French Borrowings

The Scandinavian influence

A considerable part of the vocabulary was common to the English and Scandinavian dialects. In many words the root was the same whereas the endings were different.

In the regions inhabited by Scandinavians, where the two languages were mixed, there occurred blending of entire lexical layers. In many cases a Scandinavian word differed from its English counterpart only in small details. When two such variants met, they might easily blend. It is sometimes impossible to decide whether the English word was superseded by the Scandinavian one or whether the phonetic structure of the English word changed under Scandinavian influence.

However, there are numerous genuine borrowings, 1) when the word denoted some new idea or 2) when an English word was superseded by its Scandinavian counterpart.

1) lagu (“law”), feologa (“fellow“);

2) husbonda (“husband”,- OE mann), callen (“to call” –OE clypian), taken (“to take” –OE bearan), they – them – their (OE hie – hira – hem)

As a result of numerous borrowings there appeared a lot of synonyms. The struggle between the synonyms could end in the following:

1) the borrowed word wins and the native one disappears: callen (OE clypian);

2) the native word gets the upper hand and the borrowed word, after having existed for some time in the language, disappears: liD “navy” was later superseded by the French navy;

3) both the words survive, but a difference in meaning develops, which may be purely semantic or stylistic: ME heven “sky” and Sc. skye; ME starven “to die” (>MnE to starve) and Sc. die.

In some cases Scandinavian words penetrated into London English only in the 14^th – 15^th centuries when Scandinavian dialects were no longer spoken in England. So, strictly speaking, they were Northern dialect words of Scandinavian origin.

French Borrowings

The penetration of French words did not start immediately after the Conquest – only in the 12^th century, and reached its climax in the 13^th – 14^th centuries.

Many words were connected with the life of the ruling class, the French nobility. Several main spheres are to be stated here:

1) administration and justice: prince, baron, (but king and queen remained English) noble, governen, government, royal, court, justice, judge, condemnen, sentence

2) war: were, army, bataille, regiment, castle, siege, victory, defeat;

3) church: religion, saint, frere (friar ), preyen;

4) town professions: bocher, peintre, tailor, mason (compare with names of village professions,which are of the English origin: miller, shoemaker, shepherd, smith, thatcher);

5) art: art, colour, figure, image, column, ornament;

6) enjoyment: plesir, leysir, ese, feste, dinner, soper, rosten.

Besides there were many loans of a wider semantic spheres: place, coveren, river, large, change, etc.

Again, there appeared a number of synonyms:

1) OE here – Fr. army, OE ea – Fr. riviere, OE beorZ – Fr. montagne. The French word survived and the OE word disappeared.

2) OE half – Fr. moiety. The OE word survived and the French word, after having existed for some time in the language, disappeared.

3) OE beginnen – Fr. commencen. Both the words have survived but acquired a difference in meaning. Here they belong to different stylistical layers: begin is neutral and commence is official.

OE hxrfest – Fr. autumn. Both the words have survived, but they are different semantically: MnE harvest means the period of gathering crops and autumn is a season.

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