Week 2 Flashcards
Scandinavian assimilation to French culture in
9th and 10thC (they adapted to their customs)
Pact in 911 between
Rollo the Dane AND Charles the Simple ⇒ to agree that Scandinavians can stay
Harold II was influenced by
Earl Godwin, he was elected by witan, not direct son of the king.
BATTLE OF HASTINGS
(14th Oct 1066) ⇒ between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England.
BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE (25th Sept 1066)
There was a war between Duke William of Normandy (WHO WON) and King Harald Hardrada (king of Norway, his idea was to invade England by the coast)
Edward the Confessor
died without a male heir, which created some issue
Aethelred AND Emma (widow)
she remarried again, in this case with Cnut (a danish man becoming king)
THEN Cnut II (his son)
dies without an heir, therefore Edward the Confessor get access to the throne
Duke William
burns down Canterbury, receives the name of William the Conqueror or the Great, king of England
Consequences of the settlement
Socioeconomic: replacement of nobility; Norman prelates; merchant, craftsmen and soldiers
Sociolinguistics ⇒ DISGLOSSIA: two languages coexist in an organized way, English → low prestige;
French → high prestige
French:
Norman French (NF) / Anglo-Norman French (AN) → spoken by Norman rulers of England
Central French (CF) → French of Paris (>prestige)
Diglossia
2 PERIODS:
- 11th to mid 12th
- 12th to early 13th
Diglossia
2 PERIODS:
11th to mid 12th
- English kings without a good command of English up to Edward I
- Norman troops in England
- 90% of population spoke English, rulers spoke French
- Golden Age of Norman literature
- Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine > epansion of dukedom of Normandy
Diglossia
2 PERIODS:
12th to early 13th
new sociolinguistic patterning intermarriage (>bilinguals), use of NF among AS elites
The decline of Anglo-Norman and the spread of monolingual English:
Historical events
Linguistic factors
The path towards monolingual written English
1204 →
King John loses Normandy to King Philip of France ⇒ A nobility chooses allegiance > weakening of
ties Normandy - England: the identity of the group becomes stronger.
1258 - 1265 →
Barons’ War (1258 - 1265) AND Oxford Proclamation (1258): the 1st official document in
English (Henry III). Demands of participation and power.
1337 - 1453 →
The Hundred Years’ War: French was the language of the enemy; English victories at Crécy, Poitiers etc.
1348 - 1350 →
The Black Death: lower classes more in demand > gain political power
1381 →
The Peasant’s Revolt: Demand of better working conditions = INCREASING STATUS OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
Linguistic factors > attitudes
NF: warnings against improper French
CF: prestige, L2 of English nobility
Loanword
the borrowing of a lexical item
Words =
form + meaning
mixed language texts
‘Code switching’ →
population changing linguistically
In business, medical, scientific texts
