The article refers to the lexicological area of linguistics and explores French influence on the English language in terms of vocabulary during certain historical time periods and the result of this influence.
Keywords: English, French, loanwords, vocabulary, lexicology
Today, the English language is the third most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin and Spanish, which take the number 1 and the number 2 positions respectively. It is the official language of most of the Commonwealth countries, and is widely learned as a second language in most of the countries of the world. Historically, English originated from the fusion of closely related dialects, now termed as Old English, which were brought to the Eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic settlers (Anglo-Saxons) by the 5th Century. Owing to the assimilation of words from many other languages, modern English contains very large vocabulary. The Language has borrowed heavily not only from other European languages but also from many other languages of the world. The British Empire, which at one time controlled one-third of the globe, was instrumental in spreading the language across the world. The language influenced the lingua-franca of its subjects, particularly in Asia, and in turn borrowed heavily from the languages of the people governed by the Empire. The Oxford English Dictionary lists an unimaginable amount of distinct words, not including many technical, scientific and slang terms. Latin and French by far have had the greatest influence on the English language so much, so that 28 % of the words in English are of Latin origin and 35 % are of French Origin. 25 % of the words are from Old English, 5 % from Greek and the rest 7 % from others. [2: p. 119]
From the point of view of vocabulary, it is better to classify English as a language of an international origin, or, at least, as one of the Romanic languages, for French and Latin words prevail, but considering relative frequency of word spreading, it is clearly seen that Anglo-Saxon legacy is still plays its role. The English language contains a tremendous number of proper oft-recurring words, such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and words meaning the object of the everyday life (baby, water, to come, good, bad, etc.).
The most important and vast changes happed during the 12 th century and were a very first piece of foundation of the modern English language. The French language had many ways to sneak into the English, including every conquest, war and peaceful interaction like trade. The language tried to seep in on a mental level, not only a graphical one, but essentially the English mentality tried to resist.
The most crucial influence the French language had on the English language was the introduction of too many French words into English. It should be mentioned that one of the characteristics of Old English was to enlarge its vocabulary chiefly by using prefixes and suffixes and combining native elements into self-interpreting compounds. But this habit was somewhat weakened in Middle age English. In many cases where a new word could have easily been formed on a native model, a French word was borrowed instead. Moreover, English people borrowed words whose native equivalents existed in their language.
The unifying factor underlying all borrowings is probably that of projected gain; the borrower must stand to benefit in some way from the transfer of linguistic material. This gain may be social, since speakers often borrow material from a prestigious group or it may be more centrally linguistics, in that a speaker may find a replacement in his second language for a word, which has become obsolete or lost its expressive force. However, the most common and obvious motive for borrowing is sheer necessity; speakers may have to refer to some unfamiliar object or concept for which they have no word in their own language. [3: p. 201]
One of the factors in borrowing words is prestige. In cases of close contact, the two languages may not have the same status within the speech community in which they are spoken. The language with more powerful speakers will be regarded as more prestigious. Generally, the less prestigious language borrows from the most prestigious one and the borrowing will be concentrated in the semantic fields where the most prestigious speakers have the greatest influence. That is why after the Norman Conquest we find a huge influx of the French vocabulary into English mainly connected with religion, army, art, government and administration. These lexical items reflected the interests of the French-speaking ruling group, and had prestigious connotations. However, it should be noted that not all French loan words are related to these classes. The lower and specially the middle class of Englishmen liked to be able to communicate with their superiors, and thought it fine or refined to be able to talk French, and to interlard their English talk with French words and expressions. In this way many non-technical words, too, found their ways into the English language.
There were very few loan words before 1100, and probably not more than 900 words before 1250. The influx was the greatest between 1250–1400. Since after 1250 the upper classes who had been accustomed to speak French were returning to the use of English. As they did not know English perfectly, they often needed to help with French words in expressing themselves. In this way, the upper classes carried over into English an astonishing number of common French words relating to government, administration, law, religion, army, fashion, food, social life, art, learning and medicine. During this, 150 years half of the French words in English language came in.
Moreover, we must bear in mind that after the Norman Conquest the West Saxon dialect that had been the standard system of spelling and pronunciation throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries was soon abandoned. From 1100–1300 scarcely anything had been written in English, and it had remained a spoken language only.
During this long period of time, in addition to the influence of the French ruling classes, the influence of the French literature had been at work. From the beginning of the twelfth century much literature written in French was produced in England. The words used in ordinary conversation are a small part of any language. Therefore, when books began to be written once more in English, those English words, which did not occur in ordinary talk, were forgotten. Most of the terms at hand to express the ideas above those of daily life were to be found in the language of the upper classes who for the past two centuries had the chief control of art, science and law. Hence, a large number of the French words were adopted to take the place of the forgotten English ones.
In the meantime, the Central or Parisian dialect, having become the language of French court and French literature, began to be fashionable in England and since 1250; many words were adopted from it into English. Interestingly, sometimes a word was taken from both central French and Norman French, for example, the Norman French catel and the Central French chatel . In the same way a number of doublets such as catch, chase;warranty, guarantee; reward, regard; goal, jail entered English. The first one in each pair is from Norman French and the second one from Central French.
Moreover, it is necessary to mention that although the introduction of the French words into English resulted in the extinction of too many Anglo-Saxon words, many of the English words continued to be used in the language side by side with their French equivalents. Nevertheless, in the course of time some differences developed between the synonyms. The native words are always nearer to the nation's heart than the French words; they are more popular and fundamental, while the French words are often more formal, more polite, more refined and less emotional. For example, amity means formal friendly relationship especially between nations or states and thus lacks the warmth of friendship. Help expresses greater dependence and deeper need than aid.
The French loans are of different parts of speech. The first French words the English lower classes borrowed were interjections and exclamations like alas, sure, а dieu and perhaps verrai (later very). The English language has also borrowed nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, all of the English function words, except one, are of the Old English origin. The only sign of the French influence is the complex preposition because of, which is the English version of par cause de.
It is also necessary to mention that among the words which the English language has borrowed some have become obsolete in their native country, some consonants have been dropped, and the sounds of some others have been changed. For instance, English retains the
that the French lost in many words like
beast
and
feast,
which are
bête
and
fête
in Modern French.
Conclusion
The breadth of the French influence on the English language was so great that it has altered the English vocabulary to the extent that half of its vocabulary is French. The total number of French words adopted during Middle English was slightly over 10000 of these about 75 percent are still in common use [1: p. 215]. The greatness of the French influence made some scholars doubt whether the English vocabulary can properly be regarded as typical of a Germanic language. However, it should be mentioned that in spite of the great number of French loan words, the common core of the English vocabulary and most of the words, which belong to everyday language, are still English.
The presence of a significant number of French loanwords in English explains their role in the enrichment of the English vocabulary and in the setting of lexical norms, for loanwords help to develop the form building further.
Regardless of some pollution of the English lexicon with words, borrowed from the other languages, English did not suffered from the deluge of foreign elements totally. On the contrary, its vocabulary enriched undoubtedly. It became possible owing to its assimilation of foreign elements, having absorbed everything valuable and useful and having abandoned everything superfluous.
References:
- Baugh, A. C. A History of the English Language / A. C. Baugh, T. Cable. — 6th edition. — Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. — 480 c. — Текст: непосредственный.
- Finkenstaedt, T. Ordered Profusion: Studies in Dictionaries and the English Lexicon / T. Finkenstaedt, D. Wolff. — Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1973. — 166 c. — Текст: непосредственный.
- McMahon, A. Understanding Language Change / A. McMahon. — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. — 361 c. — Текст: непосредственный.
