English without the Norman invasion

[Hans de Vries]

Being a native Dutch speaker who also speaks German I can say with certainity that the English language spoken today is markedly different than other West Germanic languages - both in grammar and phonology. The biggest difference, however, is the large amount of Romance vocabulary, mostly of Norman and French orgin. In all other Germanic languages the percentage of words of Germanic origin are around 75-80%, in English it's only about 30%.

 

Vocabulary aside, how much of today's English distinguishing features - lack of V2 word order, ridiculous number of analytic tenses, disappearance of infinitive marker (-en/e/a) and the predominant plural marker being -s instead of -en or -e - is due to Norman/French influence and how much due to natural development?

 

We know that by 1066 English was still a fairy typical Germanic language, mutually intelligible with old Dutch/North German dialects and, to a lesser degree, with Old Norse and Old High German (Althochdeutsch). It's been suggested that the process of losing inflection started already in the Anglo Saxon period, thanks to contact with Vikings (Old Norse and Old English had similar vocabularies but different inflections, which led to confusion and dropping unnecessary word endings) but we don't know how advanced the entire process was back then.

[imatfaal]

Hans it is funny you should post on the English language immediately after posting on the Common Law system - or maybe it was more deliberate and you are being too modest with your knowledge of English History.

 

Crusty old legal scholars will tell you that the common law and the English language have a single important event in their emergence - the appointment of judges, the idea of crime being offences against the crown, and the regularisation of the law by Henry II in the end of the twelfth century. This facilitated a group of small counties (most with their own mutually incomprehensible dialects) with overlords still thought of as foreign in their transformation to become a single polity with a single language. I seem to remember the figure of a hundred years from Henry starting his reforms to the date when one of his successors addresses parliament for the first time in English.

 

But this is really not my area - I can remember reading about it well; I was meant to be reading a paper on the end of the trial by ordeal (which was finishing about this time) and I came upon this paper about language. And, as is the way when you are meant to be researching, it is much easier to read the paper which is off-topic than on!

[John Cuthber]

 

, disappearance of infinitive marker (-en/e/a) and the predominant plural marker being -s instead of -en or -e - is due to Norman/French influence and how much due to natural development?

 

 

To say that English does not have a marker for the infinitive is to demonstrate that you have not looked to check to see how the language is now found to work.

It's there, but it's not the same as in, for example, French.

 

English, without the Norman invasion would, I think be a lot like modern Dutch or German, but it would presumably include words from Scots or Welsh.

An interesting idea, I guess we will never know.

[overtone]

 

 

Crusty old legal scholars will tell you that the common law and the English language have a single important event in their emergence - the appointment of judges, the idea of crime being offences against the crown, and the regularisation of the law by Henry II in the end of the twelfth century

It's been observed that this legal system was put in place in a country which featured not only a lot of dialects but a linguistic class division - the ruling class spoke a different language than the working class, in the same areas. So the farmhand was raising Saxon cows and pigs, and the landlord was eating Norman beef and pork. The observation was that the laws were written in both languages, using synonyms and linguistic redundancy, so as to be understood; thus we have "breaking and entering", "assault and battery", "goods and chattels", and so forth.

[John Cuthber]

Interesting idea, but breaking and entering are two different processes. Assault an battery are both from Latin.

 

from time to time I have wondered what a native Dutch speaker would make of Middle English.

Here's a bit from the start of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

For most English speakers it';s hard work to understand it.

Hans, how easy is it for you to read this?

 

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

5

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,

10

That slepen al the night with open yë,

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

(And palmers for to seken straunge strondes)

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

15

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

[Hans de Vries]

A native Dutch speaker with no or very little knowledge of English would not be able to understand the majority of it. Some parts of it - yes.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Hans de Vries

[overtone]

 

 

but breaking and entering are two different processes.

Not in the law involved. "Breaking" is breaking in.

 

Assault an battery are both from Latin.

True so - I had a false intuition of battery.

 

But the common use of pairs of words like that in original English law (and then American) makes a long list - no sense in belaboring the minor observation, but a large number of them share that feature of being essentially synonymous, but characteristic of two different vocabularies in the centuries after the Norman invasion of England. And it's an odd structure, for a formal law - either word would normally be defined carefully and its legal meaning encompass the crime. Notice the words do not modify each other - when one wishes to distinguish, say, "aggravated" assault, one uses appropriate adjectives.

[Hans de Vries]

I just noticed that many words of Romance orgin in English have changed their pronunciation to essentially Germanic. Take the word "cave", "plate", "flower", "trail" etc. The way they are pronounced is 100% West Germanic in my opinion. There are also words borrowed from French which were themsellves borrowed into French from Germanic languages - like "war" from Frankish "werre""

 

How amazing linguistics can be.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Hans de Vries

[StringJunky]

I just noticed that many words of Romance orgin in English have changed their pronunciation to essentially Germanic. Take the word "cave", "plate", "flower", "trail" etc. The way they are pronounced is 100% West Germanic in my opinion. There are also words borrowed from French which were themsellves borrowed into French from Germanic languages - like "war" from Frankish "werre""

 

How amazing linguistics can be.

One of the beauties of English is it is so etymologically rich, being derivative of so many other languages.Whenever I look up a word I always stick the word "etymology" with it in Google to get it's origins.

[John Cuthber]

English certainly is shameless when it comes to picking up words from elsewhere. A while back a colleague and I were trying to find a language from which English hadn't stolen the odd word.

We couldn't; can anyone else? (Klingon almost certainly doesn't count)

 

Incidentally, if it's just "entering", it's trespass and if it's just "breaking" it's criminal damage. "Breaking and entering" is different from either of the two parts.

If the door was unlocked, or if you don't go in, it's not B&E. I think that, if there's anything more to say on that it would be better in another thread

[Hans de Vries]

Lol! I just started wondering what would modern English look like if the fall of 1066 AD had a different ending with Harald Hardrada taking all of England instead of William the Conqueror (let's say Harold Godwinson clashes with Wiliam and only then does Hardrada invade with a stronger army, finishing off the remaining forces of whoever survived). The rest of history goes pretty much as in actual history, except that instead of Norman nobles you have Norwegian ones ruling the country - + maybe some larger migration from Norway, Iceland and possibly Sweden in search for land (England had beter agricultural land than any of them). Some French words would still enter the language via trade with Flanders but their number would be nowhere as high as in our Englsh (some would also enter during the Enlightenment) and many Latin words would enter the language in 16th century - mostly scientific ones.

 

This is my rather clumsy attempt of translating the preamble to US constitution to an alternative version of English (Norse-Saxon) based on moderm English and Icelandic - the languages that has barely changed since the last 800 years and reflects very well the way Scandinavian languages sounded 1000 years ago. This is by no means a standarized, structured attempt of language creation as my knowledge of linguistics is limited.

 

Wi, de folk ov de Foreinnet Stater, to kom ein meir perfekt Einning, kom Lawhut, insur inlandi Row, sorg for de folki Forn, ferm allmanli Welfeir, insur Blessinge of Frihut.for us and for ur Afterkemmen, ordein and kom dat Konstituting for de Foreinnet Stater ov Amerika

Edited December 28, 2014 by Hans de Vries