Norman in the Kingdom of England

The Norman conquest of England in 1066 resulted in only limited culture shock. However, the conquest saw the replacement of top levels of English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by the Norman-speaking rulers who used Latin for administrative purposes. Thus Norman 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. 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/ valuable, 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 that derive from Anglo-Norman: court, judge, jury, appeal, parliament. Also prevalent in Modern English are terms relating to the chivalric cultures that 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, imports 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 fromOldEnglish,

· royal fromFrench

· regal fromLatin.

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 fromNorman,

· Guardian from French (Both "warden" and "guardian" are derived from Germanic.