another language beside their native language The people prefer to use foreign words in some particular situations, as they believe the foreign words are more prestigious than words in their native language More and more people, then, learn the foreign words and start using them more often, as time passes by An example

of this is that the upper class in the old English society often spoke French

and used it as official language in important documents During the period from 1650 to 1770, French was the leading political and cultural country in Europe Along with that, the French language was very prestigious and common during this time Although the native words often exists a long with the borrowed ones, sometimes, the native words died out and were replaced

by loanwords with same meanings

French words have been added to the English lexicon for many reasons cross-cultural communication and economic integration bring French spelling and pronunciation to English, however, many of them emanated from a few centuries ago, as a result of mainly two historical reasons

The Norman Conquest could obviously one of the reasons for absorbing loanwords The Normans, the people of Normandy in today's France, genuine Vikings, had surmounted Normandy a few centuries earlier

In 1066, William the Conqueror led The Normans to take over the whole of England For centuries thereafter, French became the main language of the ruling class in England

The colossal influence of France on Europe from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century also plays an important role in the contribution to the amount of loanwords, along with the geographic proximity of France and England

Another reason is that a language uses words that are not semantically differentiated enough A clear example in this case is the word “lufu” (love) with the meaning of “charity” before the 12th century It was sometimes very difficult to indicate what the speaker means with “lufu”; therefore, English borrowed the word “charity” from French, so as to specifically distinguish between the two words

Most English loanwords have existed as an indispensable part of the English source of vocabulary for a very long time The word “simple” was

adopted from the French language centuries ago, around 1220; however, it was not originally a French word, but had been borrowed from Latin The example illustrates that no matter how long the loanwords have existed in our vocabulary, it still be loanwords The loanwords have gone through many periods of history; thus, to distinguish between native words and loanwords,

we have to understand and know the history of the English language

Summary

To wrap up, the Chapter I - An overview of English vocabulary and loanwords provides clear definitions, classification, method of absorbing, reason and origin of vocabulary and loanwords/borrowings in English according to trustful source of dictionaries and famous linguists It is very essential to understand the foundation of loanwords in English so that we can analyze and study about the changing process of French loanwords being accepted to English language

CHAPTER II THE ANALYSIS ON THE CHANGING OF FRENCH

LOANWORDS INTO ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Loanwords, which also refer to the term “guests from another language,” invaded the English language Through the history periods of language development, words from other languages were taken to English mainly due to the constant uninvited arrival of invaders to the British island

How could a country of Celtic people develop such a language as English? It is obviously because of several invasions by foreign countries to the British Isles, bringing the countries’ languages, dialects and customs into England During the time of their settlement, the invaders make changes to both the written and spoken words of the English residents, who were able to adapt through the assimilation of borrowed words

The Romans was the first one to occupy England, bringing Latin to some English inhabitants The Latin language started influencing the Celt’s native language as the new-arrivals settled in When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived in Britain, they displace the Celts Thus, while the Angles Saxons and Jutes carried the original English language over, the foundation of the modern English language is Germanic with a great influence of French language

An analysis in Jespersen’s book “Growth and Structure of the English

Language” shows that the English language is a “chain of borrowings” as a result of the invasions of Britain by various invaders The invaders failed to impose completely their languages on the British but their languages were intermixed with the native speaker’s language According to Lerer S., if the Normans had not invaded England in 1066, English might have retained more

of its older inflectional structure However, it has been argued that the Norman Conquest changed the whole course of the English language It

marks the conventional transition from The Old English to Middle English, the spoken and written language in English from the end of eleventh century

to the end of the fifteenth

1.1 Middle English Period (1066-1500)

1.1.1 Changes in terms of social background

The Middle English period was marked by significant changes in the English languages, even more extensive and major than any changes of the previous periods

In general, the history of the English language, and borrowings, were affected by three invasions: Teutonic; Scandinavian (Vikings); and Norman However, the most important one was the Norman conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy in 1066 The most widespread and long-lasting collection of borrowed or “loanwords” was introduced to the English language when the French-speaking Normans, led by Williams the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), made a successful invasion in 1066 to the British Isles Undoubtedly, the Norman Conquest of England was the best-remembered event, followed by the battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066

The Norman occupied the British for a long time, even longer than the Norse did It lasted for over 300 years During the time of its occupation, the Norman overwhelmed the English and became the ruling master of British isles by changing the structures of British legal systems and religions As English became a written language of England, and a spoken language of the ruling class, it was influenced by French in different ways

A sort of language class welfare was brought to the Bristons by the ruling Normans People believe that once the foreign language conquered the

“losing language”, the latter would disappear Nonetheless, the Norman’s conquest could not eliminate the English The British nobles accepted the

French model, but the peasants kept using the Germanic tongue, creating a gap between their languages and borrowed words Later, the English languages and French borrowed words blended into Middle English

It is believe that the Norman and Conquest of 1066 was such a devastating period, when it created a new society with new ruling class, new cultural, social and linguistic impacts on the British Isles For almost three centuries, The Normans, as known as the old French rulers, led the minority conquered the church, legal, governmental and educational systems They established a political regime mainly using French and Latin while English turned into the language of the ruled and less educated majority like peasants During the period, thousands of Norman French words (a variety of Old Northern French) were imported to English, leading to a rapid change in English grammar

Generally, the changes in French loanwords and phrases into the English language were very important for the sake of communication among social classes Some writers, diplomat, the royal class, high-ranking people, businessmen who have a deep knowledge about French culture, learned and adapted loanwords from the French into the English language

The Norman Conquest had a great impact on every aspects of English people’s life, from their law, religion, medicine and arts If Britons had not accepted the new language, or borrowed French words, they would have been unable to communicate with their new masters The Britons would have to be able to understand what titles such as “duke” and “duchess”, which were adopted from French, meant and then assimilate these borrowed words into their daily life

The linguist Jespersen claims that many loanwords from French were integrated into the English language at this period was not only for the purpose of communication between different classes but also for the British to

imitate their “better” as a trend Some people think this as a form of snobbery while others agree that thanks to the integration of loanwords, the language skills could be improved For example, the French phrase “coup d’etat” is to describe “a person trying to overthrow a government” with sense of urgency

in the context, but it is easily recognized by many readers Another example is that, the word “chic” would be highly appreciated by women, rather than the word “stylish” It is clear that with knowledge of loanwords, it not only expands people’s vocabulary but also enables them to converse with others Obviously, the Britons had to borrow words which did not exist in their

native language, such as “majesty” or “mayor”, but it is hard to tell the reason

why they would replace the word “swin” with the French word “porc”, unless

we consider how the English farmers and French aristocrats dealt with livestock The two words share the same meaning, but “swin” is rather vulgar while “porc” is more refined “Swin” referred to “swine”, which would be raised by peasants, while “porc” or “pork” would be a type of meat for the upper-class French to eat The example illustrates that the borrowings would show the social status of the English person who used the French word

The French language had a great influence on the English, even bringing more loanwords to the language than the native words or definitions

of the Briton For example, the French loanword “infant” means “child”, and

“freedom” in English is “liberty” borrowed from French

The transformation and evolution of the English language in the period

is considered a dramatic change as the British inhabitants were willing to accept new loanwords from a foreign language like French While the French would likely to stay with their own language, the English people seemed to learn many synonymous words and phrases to enrich their source of language According to Jespersen’s analysis on transplanted words, “the English soil has proved more fertilizing than the French soil” (Jespersen, 1968) The quantity