Talk:Anglo-Norman language

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did they speak French or Anglo-Norman?[edit]

This entire article uses the word “French” freely interchangeably with “Anglo-Norman.” It’s not clear Anglo-Norman was a separate language at all by reading this article.

That's the point. English French was nearer to Norman for about a century after the conquest, and nearer to Parisian French thereafter. I think the article makes this clear. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 17:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
They spoke Anglo-Norman (a French dialect) + French. Both are French, like Canadian English and British English are English. Some variants in the vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation, but still the same language. Because I can read old French, I can read Anglo-Norman too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 15:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Duplication[edit]

Is this page not somewhat duplicating Anglo-Norman?

"K" sound[edit]

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

What? The word for "captain" in French is "capitan" (KAP-ee-'ten). Have I misunderstood the passage? —Casey J. Morris 05:43, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

capitaine is a Normanno-Picard form in French, i.e. non-Francien. Chef shows the French development of the head root. But the sentence in question could probably be more clearly worded. Man vyi 06:41, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Er, yeah, "capitan" is the Spanish spelling (Sans accent) isn't it? Heh heh. —Casey J. Morris 15:13, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
And we have the, no doubt Francien, form "chieftain"; so in this instance, unusually France retains the Norman form and English retains the Parisian! --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I had the same reaction while reading that. "kennel" -> "chenil" is a good example but "captain" -> "capitaine" and "canvas" -> "canevas" don't really work. Sure, "chef" lost the /k/ sound but that still seems like a poor example, especially since english also has "chief" without the /k/ sound (a later borrowing maybe?). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.121.74.18 (talk) 10:37, 23 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a bit of a simplification of the documentary reality: even the earliest Anglo-Norman texts and documents (e.g. Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, 1139; the Laws of William the Conqueror ca. 1150) also have "French" spellings. It's important to remember (a) that spellings aren't a reliable echo of pronunciation and (b) writers were "feeling their way" as they evolved a vernacular which was very far from standardized, anywhere. David Trotter (talk) 23:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

Anglo-Norman was a dialect, it was not a language. It says so in the first sentence of the article.--Mais oui! 16:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support --Mais oui! 16:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose All languages are dialects by definition. For example: the English language is a Germanic dialect; the French language is a Romance dialect. Man vyi 17:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Extremely late comment, but so you'd support an article for Yorkshire English language then? On the grounds if it's a dialect it's simultaneously a language. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose From the article "to compile official documents, to write literature, and for commercial purposes". Norman French was the formal language of England for several centuries. It was no more a dialect than Afrikaans was a dialect of Dutch during apartheid. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The comment that "it says so in the first sentence" is undermined by your edit two hours earlier [1] --Henrygb 10:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indeed? How so?--Mais oui! 21:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you change the article and immediately claim that the wording of the article is the reason for your proposed page move then people may doubt your good faith. --Henrygb 01:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think it may be my edit of the first sentence that you're referring to. Sorry for any confusion caused. Man vyi 10:46, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, I believe Henrygb is referring to this edit, made only nine minutes before Mais oui! placed the move request. In those circumstances, it is highly disingenous for Mais oui! to claim that the article's language supports his suggested change. Perhaps he's been reading m:How to win an argument. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 08:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose --Gareth Hughes 15:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose —Matthew Brown (T:C) 08:22, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Anglo-Norman clearly had both an army and a navy — Satyadasa 20:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Man vyi hit the nail right on the head. Most western languages are ultimately dialects of an ancient, and now lost, Indo-European mother-tongue. Rje 15:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Continental French made changes not made in Britain (chief > chef, for instance). The older forms are well represented in English and must not be disregarded. Dajwilkinson 00:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Add any additional comments

