> IIRC those words were not yet French; it always gets a bit confused with languages when we're referring back like this IMO. They were Norman French, or just

> IIRC those words were not yet French; it always gets a bit confused with languages when we're referring back like this IMO. They were Norman French, or just "Norman" is you insist, which was one of the Oïl languages (and as such, closely related to modern French). The written form of the language, at least, is mostly mutually comprehensible with modern French. Also, the Normans were culturally and linguistically akin to the modern French to a much greater extent that the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England whom they conquered were akin to the modern English, even if the Normans' heritage was Scandinavian. *studied historical Romance linguistics in university.