Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French and part of the French of England was a dialect of Old Norman that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, other places in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period.
Origin
The term "Anglo-Norman" harks back to the time when the language was regarded as being primarily the regional dialect of the Norman settlers. Today the generic term "Anglo-French" is used instead to reflect not only the broader origin of the settlers who came with William the Conqueror, but also the continued influence of Parisian French from the Plantagenet period onwards.According to some linguists, the name Insular French might be more suitable, because "Anglo-Norman" is constantly associated with the notion of a mixed language based on English and Norman. According to some, such a mixed language never existed. Other sources, however, indicate that such a language did exist, and that it was the language descended from the Norman French originally established in England after the Conquest.
Although Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French were eventually eclipsed by modern English, they had been used widely enough to influence English vocabulary permanently. This means that many original Germanic words, cognates of which can still be found in Nordic, German, and Dutch, have been lost or, as is more often the case, exist alongside synonyms of Anglo-Norman French origin. Anglo-Norman had little lasting influence on English grammar, as opposed to vocabulary, although it is still evident in official and legal terms where the ordinary sequence of noun and adjective is reversed, as seen in phrases such as Blood Royal, attorney general, heir apparent, court martial, envoy extraordinary and body politic.
The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom still features in French the mottos of both the British Monarch, Dieu et mon droit, and the Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Dieu et mon droit was first used by Richard I in 1198 and adopted as the royal motto of England in the time of Henry VI. The motto appears below the shield of the Royal Coat of Arms.
Use and development
Though in regular use at the royal court, Anglo-French was not the main administrative language of England: Latin was the major language of record in legal and other official documents for most of the medieval period. However, from the mid-13th century to the early 15th century, Anglo-French was much used in law reports, charters, ordinances, official correspondence, and trade at all levels; it was the language of the King, his court and the upper class. There is evidence, too, that foreign words often entered English via Anglo-Norman.The language of later documents adopted some of the changes ongoing in continental French and lost many of its original dialectal characteristics, so Anglo-French remained part of the dialect continuum of modern French, often with distinctive spellings. Over time, the use of Anglo-French expanded into the fields of law, administration, commerce, and science, in all of which a rich documentary legacy survives, indicative of the vitality and importance of the language.
By the late 15th century, however, what remained of insular French had become heavily anglicised: see Law French. It continued to be known as "Norman French" until the end of the 19th century even though, philologically, there was nothing Norman about it.
Among important writers of the Anglo-Norman cultural commonwealth is Marie de France.
The languages and literature of the Channel Islands are sometimes referred to as Anglo-Norman, but that usage is derived from the French name for the islands: les îles anglo-normandes. The variety of French spoken in the islands is related to the modern Norman language, and distinct from the Anglo-Norman of medieval England.
Trilingualism in medieval and modern England
General history in medieval England
Many of the earliest documents in Old French are found in England. In medieval France, it was not usual to write in the vernacular because Latin was the language of the Church, education, historiography and it was used for records. In medieval England, Latin also remained in use by the Church, the royal government, and much local administration in parallel with Middle English, as it had been before 1066. The early adoption of Anglo-Norman as a written and literary language probably owes something to this history of bilingualism in writing.In the first centuries after the Norman Conquest of England, the French-speaking elite primarily relied on Latin for record-keeping rather than their own language, while English continued to have a written tradition and was used in religious services until 1154, when the Angevins came into power. Englishmen seeking words associated with government, culture, or entertainment would likely use French terms in their English speech to operate in upper-middle-class social settings would not only learn some French but also imitate the Frenchified English of bilingual speakers.
Nevertheless, educated Englishmen in the 12th and 13th centuries could read and speak French to some extent. This explains why the first French loanwords entering English were introduced through written texts and passive knowledge of the language rather than active use. However, as French began to be used for record-keeping in England due to its growing prestige during the mid-13th century, approximately 90% of the total 10,000 French loanwords in English began to be documented in the language.
Around the same time, as a shift took place in France towards using French as a language of record in the mid-13th century, Anglo-Norman also became a language of record in England, although Latin retained its pre-eminence for matters of permanent record. From around this point onwards, considerable variation begins to be apparent in Anglo-Norman, which ranges from the very local to a level of language which approximates to and is sometimes indistinguishable from varieties of continental French. Typically, therefore, local records are rather different from continental French, with diplomatic and international trade documents closest to the emerging continental norm. English remained the vernacular of the common people throughout this period. The resulting virtual trilingualism in spoken and written language was one of medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English.
Language of the king and his court
From the time of the Norman Conquest until the end of the 14th century, French was the language of the king and his court. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the royal family's ties to French culture. Nevertheless, during the 13th century, intermarriages with English nobility became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English and French nationalism, the status of French diminished.French was the mother tongue of every English king from William the Conqueror until Henry IV. Henry IV was the first to take the oath in English, and his son, Henry V, was the first to write in English. By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite.
Language of the royal charters and legislation
Until the end of the 13th century, Latin was the main language of all official written documents. Nevertheless, some important documents had their official Norman translation, such as Magna Carta of 1215. The first official document written in Anglo-Norman was a statute promulgated by the king in 1275. With effect from the 13th century, Anglo-Norman therefore became used in official documents, such as those that were marked by the private seal of the king whereas the documents sealed by the Lord Chancellor were written in Latin until the end of the Middle Ages. English became the language of Parliament and of legislation in the 15th century, half a century after it had become the language of the king and most of the English nobility.Language of administration and justice
During the 11th century, development of the administrative and judicial institutions took place. Because the king and the lawyers at the time normally used French, it also became the language of these institutions.During the late 14th century, English became the main spoken language, but Latin and French continued to be exclusively used in official legal documents until the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, the French language used in England changed from the end of the 15th century into Law French, that was used since the 13th century. This variety of French was a technical language, with a specific vocabulary, where English words were used to describe everyday experience, and French grammatical rules and morphology gradually declined, with confusion of genders and the adding of -s to form all plurals. Law French was banished from the courts of the common law in 1731, almost three centuries after the king ceased speaking primarily French. French was used on moots in the Inner Temple until 1779.
Anglo-Norman has survived in the political system in the use of certain Anglo-French set phrases in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, where they are written by hand on bills by the Clerk of the Parliaments or Clerk of the House of Commons to endorse them during their progress to becoming law, or spoken aloud by the Clerk of the Parliaments during a gathering of the Lords Commissioners, to indicate the granting of Royal Assent to legislation.
The exact spelling of these phrases has varied over the years; for example, s'avisera has been spelled as s'uvisera and s'advisera, and Reyne as Raine.