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The Development of English: Middle English (1150-1500)
Between 450 and 1200, Latin, Danish, Old Norse, and Norman French fed the growing English language.
After the Norman Conquest, England’s new aristocracy spoke mainly French. Well-educated people needed to know three languages, however: French for dealing with the nobility or the courts; Latin for the church, business, and scholarship; and English for communicating with the majority of the common people.
Norman French became the language of the English court, of government business, of the new nobility, and of the scholars, cooks, and craftspeople that the Norman barons brought with them to serve their more “refined” needs. The use of English became confined to the conquered, mostly peasant population.
Hints of this class division still survive in modern English. For instance, Anglo-Saxons tending cattle in the field called the animal a cЇu, or cow, while the Norman aristocrats who dined on the product of their labors used the Old French word buef, or beef. Ever adaptable, English soon incorporated thousands of words and many grammatical conventions from Norman French.
French had a strong influence on English. Many French words were added, and many Old English words were dropped. French influence also led to the gradual simplification of English grammar and spelling. In fact, French increased the English vocabulary by a staggering 10,000 words, 7,500 of which are still in use.
During the long war with France, it came to seem unpatriotic among the upper class to use the language of the nation’s number-one enemy, especially since Anglo-Norman French was ridiculed by the “real” French speakers across the English Channel. By the end of the Hundred Years’ War, English had once again become the first language of most of the English nobility.
Today, almost half of Modern English’s vocabulary comes from Latin and French. French influence also led to the gradual simplification of English grammar and spelling. Middle English slowly developed into a language somewhat similar to the English used today.
Linguistic diversity, however, remained so great during this period that people in one part of England could often not understand people who lived in another part. Over time, the dialect spoken in London—the language in which Geoffrey Chaucer wrote—eventually became the standard.