Have replaced contentious dialect with variety. Let's see how that goes; since Anglo-Norman developed into a literary and administrative standard, that may be a more helpful description to the non-linguist. Man vyi 09:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the logic behind this move request, but I'd prefer to see a move to Anglo-Norman, where the unnecessary term "dialect" is left out of the title. Marco79 16:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
'Anglo-Norman' is ambiguous: it can mean far more things than the language. --Gareth Hughes 16:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Gareth Hughes. Leave it here, for the same reason that most other languages have an entry at X language. Satyadasa 20:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One possibility is to go with "Anglo-Norman (linguistics)" to avoid using either term. That's what's done with the various Chinese languages/dialects. E.g., Mandarin (linguistics), Cantonese (linguistics), Hakka (linguistics) LuiKhuntek 07:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Or to move it to "Anglo-Norman", and move Anglo-Norman to "Anglo-Norman (Disambiguation)". The Jade Knight (talk) 11:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Result[edit]

Page not moved; no consensus. Eugene van der Pijll 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oïl languages[edit]

It has been proposed that Languages of Oïl be renamed and moved to Langues d'Oïl. Comments and votes on Talk:Languages of Oïl, please, if you're interested. Man vyi 09:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox[edit]

I just added an infobox based on the one at French language. I've left the name as "Norman" for now, with the native name as "Normand". I wasn't sure how to handle the "total speakers" - I don't have time to find out numbers right now and in any case there are probably a lot more historical speakers than current ones. Please fill in missing params / correct errors as appropriate. Hairy Dude 04:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

first French literature in England?[edit]

I heard once, the first novel in French language was written in England, since in France at this time Latin was still state of the art. Is this true? (Sorry for my English I'm German.) LanX --217.224.41.23 02:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

David Howlett (editor of the Dictionary of Medeval Latin from British Sources) wrote on this in The English Origins of Old French Literature (Dublin: Four Courts, 1996). It is certainly true that the majority of early "French" manuscripts (lietrary) are Anglo-Norman and Howlett suggests (to simplify his intricate argument) that the earliest texts display structural principles, utlimately Biblical, transmitted via insular authors (Celtic) and picked up by Anglo-Norman writers. David Trotter (talk) 23:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even the name of the language, "Franceis", was first used in England, as in France it was still called "romanz, romans, roman" / z= ts, then -s, then no sound at all; we still guess "romanz" in words like "romance, romancier". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.101.187.125 (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

  1. wait - guetter (French)
  2. war (from AN werre) - guerre (French)

AFAIK both words are of Germanic origin, so they can also derive from Anglo-Saxon. Please compare German "warten" and "Querelen" meaning "to wait" and "quarrel". Are you sure they entered English via French? Guerre comes from Frankish "werra" http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/guerre#.C3.89tymologie

also

  1. garden < jardin

thats "Garten" in German! This was most likely already an Anglo-Saxon word before Norman conquest. Please referre to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/jardin#.C3.89tymologie

Which sources do you use???

LanX --217.224.41.23 03:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK I checked it, all words originate in Germanic/Frankish but made a detour via Norman-French:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=war&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=wait&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=garden&searchmode=none

LanX --217.224.41.23 04:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wait is clearly North French, recorded as waitier and Old French guaiter, the diphtong /ai/ before /t/ is the result of -ACT- group changing in French, so waitier / guaiter from OLFranconian *wakton > Dutch wachten, same evolution as Latin factu > fait, lactu > lait. German warten does not share the same etymology, but with ward / guard. garden is North French too : gardin / French jardin. regularly Germanic /g/ was palatized in Old English written ġ, the same root as German garten is "yard", as Auge is eye. Under ONorse influence, there are exceptions like give, German geben, but OE had ġiefan ""yive"".
there are many Frankish words in French, especially of "low-german" type (i.e. seaside german, today Flemish, Dutch). But due to gallo-roman pronunciation "w" became "gw" then "gu". In Picard dialects such as Picard of Picardie and Chti of French Flanders and Artois "w" is sometimes kept: warder (to keep), werre (war), watiau (cake), but there are also many french-picard mix words (garder, djerre, gatiau). Anglo-norman was very similar to old picard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.101.187.125 (talk) 19:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously more to Old Norman. Northern Norman dialect (following the Ligne Joret) retained [w] too before it turned to [v] at the end of the 12th century. Otherwise, there are other significant phonetic traits typical for Western Normandy such as -ous (generous, etc.) instead of -eus (spelled -eux in Modern French) in Picard, French..or the absence of [j] in travaler, traveler (French, Picard travailler) > to travel or mervele, marvele (French, Picard merveille) > marvel.Nortmannus (talk) 09:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the term[edit]

Does anyone have information of the origin of the term? I somewhat doubt the Norman called their language the "Anglo-Norman one". Matthieu 06:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I expect it is a term scholars invented to distinguish Anglo-Norman from other sorts of Norman, or from Anglo-Saxon (Old English). My guess (this is speculation!) is that Normans referred to their langauge as Norman, Romance, "the vernacular", or possibly even French. Modern Normans call their language "Normaund"(/Nouormand), "patois", or by the individual dialect names (such as Jèrriais). The Jade Knight 10:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was a widespread tendency in the 17th to 19th centuries - still used by those who know no better - for all English varieties of medieval and legal French to be called "Norman French". It was Maitland who pointed out that this is inaccurate: the specifically Norman dialect was only used for a century or so after the conquest, after which a form of the Parisian dialect was used instead. There is nothing Norman about the language of Britton, Littleton or most of the Year Books. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a case for ditching "Anglo-Norman" too, since (a) we don't know enough about the dialect(s) brought over by William and his men (b) what we do know suggests that it wasn't just Norman but also that he had Picards and men from western France with him (c) that Anglo-Norman overstates the Norman connection right through the Middle Ages, when other French dialects also exerted influence. Tradition favours Anglo-Norman but Anglo-French, or Insular French, might be better. David Trotter (talk) 23:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't Gallo the dominant language among the invaders who accompanied William the Conqueror? As I understand it, Gallo was the language of Maine, Anjou, eastern Brittany and most of Normandy, at least. "Norman French" is a dialect of Gallo that has some Norse words added, and it was (and is) spoken, as a collection of dialects, only in parts of the northern Cotentin, in the vicinity of Rouen, and in other variants on the Channel Isles. Zoetropo (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also, is modern standard French an Ile-de-France dialect? I thought it drew on other sources, which I think included the French of Orleans, a city that is fairly close to the Gallo speaking area and used to be near the border of Armorica, the cultural region where Gallo predominated. Zoetropo (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, Gallo wasn't the language of the Conqueror and the majority of his Norman retainers. They mostly originated north of the linguistic Joret Line, and spoke a different dialect - as evidenced by the characteristic Ws: e.g. William was Willelm/Williame in Norman, not 'Guilliame'.

In 1066 the Normans, along with romance speakers across western Europe, simply knew their local dialect as 'Romanz' - Roman - which is why we still call them romance. In Italy it was sometimes also called 'Vulgaro'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.115.70.210 (talk) 14:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright Violation[edit]

I have reported this article on the copyright violations page. Whoever wrote this clearly just copied chunks of David Trotter's original article.

Yes it was. I removed the copyright violation. Garion96 (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo-French neologisms/archaisms absent from Continental French[edit]

In England the phrase "double entendre" for an expression with both an innocent everyday and a risqué interpretation is in current use but has been superseded in France by "double entente".

Also, the phrase "bon viveur" has appeared in English news items in recent years but is utterly absent from Continental French, in which it is ungrammatical (bon vivant being the correct form).

Do these count as Anglo-Norman/Anglo-French neologisms or archaisms? If not, what are they? Dajwilkinson 00:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, these represent far later borrowings from French, probably from the nineteenth century. Another example is the use of "Ooh la la" to show that something is naughty or risqué: in French "oh la la" is a purely innocent phrase meaning "oh dear". --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My query stems more from the idea found in the article on the Japanese language page regarding what is known as wasei-eigo, translatable as "English made in Japan". We instinctively know what a "salaryman" is but without the people of Japan this word would never have appeared. Is there a similar term for this kind of false French? Dajwilkinson 00:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

French dialect[edit]

Is it wrong to classify this variety as a French dialect? Aaker (talk) 19:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if it is wrong to classify Old French as a Norman dialect. The Jade Knight (talk) 07:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anglo-Norman is a "French dialect" if by that is meant: "a dialect of northern Gallo-Romance", in other words, if "French" is used as shorthand for that rather cumbersome formulation, and as long as we don't forget that modern French is a derivative of (mainly) one dialect and thus implies reduction of that dialectal diversity. Anglo-Norman is however not a "French dialect" if by "French" in that context, is meant only that form of northern Gallo-Romance (broadly, Ile-de-France French) which would (with some admixture of other forms) in due course become modern standard French. David Trotter (talk) 23:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This being a longer, more complicated, and more accurate summation of what I said. The Jade Knight (talk) 21:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo-Norman v Norman[edit]

The article says Anglo-Norman and Norman were different languages. In what ways were they different? For example, the article has some words showing some differences between Anglo-Norman and French, and some words showing some differences between Norman and French, but nothing showing any differences between Anglo-Norman vocabulary and Norman vocabulary. Dab14763 (talk) 19:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First, it is important to understand that "Norman" may mean two things linguistically: First it used to refer to the entire Norman "family" of languages/dialects. In this sense, all forms of Norman, including Old Norman, Anglo-Norman, Jèrriais, and continental Norman are all "Norman". This is what we mean when we talk about "the Norman dialects/languages". The other meaning of the term "Norman" refers specifically to the collection of Norman dialects currently spoken on the continent (in Normandy). These are generally grouped together as a single language (which may include the insular dialects, or may exclude them—frequently, in Norman, one speaks of three "languages": continental "Norman", Jèrriais (which would include Sèrtchais), and Guernésiais. Norman in this sense refers only to the modern Norman dialects, and sometimes only to the continental dialects.
So, to answer your question: Anglo-Norman is an extinct, and very old, dialect of Norman, and the differences between it and the modern Norman dialects would probably be quite similar to the differences between Old Norman and modern Norman (just a guess). A comparison of the Dictionnaire Jèrsiais-Français, the OED, and perhaps a good Anglo-Norman dictionary would probably help tease out the exact distinctions between these languages/dialects. I am ignorant of whether or not any work has been done drawing up the historical linguistics of Norman, however. The Jade Knight (talk) 10:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed split to Anglo-French[edit]

I propose the sections detailing specifically Anglo-French (and not discussing Anglo-Norman) be split and used to create an article at Anglo-French (currently being used as a disambiguation page). In particular, the lengthy parts in "Use and development" seem appropriate for this shift. The Jade Knight (talk) 10:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, would be extremely grateful if someone would create an article about the Anglo-French language. I know nothing about it (which is why I'm here), so whether splitting it off from this article is the solution I don't know. But the current disambiguation page results in useless circular references back to this article, making it impossible for a non-expert to determine what Anglo-French actually is. Is it the same as Anglo-Norman? Evidently not, because many articles (including its disambiguation page) assert that it is not, but nowhere is Anglo-French even defined—much less described—in any way that's intelligible to a layman. If I'm overlooking it somewhere, somebody please set me on the right path.--Jim10701 (talk) 21:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A brief definition is provided at the Anglo-French disambig page: "Linguistic - may be used to refer to the dialect of French that developed in England following the decline of the Norman language there." The Jade Knight (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any sources for that definition? I work mainly on Japanese version of Wikipedia and I translated this article into Japanese. But there is a controversy about the term "Anglo-French". The article is no doubt based on the definition mentioned above (and the next "It may also be used erroneously to describe the Anglo-Norman language, the dialect of Old Norman used in medieval England", at the Anglo-French page) but no reliable sources are cited. One Japanese editor insists that it may be original research to say without sources that using Anglo-French as Anglo-Norman is erroneous. The editor also says the article sounds strange in parts such as, "Middle English was heavily influenced by both Anglo-Norman and, later, Anglo-French" because they are the same or much the same. I can't find sources appropriately endorsing the above definition in The Anglo-Norman On_Line Hub(They advocate using Anglo-French instead of Anglo-Norman for the language even before the decline of the Norman). Are there any good sources that explicitly describe Anglo-French is the dialect of French developed in England after the decline of the Norman?--Ryota7906 (talk) 13:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I currently don't have access to most academic publications, so we may have to wait on academic sources. I'll try to add some references as soon as I'm able. In the meantime, borrowings in English make it obvious enough that Anglo-French and Anglo-Norman were distinct. I suppose it could be argued that "Anglo-Norman" and "Anglo-French" simply refer to two distinct stages of the same language continuum, but the former was distinctly Norman in character, where the latter was distinctly French in character. The issue is complicated by the fact that many in the English-speaking world seem unaware that Norman is (and has been for a thousand years) distinct from French. The Jade Knight (talk) 21:29, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to have reached a bit of a deadlock on the Anglo-Norman/Anglo-French question. That is, how to do justice to the two facts that:
  1. A genuinely Norman dialect was used in England in c. 1066-1166, and a certain number of English words such as "castle" and "warranty" are borrowed from it
  2. In the later Middle Ages a dialect based on Parisian French tended to supplant it in Parliamentary and court usage, and a huge quantity of English vocabulary is derived from that.

It drives me mad when people confuse the two, so that phrases like "la reyne le veult" and the whole French-derived vocabulary in English are indiscriminately described as "Norman French". Conversely, I can see that you do not want the genuinely Norman borrowings to be forgotten about because they are swamped in a mass of later French.

In an ideal world there would be two separate articles. Short of that, can we perhaps sort out the paragraphs chronologically: "1. Norman French was spoken 1066-1166; we borrow words ABC; 2. Francien/Parisian French was spoken 1166-1500 or so and became "Law French"; we borrow words DEF; 3. some doublets have been borrowed from both, e.g. warranty/guarantee"? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:09, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In fact what is going on here is that there are several senses of the name, with none of them being inherently invalid, and a speaker or writer cannot unambiguously use any particular one of them without specifying to the audience which one they are using. And not every linguist would agree that they are "two different/separate things"—and with good reason: it does not necessarily make sense linguistically to try to impose a dividing line at any particular point, versus another point, inside the middle of a fluid spectrum. One look at the list of senses in a WP:RS dictionary shows the situation; for example, I'm quoting here Merriam-Webster Unabridged at "Anglo-French":

  • "[1]: the French language used in medieval England:"
    • "[1a]: the French of Normandy used in England in the 11th and 12th centuries"
    • "[1b]: the French resulting from admixture of Norman and central French used from the 12th to the 15th centuries"

Additionally, we have the following facts:

  • The names "Norman" and "Norman French" are synonymous (see the same WP:RSs aforementioned), so it makes for fragile prescription to talk down to anyone about how "Norman" is different from "French", when one means "French" exclusively in the narrower sense of "central French", without explicitly specifying which sense is meant. Relatedly, NB above the mention of "Norman and central French" as two kinds of French (i.e., both French).
  • NB regarding the definition "the French language used in medieval England" that all of the Norman and post-Norman medieval span of time is contained within the Middle Ages, that is, the medieval period. Therefore, any attempt to assert that "medieval" is different/separate from the Norman period is misplaced prescription; the distinction is between middling medieval and later medieval.

Given these facts, it is misplaced frustration to be "[driven] mad when people confuse the two", because (1) it is inevitable that ambiguity is not at zero unless each user of the term explicitly specifies the intended sense (a principle that positively pervades natural language), and (2) it is not inevitable to believe that there are two separate things to be confused (rather a unitary spectrum to have gradations). And even if average people (i.e., everyone who isn't a philologist or linguist with advanced knowledge of European languages history, i.e., 99.9% of humans) don't know those gradations, that is, don't know which word was borrowed in which century from which dialect, that isn't confusion—that's just the normal baseline of the limits of topic knowledge in reality.

All of this adds up to the fact that no one can credibly look down on anyone else for "confusing" the "two" or not knowing where and how a dividing line lies between the "two" [segments of "one"] (which is why the word "erroneously" has been duly deleted over at the disambig page Anglo-French); and *if* Wikipedia has two separate articles for two segments of the spectrum (which I would not bother doing), they can't be titled "Anglo-Norman" and/versus "Anglo-French" with any true clarity; instead, they would have to be titled something else, such as, potentially, "Anglo-Norman French (11th-12th centuries)" and "Anglo-French (13th-15th centuries)", or some such. Not really worth doing one when one article could have chronologic sections instead. I say that because this is a general encyclopedia, even if a set of philological monographs could have two volumes on the segments. Cheers all, Quercus solaris (talk) 18:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

grammar, grimoires and other glamours[edit]

"The word glamour is derived, unglamorously, from AN grammeire, the same word which gives us modern grammar. Apparently glamour meant magic or magic spell in Medieval times" The word "grimoire", a book of magic spells, jumped to my mind reading this sentence, should it also be part of the discussion?

Quite exact. According to T. H. Hoad's English Etymology, OUP. AN Grammarye, gramarie would have given AN *glomerie > glamour. AN grammere would have given grammar. Grimoire is the same kind of change, but in French and borrowed from French. Only in French ei can become oi, Anglo-Norman like all the Western Oil dialects kept ei intact. The /gri/ is probably the result of an influence from grimuche, Old French word for grimace. Nortmannus (talk) 19:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo-Norman ei[edit]

The article currently reads: "The words veil and leisure retain the /ei/ (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by /wɑː/ voile, loisir."

This is strictly incorrect, if it intends to suggest that the Modern English diphthong [eɪ] descends without change from the Anglo-Norman sound represented by ei.

In fact, English [eɪ] is a fairly new sound, arising around 1800 (or only slightly earlier). Anglo-Norman ei was not retained, having merged with ai, which became English ai (presumably [aɪ] or something similar), which in turn merged with English long a, whose sound rapidly mutated (by raising and fronting) from [aː] to [æː] to [ɛː] to [eː] (as it still is in Scottish Standard English) and thence to [eɪ]. The spelling ai is seen in the very old borrowing faith (early Norman feid, feit, fait). With secondary destressing we see e (e.g. power from poeir, later pooir, MF pouvoir and endeavo(u)r, formerly endever, from en+deveir, later devoir).

What would be more correct is to simply note that the Modern English sounds descended in some cases from Anglo-Norman ei prior to the French change of ei to oi (which was, of course, originally pronounced something like [ɔɪ]). But many words were borrowed in the Middle Ages after the change: anoint, boil, cloister, coin, coy, enjoy, join, joint, joy, loin, loyal, moist, noise, oil, ointment, royal, soil (n. and v.), voice, void; and in these cases the diphthong has been preserved with minimal change since the Middle Ages.RandomCritic (talk) 04:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Really interesting, what we can read here. Thanks. Nortmannus (talk) 20:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Standardization[edit]

Do we want to use accents like féchoun (é) and caundèle (è) even though they didn't exist yet? Such accents are added by modern editors to help the reader understand. These sort of accents didn't appear until around 1780 according to the TLFi. Also, does Norman refer to the Norman language or to Anglo-Norman, in sentences like "English therefore, for example, has fashion from Norman féchoun as opposed to Modern French". Finally, AN and PF should be written out (WP:PAPER) but I'll do that now. --Mglovesfun (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The words provided (with accents) are examples of Modern Norman, strictly speaking, the English words did not derive from those forms, but the Norman forms are given for comparison (just as the modern French forms are given for comparison). Either way, it would be incorrect to remove the accents from those words. Again, strictly speaking, the article is in error in stating that "fashion" derives from féchoun; technically, they both derive from a common Old Norman stem. The Jade Knight (talk) 21:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sourced, but untrue, statement.[edit]

A few days ago I removed the following statement:

Norman and French influence affected the English vocabulary, grammar, spelling and pronunciation. As a result, the Anglo-Saxon grammar became less flexible in the choice of the order of words in the sentence, while the verbal system of endings for adjectives, nouns and verbs became simpler.[7]

It has recently been restored as the statement was sourced, but I didn't provide a "source" for my removing it. I don't know how I am meant to reference the deletion of a statement, as it's no longer in the article. Anyway, let me do it here so it can be redeleted for good.

The claim is untrue, as the changes in inflection and word order began in Late Old English, and were not brought about by Norman French. The easiest reference to this I can give, is in Baugh & Cable, A History of the English Language, 4ed. (which is a standard textbook). In Chapter 7 they give details of how grammatical and phonological changes emerged from Old Engilsh, and specifically on page 163, they say:

It is important to emphasize that these changes which affected the grammatical structure of English after the Norman Conquest were not the result of contact with the French language.
The changes weren't due to the Conquest entirely. Contact across the Danelaw had already begun to erode some of the inflection in articles. On the other hand, the Beowulf MS dates from around 1000 (Kiernan's estimate) and still has heavily inflected grammar. Thus, educated people then as today retained more inflection than commoners. The word order in Beowulf is extremely flexible. Without the Norman Conquest's driving English from the courts, etc, the literate speakers of Old English might have retained a lot more inflection than we see today. 66.61.102.203 (talk) 00:51, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The only change which is really attributable to French is the inflow of new vocabulary. As the paragraph below speaks about vocabulary, this paragraph should be deleted. Emma May Smith (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is understood that deflexion has something to do with language contact. Anglo-Saxon was already an amalgam of different continental Germanic dialects. Over time there was significant contact with different Celtic languages as well as Norse. Therefore it is indeed true, and not surprising, that some of those grammatical changes had started before the French influence, and they might have had quite similar outcomes without it. On the other hand it is impossible to say that French had no influence on grammar or syntax whatsoever. It did. Especially concerning word order in which English is different from all other Germanic languages, but very similar to French. So: The influence of French should not be overestimated, it is not the reason for everything; but it is one of the reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.163.110 (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense"[edit]

The translation provided is too word-for-word to render the exact thought behind the motto. I suggest here "Reviled be whoever thinks ill", but also "Reviled be whoever has ill thoughts" or (...) vile thoughts" or "(...) abject thoughts", etc... Any other idea ? Condor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.50.33 (talk) 14:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

chaotic intro[edit]

The article starts out by defining Anglo-Norman and says it's a synonym of Anglo-Norman French. Then it suddenly starts talking about Anglo-French without explaining what that is and only indirectly(!) says it's something different (by using a verb in the plural). In addition, the first use of the undefined term is followed by a sophomoric "its" that can be interpreted as referring to two synonyms for one language or to "correspondence". Very sloppy and chaotic. --Espoo (talk) 09:45, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grammatical and syntactical influences[edit]

The introduction says that Anglo-Norman had little grammatical influence on English, which is probably correct. The only example given, however, is the noun-adjective word order in certain titles like attorney general. This is a bad example. The older Germanic languages did allow this word order, though they used it rarely. Moreover, this worder occurs in English outside of titles, particularly with participles (cf. my "the example given" above). The most striking instance of a likely Anglo-Norman influence is actually that English has lost V2 word order. All Germanic languages (without exception!) do have this, as did Old English and early Middle English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.115.180 (talk) 19:22, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mortgage/gage/wage[edit]

