A recent trip to England, when I visited the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, where the Battle of Hastings occurred, inspired me to do a series of posts about how the English language changed after that battle.
William the Conqueror of Normandy, France, invaded British soil, and these French-speaking Normans eventually defeated the Old English-speaking Saxons led by King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. Language experts often cite this as the start of a period of time having a more pronounced effect on the development of the English language than any other event in history.
Some changes occurred very quickly and others took longer to be accepted, but in the course of a few centuries, English went from being a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.
You can read all my posts about French into English, including this recent series covering words about legal topics, warfare, food, religion, government, literature, and even things of pleasure.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments need to be approved by the admins. Spam will be deleted.