History of Middle English : 11th Century

Norman French in the Kingdom of England

The transfer of power in 1066 resulted in only limited culture shock. But the top levels of society of English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies were removed. Their replacements spoke Norman French and used Latin for administrative purposes. Thus Norman French came into use as a language of polite discourse and literature, and this fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of the early period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. Although Old English was by no means as standardized as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than was post-Conquest English.[clarification needed] Even now, after nearly a thousand years, the Norman influence on the English language is still apparent, though it did not begin to affect Middle English until somewhat later.

Consider these pairs of Modern English words. The first of each pair is derived from Old English and the second is of Anglo-Norman origin: pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, wood/forest, sheep/mutton, house/mansion, worthy/honorable, bold/courageous, freedom/liberty.

The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government which derive from Anglo-Norman: court, judge, jury, appeal, and parliament. Also prevalent in Modern English are terms relating to the chivalric cultures which arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism and crusading. Early on, this vocabulary of refined behavior began to work its way into English: the word 'debonair' appears in the 1137 Peterborough Chronicle; so too does 'castel' (castle), another import of the Normans, who made their mark on the English language as much as on the territory of England itself.

This period of trilingual activity developed much of the flexible triplicate synonymy of modern English. For instance, English has three words meaning roughly "of or relating to a king":
Kingly from Old English,
Royal from French and
Regal from Latin.

Likewise, Norman and — later — French influences led to some interesting word pairs in English, such as the following, which both mean "someone who defends":
Warden from Norman, and
Guardian from French (itself of Germanic origin).