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> instead of "French", it should say "French-speaking" Mostly true, but the Norman language isn't 100% the same as French, and the differences affected the dev

> instead of "French", it should say "French-speaking" Mostly true, but the Norman language isn't 100% the same as French, and the differences affected the development of the English language. For example, if England had been conquered by true French speakers, the words "war" and "cat" would have been something like "guar" and "chat" instead. In fact, there are a few doublets where we borrowed both the Norman and French versions of a word into English. A good example of this is "warranty" and "guarantee"; the former is Norman, and the latter is French. Another is "cattle" and "chattel"; again, the former is Norman, and the latter is French.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Yes, but we are talking about the situation 1000 years ago, when languages weren't standardized and, as a result, much more fuzzy. Today you can say where, say, German ends and Dutch begins; but it used to be a continuum. Same with French. Even Medieval Latin spoken by the learned people was a bit different from Classical Latin of Cicero, and that was a language which was taken care of by educated, literate people. Vernaculars of the day ... well, tended to be different from region to region, because there was no one with enough influence and authority to codify them. Looking at that situation, I am fine with classifying 11-th century Norman as "basically French". Mutual intelligibility was certainly fairly high. William the Conqueror would need no interpreter when talking to some Parisian merchant. There were some Norse leftovers present, but such was the situation everywhere.
seszett 3y ago
> For example, if England had been conquered by true French speakers, the words "war" and "cat" would have been something like "guar" and "chat" instead. Even today there are dialects in France where people say "cat" (with a silent t) instead of "chat", and nobody would call them "not French", or not French-speaking, for that.
qwytw 3y ago
> by true French speakers Was that really a thing in the middle ages? Every region had its own dialect and people living in the half of the territory of modern France didn't even speak any form of "French". e.g. Occitan is as Italian or Spanish as it is French.

inglor_cz 3y ago

Yes, but we are talking about the situation 1000 years ago, when languages weren't standardized and, as a result, much more fuzzy. Today you can say where, say, German ends and Dutch begins; but it used to be a continuum. Same with French. Even Medieval Latin spoken by the learned people was a bit different from Classical Latin of Cicero, and that was a language which was taken care of by educated, literate people. Vernaculars of the day ... well, tended to be different from region to region, because there was no one with enough influence and authority to codify them. Looking at that situation, I am fine with classifying 11-th century Norman as "basically French". Mutual intelligibility was certainly fairly high. William the Conqueror would need no interpreter when talking to some Parisian merchant. There were some Norse leftovers present, but such was the situation everywhere.

seszett 3y ago

> For example, if England had been conquered by true French speakers, the words "war" and "cat" would have been something like "guar" and "chat" instead. Even today there are dialects in France where people say "cat" (with a silent t) instead of "chat", and nobody would call them "not French", or not French-speaking, for that.

qwytw 3y ago

> by true French speakers Was that really a thing in the middle ages? Every region had its own dialect and people living in the half of the territory of modern France didn't even speak any form of "French". e.g. Occitan is as Italian or Spanish as it is French.