Norman language: Encyclopedia II - Norman language - History

Norman language - History

When Norse invaders arrived in the then province of Neustria and settled the land which became known as Normandy, they adopted the Gallo-Romance speech of the existing populations — much as Norman rulers later adopted in England the speech of the administered people. However in both cases the elites contributed elements of their own language to the newly-enriched languages that developed in the territories.

In Normandy, the new Norman language inherited vocabulary from Norse. The influence on phonology is more disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ in Norman is due to Norse influence.

Examples of Norman words of Norse origin:

In some cases, Norse words adopted in Norman have been borrowed into French - and more recently some of the English words used in French can be traced back to Norman origins.

Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Norman language (Norman-French) spoken by the new rulers of England left traces of specifically Norman words which can be distinguished from the equivalent lexical items in French:

English < Norman = French

fashion < faichon = façon

cabbage < caboche = chou

castle < castel = château

cauldron < caudron = chaudron

causeway < cauchie = chaussée

catch < cachi = chasser

cater < acater = acheter

mug < mogue/moque = tasse

wicket < viquet = guichet

Other words such as captain, kennel, cattle and canvas introduced from Norman exemplify how Norman retained a /k/ from Latin that was not retained in French.

There is also some influence from the Breton language, perhaps via Gallo.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki