Assimilation of French words by the speakers of English was a more difficult process than assimilation of Scandinavian words.The French language belonged to a different linguistic group and had very little in common with English.The Norman Conquerors of England had originally come from Scandinavia.About one hundred and fifty years before they scized the valley of the Scine and settled in what was henceworth known as Normandy.They were swiftly assimilated by the French and in the 11th century came to Britain as French speakers and bearers of French culture.They spoke the Northern dialect if French,which differed in some points from Central,Parisian French.Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as “Anglo-Norman”,but may just as well be called French,since we are less concern-
ed here with the distinction of French dialects than with continuous French influence upon English,both in Norman period of history and a long while after the Anglo-Norman language had ceased to exist.
The Conquest of England by the Normans was the third invasion of this island by a Teutonic race from countries across the German Sea;for the Normans were closely related both to the Anglo-Saxons and to their Danish Conquerors,and originally they spoke a language allied to the Anglo-Saxon.But they had travelled far,and acquired much,since they had left their remote Scandinavian birthplace.For 150 years before they came to England they had been settled in Normandy,where they had lost almost all memory of their original speech,and adopted a new religion,a new system of law and society,new thoughts and a new manners.They therefore came practically as Frenchmen to their English and Danish cousins;and it was the speech of French,the civilization of France that they had brought with them.But the speech of France was a very different language from Modern French as we know it;indeed there was not,at this time,any recognized and classical French,but only a number of dialects;among which that of Normandy was the one which was first introduced into England.These French dialects were descended from the popular and collequal Latin once common in most of the Roman Provinces,but which underwent divers changes in various regions-changes which have produced the various related forms of speech-French,Italian,Spanish,etc-which are united under the common name of Romance languages.These Latin words suffered many transformations in becoming French;many of the consonant and vowels were so unchanged,and the words were so shortened and clipped by the omission of unaccented syllables,that their connexion with their Latin ancestors is often not very apparent.As later in the history of England many of these words came into the language in forms more nearly approaching their Latin originals,we can see by comparing them with those adopted from the French,after they had undergone the process of phonetic decay, how greatly they had been changed in that process.Thus compute and count both descended from the Latin computare,secure and sure,blaspheme and blame,dominion and dungeon,dignity and dainty,codence and chance are others among these”doublets”,as they are called,in which the longer form of the word in each case is more directly from the Latin,while the shorter has suffered a French transformation.
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When in the year 1204 Normandy was lost in the English Crown,and the English Normans were separated from their relatives on the Continent,their French speech began to change,as all forms of speech must change,and developed into a dialect of its own,with some peculiar forms,and many words borrowed from English.This was at first the language of the court and low in England;it was taught in the schools and written in legal enactments and continued to be used by lawyers for more than 300 years.Indeed,in the form of what is called “Low French”it continued in use down to quite recent times.An attempt was indeed made in the fourteenth century to replace French by English in the law courts,but the lawyers went on thinking and writing in French and developed little by little a queer jargon of their own,which they used down to the end of the seventeenth century.From this dialect or technical law-jargon many words were adopted in English,not only strictly legal terms like jury,larceny,lease,perjury,etc.but others which have gained a more popular use-as assets, embezzle, disclaim,distress, hue and cry, hotchpotch,
improve.One of the most curious of these is the word culprit,which is a contraction of the legal phrase “culpable,prest,meaning’(he is)’guilty (and we are) ready (to prove it).
It was,then,from the Anglo-or Norman French that the earliest of English French words were derived,and the greater part of those borrowed before 1350 were probably from this source.In the meantime,however,the Central or Parisian French dialect,having become the language of the French Court and of French literature,began to be fashionable in England,and many words were adopted from it into English.It is by no means always easy to distinguish between the sources of French words,whether they came to English from Anglo-or Parisian French.In many cases the forms are the same,but as a rule the early and popular words may be put down to Anglo-French,and the later adoptions and learned words to borrowings from the literary language of Paris.
Anglo-Norman words must have been very hard to pronounce as they contained many sounds which did not exist in English,such as nasalized vowels,the sound [y] and soft palatalized consonants.Word accentuation in OFr was foreign to English,a language of the Germanic group:in French the main stress fell on the ultimate or penultimate syllable of the word.Nevertheless,phonetic assimilation of borrowed words progressed quickly.The foreign features were lost and the words were adapted to the norms of English pronunciation.French sounds were replaced by resembling English sounds.Thus,French [y] was reflected in English as [u] or [ju],e.g.OFr juge,ME juge,NE juge,OFr vertu,ME vertu,NE virtue.Palatalised [l’] and [n’] were shown as ordinary [l] and [n] or sequences [i] in, cf. e.g., OFr faillir,which contained [l’],and ME failen,NE fail;OFr-compagnie-ME companye,NE company.The nasalized vowels lost their nasal character;e.g.OFr chambre,ME chaumbre,NE chamber,OFr changier,ME chaungen,changen [a:],NE change.
