Oka,y so quick disclaimer before this video starts.
So, I am actually in a hotel room in London right now (which by the way, if you don't
know, is a small village in France), and I decided that being in a hotel room at VidCon
London isn't really the best place to make a video.
So, for the next couple of weeks, this channel will actually be hosted by a couple of guest
video hosts, the first of which is from a channel that I really enjoy called Eklectic.
So, Eklectic, please take it away.
The English language, is a dumpster fire.
Our spelling system is abhorrent, and our words are all over the place; our language
has been impregnated with vocabulary from all across Europe.
We’re like one, big, beautiful mess.
We can trace most of this mess to the invasions of the Britain.
Between the romans, angles, saxons, jutes, vikings, and normans, Britain was Invaded
by more people than Russia in Winter.
Arguably one of the greatest influences on the English language was from Norman French.
In fact, French has been so influential, that the English language has actually borrowed
the same French words more than once, at different periods in time.
This turns English into a time capsule, with old and new french loanwords being used side
by side.
Let’s talk about some of them, shall we?
But before we can do that, let’s talk about why French was so influential on English.
We can divide this into 2 main periods.
1.
Norman Rule William I of Normandy, after squishing a rebellion
in his own soil, decided to raise some hell in England, eventually conquering it and establishing
Norman rule in 1066.
This had thrusted Norman French into England.
But where other cultures plundered and left, the Normans did not, instead they settled
in, took all the land, and became the ruling class of the Isles.
Over time, Norman French, now Anglo-Norman became highly influential regarding high-falutin
words of religion, law, and literature.
Eventually, Anglo-Norman French became a language of status and prestige in England, where it
continued to add words to the local vocabulary for 300 years, from the 12th to 15th century.
2.
French Cultural Dominance over Western Europe We have to start somewhere with this, so let's
go with François Ier de France He said “Hey, everyone, f**k Latin.
Let’s write our laws in French” and in 1539, he signed in the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts,
which did just that, among other things.
This new law helped establish what regional dialects of French were really French, and
it also established French as the language of France (I know, right?).
Fun Fact, articles 110 and 111 of this ordinance, which are the specific parts of the document
that say “You must write laws clearly, and (thus) they must be written in French”,
that is the oldest piece of French legislation that is still in use by the French government.
Anyway, back to Frank.
At the same time as this whole “codifying French Law in French” thing, he was also
a massive patron of the arts, bringing a wealth of culture, literature, and science to France.
This brought France, and the new idea of French, into prominence, which, of course, bleeds
its way into Britain, after all, there’s a reason why we call it The Renaissance, instead
of.. [google translate voice for The Rebirth translated into Latin], that.
As we move forward into the 17th century, France stays a cultural powerhouse.
Even after revolution, republic, dictatorship, collapse, monarchy, revolution, republic,
dictatorship, capture, and republic, France was a leading and influential force on the
continent.
Of course, Great Britain was becoming a leading force… everywhere else… but that’s beside
the point.
As you can imagine, with all this contact between France and England/Britain, not only
do we get loanwords, but our loanwords can happen more than once, at different times.
In linguistics, having 2 or more words with the same root are called “doublets”.
Let’s look at 4 doublets from different points in English/French history, starting
with: Chief / Chef
Chief coming from the Old French “chief”, meaning leader, while chef comes from the
modern French “Chef”, still meaning leader.
Here, the old spelling is maintained in chief, but the meaning has shifted in chef, going
from a general leader, to the leader of a kitchen.
And this, shrinking of scope, is very common in these doublets.
Like: Castle / château
Castle is a true fossil here.
These borrowings, from old french and modern french respectively, show how the French language
has changed phonologically.
I just want to point out how that s sound fell out of fashion around the 1100s, and
was eventually written out of the word by replacing it with a circumflex [^]. You can
see this in other French borrowings like hôpital, forêt, and côte
Warranty / Guarantee I find it interesting how similar in meaning
these doublets can be, but can still manage to be different.
Like a warranty (from Anglo-Norman) and a guarantee (heavily influenced by French) can
mean the same thing, when used as a noun, but you can only guarantee a warranty, not
the other way around.
Pocket / Pouch Pocket from Anglo Norman, meaning pouch, and
pouch, from Old French poche, for bag.
Keep in mind that our word for pocket came from a time when people didn’t have modern
pockets.
The idea of a pocket was basically just a pouch on a belt, which meant that back then,
you really could drop your pockets.
There are a lot more doublets from French in the English language, but I’ll leave
you with just a taste.
Big thanks to KhAnubis for letting me put this up on his channel.
This kind of video is a bit different for me, so if you want to see something a bit
more... silly, feel free to check out my channel.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next sunday.
Thank you so much, Eklectic, and thank you for watching.
If you want to see more from his channel, do be sure to follow the link on screen, or
in the description to see more.
Next week will be another guest video, specifically to do with South Africa.