English French

Hello everyone, did you enjoy your winter holiday?
Today I would like to talk about French, and how it came into the English language. We have many, many words in English that we borrowed from French. This is because it one time, about 1000 years ago, people in England all spoke different languages, and one of them was French.


In the year 1066, a man named William Duke of Normandy invaded England. William was from a group of people called The Normans, who spoke French. Norman means North Man, or a person from the north of Europe. Normans originally came from Scandinavia and settled in a place in the north of France, now known as Normandy. They settled down in France, and changed their language from the Germanic language of Scandinavia to a form of French. So they were originally Vikings from Scandinavia, but they spoke French.


At that time, Kings and other Aristocrats were often related to the Kings and Aristocrats in other countries. When one King in England died in 1065, many people claimed they were the next in line to become King of England. There was fighting all over England between people who wanted to become the next King, and a lot of people were killed in battles.


One of these people was William Duke of Normandy, another was a man from Denmark called Harald Hadrata. Harald came from a group of people called Saxons, who had conquered large parts of Britain in the past. He had a lot of success and was very strong, but then in 1066 William Duke of Normandy invaded England from France and defeated Harald's army of Saxons in the Battle of Hastings. Harald was shot in the eye with an arrow and was killed.
The events in the Battle of Hastings have been recorded in the Bayeaux Tapestry, a big picture of the battle. If you want to see some pictures, please click this link


William took over England and made a lot of French-speaking Normans lords in England. William actually went back and lived in France, but his lords helped him to rule the country.
So, in the year 1066 there were three languages spoken in England - French by the rulers, German by the common people, and Latin by the Priests in the Church. Since that time, all these languages have joined together to form English. When you study English you are actually studying three languages - which is one reason why English spelling is so complicated.


Let's have a look at some French words that we often use in English.
Government
Hospital
Attitude
Employee
Mathematics


Of course, French comes from Latin so it can be difficult to tell the difference between words that come from French and words that come from Latin, and actually people still argue about the origin of these words. According to some people, native English speakers know about 15,000 French words even if they have never studied French. So, the good news for English students is that if you learn to speak English, you have a big advantage if you want to learn French!
Let's all say thank you to William Duke of Normandy!
Merci mon liege!




▼▽▼▼Eddieの過去の記事を読む━━━━━━━━━━━
・【A Short History of English】2008.10.10 (Fri)
・【The Anglo Saxons invade!】2008.11.14 (Fri)
・【The REAL meaning of Christmas】2008.12.19 (Fri)

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