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It is customary to divide the time in which English was in contact with French into two periods, 1) Anglo-Norman and 2) Central French. The first period lasted from the invasion of 1066 to the loss of Normandy to England under King John in 1204. After this there is little or no direct influence of French on English but the language remained fashionable and the practice of borrowing words from the continental language continued well into the 15th century. The Central French period (during which influence from the region around Paris dominated) can be taken to cease gradually with the introduction of printing at the end of the 15th century and the general resurgence in interest and status of English.
The region known as Isle de France (Paris and its surroundings). The label Central French refers to late medieval speech there.
Some few words pre-date the Norman conquest such as prud ‘proud’ and tur ‘tower’. The greatest influence set in the mid 13th century. The number of borrowings runs into thousands. These are to be found in certain spheres of life like politics and administration, cuisine, the judiciary, etc.
The difference between Anglo-Norman and Central French loans in English is to be seen in famous pairs of words like catch and chase, both of which go back originally to Latin captiare, which itself furnished English with the later loan ‘capture’.
How can we distinguish among early loans and later ones? Not a fail-safe method, but perhaps useful—difference in the shape of words as a result of dialectal differences between Norman and Central French:
1. initial affricate consonants, as in chant and judge changed in 13th c. French to fricative sounds, as in Modern French chant, judge. This means we can divide early and later borrowings accordingly:
. early: charge, change, chamber, chase, chair, chimney, just, jewel, journey, majesty, gentle
· later: chamois, chiffon, chevron, jabot, rouge, etc.
2. Norman-French had the hard stop [k] sound in ca- while Central French had cha-, chie. English borrowed from Norman: carry, carriage, case [box], cauldron, carrion, etc. English occasionally took over the same word in its Norman and central French shape, e.g. Norman catel >> E. cattle = Central Fr. Chattel >> E, chattel(s). E. catch = N. cachier; E. chase = N. cachier; E. chase = Central Fr. Chacier [Mod. Fr. Chaser]
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N. calange [1225] Fr. Challenge [1300]
N. canchelers [1066] Fr. Chanceleres [1300]
3.Norman dialects of French favored initial and medial w- instead of Central French g so we have pairs of loans, clearly dating from earlier (Norman) and later (Central Fr.)
N. wile [1154] Fr. guile [1225]
N. warrant [1225] Fr. guarantee [1624]
N. reward [1315] Fr. regard [1430]
The form of many French loan-words can be used to date borrowing.As mentioned above there are two strands of French influence,an early Anglo-Norman one and a later Central French one.
After 1250 the influence of Central French was predominant in England.In this variety of French the original [k] retained in Norman French was shifted to[tʃ] which is reflected in the writing where “c” was changed to “ch”.Thus,we have the Central French verb “chacier” being borrowed into Middle Engish as “chacen,MnE
“chase”.Note that the later borrowing did not replace the earlier one in keeping with the principle that if two variant forms come to be distinguished semantically their continuing existence in the language is as good as guaranteed.Not so with a number of other Norman French borrowings which were replaced by the later Central French [tʃ] but words like “chef”and “champagne”with [ʃ] are of a later origin.
Similar differences in pronunciation can be used to date other loan-words from French.For example,the relationship of [dʒ] and [ʒ] shows the relative chronology of borrowing. The older loans such as “ siege, judge, age ” show the affricate [dʒ]
whereas newer loans from the Early Modern English period have the simple
fricative typical of Modern French as in rouge[ru:ʒ];with the word “garage” there still exist two alternative pronunciations[ˡgærɪdʒ/ and /gəˡrɑ:ʒ].
One can also recognise later borrowings by the vowel quality when the stress is found on the final syllable: memoir (cf. the earlier loan memory), liqueur (cf. the earlier form liquor).
Difference between French dialects is also manifested in the treatment of the groups [ca] and [ga].In the Northern dialects these groups remained unchanged,as in camber<VL cameram ”chamber”,cachier<VL captiare ”chase”,gardin Germanic “gardin” “garden”In Parisian French [ca] became [tʃa](spelt cha),while[ga]became
[dʒa](spelt ja):chambre,chaser,jardin.Northern dialects usually have[tʃ] (spelt ch) for Southern [tʃ] as in:cachier<VL captiare ”chase”,lanchier<VL lanciare“launch”.
An essential difference between Anglo-Norman and Parisian French concerned the diphthong [eı],which had developed from Vulgar Latin closed [ē] in an open syllable and from e+i,as in lei<VL legem ”law”,preire<VL praeda “prey”, veile <
VL”veil”,streit<VL strectum”narrow”,leisir<VL lecere”leisure”.
In Anglo-Norman the diphthong [eı] remained unchanged,where as in Parisian French it developed into [oı] and later through [oe] into [wa](compare Modern French loi,proie,voile,étroit,loisir,all pronounced with[wa]).
The Old French diphthong [oı],as we saw,developed into [wa] in Modern French,while it remained [oı] in English, as in the words ”point, loyal”.In these cases,then English has preserved the old French sounds,which underwent basic changes in French itself.VL long closed [ō] in an open syllable appears as[u] in Anglo-Norman,as in:”flur<VL florēm “flower”,hure<VL hōram”hour”,honur<VL honōrem “honour”,colour<VL colōrem “colour”, labur<VL labōrem ”labour”.
