The Norman Conquest of 1066 by William the Conqueror marks the beginning of an era of French influence in England[1]. However, despite logical reasoning, French did not become either the official or unofficial language of England. William was not combining the lands of Normandy and England, and had no wish to replace language or culture. Latin and English were used for most documents and formal proclamations by William, and the English legal system was renewed, not replaced. After all, William was claiming legitimacy to his succession. Nevertheless, the upper class was almost completely taken over by (French speaking) Normans, and although the system was English, many of the legal proceedings and documents were in French.
It is important to know that there were various dialects of French being spoken on the continent at this time and throughout the middle ages. Norman French was distinct from Parisian or Continental French, and, with time, the French spoken in England by the Norman landed gentry became distinct. Scholars refer to the particular dialect of French as spoken by England-dwelling native French speakers as Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French.
One interesting question is how long these aristocrats kept Anglo-Norman as their mother-tongue. William’s wish to preserve English as the national language was successful and no doubt is directly (though not solely) responsible for the inhabitants of England speaking English to this day. Additionally, despite taking over the upper class and the legal system, the Norman descendants speaking Anglo-Norman were still completely outnumbered by the masses of English speakers in every other class. Modern scholars estimate that the initial migration of Normans into England after the Conquest was no more than 20,000 people including the army, a number that was roughly 1.3% of England’s population (Berndt 1965, quoted in Kibbee 1991). So how long did it take for the native Anglo-Norman speakers to give up their language in favour of English? » | Jacquie Heys | Copyright 2001
The Norman Conquest. Toward the close of the Old English period an event occurred which had a greater effect on the English language than any other in the course of its history. This event was the Norman Conquest in 1066. What the language would have been like if William the Conqueror had not succeeded in making good his claim to the English throne can only be a matter of conjecture. It would probably have pursued much the same course as the other Germanic languages, retaining perhaps more of its inflections and preserving a preponderantly Germanic vocabulary..., and incorporating words from other languages much less freely. In particular it would have lacked the greater part of that enormous number of French words which today make English seem, on the side of vocabulary, almost as much a Romance as a Germanic language. The Norman Conquest changed the whole course of the English language. An event of such far-reaching consequences must be considered in some detail. » | Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable
