THE INFLUENCE OF FRENCH ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Аннотация:

The influence of French on the evolution of the English language represents one of the most decisive phases in its historical development. Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, Anglo-Norman French became the language of administration, law, literature, and the aristocracy, while English persisted among the general population. Over several centuries, intense bilingual contact led to profound lexical borrowing, particularly in domains such as governance, jurisprudence, religion, warfare, education, cuisine, fashion, and abstract thought. This contact also affected English morphology and stylistics: many native terms were replaced or semantically narrowed, and Romance affixation patterns entered Middle English word-formation. The gradual re-emergence of English as the dominant public language in the late Middle Ages did not reverse French influence; rather, it resulted in a layered lexicon where Germanic and Romance items co-exist with distinct stylistic and register implications. Thus, French did not merely enrich the vocabulary of English but contributed structurally and functionally to its transformation from a predominantly Germanic idiom into a hybridized, highly stratified lexicon characteristic of Modern English.