In Parisian French this vowel was diphthongized and eventually developed into[ö](spelt eu),cf.Modern French “fleur,heure,honneur,couleur,labeur”.
VL closed [o] before n+consonant appears in Anglo-Norman as [u] in:munt<Vl montem”mountain”,frunt <VL frontem”forehead”,round<VL rotondum “round”.
French nasal [a] before “n+consonant”,especially before “n+dental consonant”, appears in Anglo-Norman as “au”:chaunce,daunce,comaunder,braunche.These variants penetrated into English,but,from the 14th century onward,Parisian variants with “a” also appear,more especially before [ndʒ], [ntʃ], [mb]: strange, branche,
chamber,etc.
In Norman French, the combination of “ui” was accented on the first vowel,
leaving simple u [y] after the i was lost.In Middle English,this [y] became [u] or [ui],hence English “fruit”.
In Central French,the accent was shifted from from ”ui” to “iu”,giving in Modern French,the pronunciation we find in “oui”.
The difference between Anglo-Norman and Parisian French was clearly realized as can be seen from three well-known lines from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”.In describing the Prioress,the author says:
And French she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford ate Bave,
For French of Paris was to hir unknave.
“And French she spoke very nicely and elegantly,according to the school of Stratford-at-the-Bow(a suburb of London),for French of Paris was unknown to her”.
For a comparatively brief period in the 12th and 13th centuries there arose in England a rich literature in the Anglo-Norman language.It was at this time that the great poem Brut by Wace appeared,which told the history of the early kings of Britain,also a poem on Tristian and Iseult and a number of other literary works.In the 14th century Anglo-Norman literature began to decline;however,even towards the end of the century the poet John Gower(1325-1408),who composed poetry in three languages,wrote alongside of his Latin poem Vox Clamantis(The Voice of the Caller),in which he described the rising of Wat Tyler in 1381,and his English poem Confession Amantis (the Lover’s Confession),a French (that is,Anglo-Norman) poem entitled Speculum Medantis(The Meditator’s Mirror) or Mirrair de L’homme(The Man’s Mirror).It would sometimes happen that a word was borrowed from Parisian French which already existed in English in its Anglo-Norman variant.The Parisian variant would often supersede the Anglo-Norman.
Thus,in Chaucer we find the word ”viage” from Anglo-Norman “veiage”;this was eventually superseded by the Parisian “voyage”.In ME we find the word “carite” “charity”,from Lat.caritatem,which was eventually superseded by Parisian charité. In a few cases both variants survived,as in “catch” and “chase”,both from Latin “captiare”,but difference of meaning has developed between them.Most French words adopted by the English language came from Anglo-Norman,and its phonetic peculiarities are reflected in the borrowed words.
In the 14th century English also took over some words from the Parisian (Francian) dialect.It is quite easy to distinguish ME Fr. loans from EModE, and all loans afterwards, due to the spelling and pronunciation of the latter loans. A quick glance at the lists above reveals that the Fr. loans did not depart greatly from their sources. In other words, the loans from EModE and afterwards have not become anglicized like the ME ones.In most cases, they are spelt the same as the source or something close to it.Consequently, the letters –é(e), â, and ï enter the language’s orthography.
However, as Henry Alexander rightly points out they do not belong to the English spelling system; therefore, they should be disposed of. We do see this happening in words like cafe and melee, which are commonly written without accents. The rule of thumb seems to be that the more popular the loan becomes the more anglicized its appearance.
The pronunciation also remains as close to the original as allowed by the English phonological system.Thus the ch in champagne is pronounced [ʃ] instead of [tʃ] as in Fr. words taken over in the ME period, e.g. change and chamber. Similarly ge in rouge is pronounced [ʒ] instead of [dʒ] as in edge. ME loans were affected by the Great Vowel Shift, thus we have the diphthong /ai/ in words like nice and vine but a long monophthongal /i:/ in the EModE nouns machine and police. Another typical distinguishing characteristic is the retention of stress on the second syllable, especially in words that end in –et(te), -esque, -oon, ade, e.g. cadet, coquette, picturesque, grotesque, buffoon, promenade, and parade.Prof. Alexander duly points out that the deliberate attempt to pronounce these French loans has resulted in something that is neither French nor English He correctly claims that it would be better and more in accordance with the tradition of our language to make garage one hundred per cent English and let it rime with carriage, and to stop trying to pronounce two nasal vowels in ensemble, because even if one is successful, which most are not, it is an undesirable disturbance to the normal English speech habits. He suggests that en should be pronounced as in hen and the em as in them, as we do in resemble and assemble.The usual pronunciation onsomble is neither English nor French.
The degree of phonetic assimilation of foreign words is further attested by their participation in the sound changed of English.ME borrowings from French underwent the same Early NE phonetic changes as native words,and as words borrowed in preceding period,e.g.long accented vowels were subjected to the Great Vowel Shift,final unstressed vowels were reduced and dropped,e.g.ME robe[′ro:bə]>NE robe;ME changen [tʃa:ndʒən]>NE change.