'Compare also: wage (Anglo-Norman) - gage (French)'

vs

'Mortgage, for example, literally meant death-wage in Anglo-Norman'

105.227.61.241 (talk) 13:57, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget Scotland![edit]

This article seems to mention only England and Ireland, but of course exactly the same was true of Scotland after the Norman Conquest of northern Britain nominally headed by the usurper David I on behalf of William's son Henry I.

Walter of Coventry (fl. 1290) wrote “The modern kings of Scotia count themselves as Frenchmen [i.e. Norman], in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Scots [=Gaels north of the Forth] to utter servitude". Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.7.111.241 (talk) 18:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Requested move 9 November 2017[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. We have no agreement that the language is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC among other uses. I'll move the dab page to Anglo-Norman. Cúchullain t/c 15:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Anglo-Norman language → Anglo-Norman – This page can be moved to match its headword, since Anglo-Norman is only a redirect. The ISO 639-3 name is simply 'Anglo-Norman' and this is also the name used in the Oxford English Dictionary. Alternatively, the page could be moved to Anglo-Norman French to match the Oxford Dictionary of English. AndrewNJ (talk) 09:44, 9 November 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Is the language or is Anglo-Normans the more sought after topic? —  AjaxSmack  12:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. We need to know what the primary topic is, and if there isn't one, Anglo-Norman should be a DAB page. - BilCat (talk) 16:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's safe to say that people looking up 'Anglo-Norman' are far more likely to be looking for the language. The specialized OED notes the use of the term to refer to Anglo-Norman people, etc., but the Oxford Dictionary of English doesn't even list that as a definition. A Google search for the term results (at least for me) in a page results that are, all but one, discussing the language, and indeed they automatically show the first line of the Wikipedia article for 'Anglo-Norman language', not 'Anglo-Normans'. AndrewNJ (talk) 12:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Per nom's assertion that the language is the primary topic. A DAB page is needed for articles such as Anglo-Norman literature and Anglo-Norman horse (that's a new one to me!), so I'll create that later today at Anglo-Norman (disambiguation), unless someone else wants to do it sonner (not a hint). - BilCat (talk) 12:56, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • SupportAnglo-Norman French, as this is probably a better unambiguous title, but the language is clearly the primary topic for Anglo-Norman in the absence of contradictory data, and as such would be a redirect to the language article. - BilCat (talk) 14:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of the first 20 results on a google books search for " Anglo-Norman", all but 3 refer neither to the language nor the people, but to the historical period and its culture. The closest match I could find for this topic seems to be Anglo-Norman England, but this is currently a redirect to a section within History of England and it only deals with the political events. – Uanfala 22:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. No primary topic, so Anglo-Norman should be a DAB as several have suggested. The articles on the language and the people are adequately named, and there are other topics as well that should be listed in the DAB. Andrewa (talk) 14:37, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Origin of the term[edit]

It is quite obvious that the term "Anglo-Norman" is fairly recent, since all the accounts of the era describe the language spoken by the Norman nobility in England as simply "French". I'm fairly certain this term was invented by nationalistic 19th century British historians who wanted to mark a separation between their French rivals and the foreign elites that ruled England centuries ago, but it would be great to have sourced accounts of the term's origins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.150.142.207 (talk) 09:19, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

18th century according to the OED: "1735 M. Shelton tr. W. Wotton Short View Hickes's Anc. Northern-lang. 30 (note) The Anglo-Norman ing, is changed into ig, by throwing out the n."John O'London (talk) 16:55, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliographical reference missing[edit]

Footnote 9 refers to "Fuderman," but neither References nor Bibliography lists the publication in question----.

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