French borrowings in the english language

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into:completely assimilated,partly assimilated and non-assimilated(barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language,cf.the French word”sport” and the native word”start”.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following group:a)borrowings non-assimilated semantically,because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed.e.g.,sari,sombrero,taiga,kvass,etc.

b)borrowings non-assimilated grammatically,e.g.nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms(bacillus-bacilli,phenomenon-phenomena,datum-data,genius-genii etc.

c)borrowings non-assimilated phonetically.Here belong words with the initial sounds/v/ and/z/,e.g.,voice,zero.

Non-assimilated borrowings(barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated,e.g.addio(Italian),tete-a-tete(French),dolce vita(Italian),an home a femme(French),etc.

Classification of Borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed.Although the mixed character of the English vocabulary can not be denied and the part of borrowing in its development is indded one of great importance,the leading role in the history of this vocabulary belongs to word-formation and semantic changes patterned according to the specific features of the English language system.This system absorbed and remodelled the vast majority of loan words according to its own standards,so that it is sometimes difficult to tell an old borrowing from a native word.Examples are:cheese,street,wall,wine and other words belonging to the earliest layer of Latin borrowings.Many loan words,on the other hand,in spite of the changes they have undergone after penetrating into English,retain some peculiarities in pronunciation,spelling,ortheopy and morphology.

                         2.2.Assimilation of French words.

   The Norman Conquest changed the language situation of the uppermost parts of the upper echelons only. These included the aristocracy, the higher members of the clergy, legal professionals, political circles, and highest economic classes. Here, because of the prestige of French (Norman, not metropolitan French), anybody who wanted to make it, spoke French. As time goes on, there are reports of upper class children learning to speak French as a second language. The language that people wrote was mainly French. It was the language of courtly literature, of Romance [originally a story written in the Romance language, i.e. in this case, French]. An important group of stories in this tradition was those that concerned King Arthur. Although Arthur was probably a Celtic hero, after the Norman Conquest, the stories were taken over and adapted by the Norman ruling class. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table became the models of the French concepts of chivalry and courtesy.

  From the middle of the 13thc onward, French was beginning to be accepted as an alternative language of record. In courts of law, the previous practice with regard to Latin was transferred to French, and the words of people speaking English were recorded in French. This means it’s actually very hard to determine which language people were speaking in court, unless the court recorder explicitly mentions it.

   Lower down the social and literacy scales, people spoke English. The local parish priest was likely to speak English, and the magistrate was also likely to speak English. English was everywhere, French was mainly in London, at court, in law and in the church. This left the vast majority of English people English. Unlike the Viking invasions, which affected every level of society, the Norman Conquest mainly affected the top. The proportion of England’s population that was Norman was at the most 2%, way too small for it to shape the whole society.

   Despite the fact that there were so few Norman French speakers in England, English absorbed lots of Norman French—spelling, pronunciation, and NB.

   Let’s look at the influence of French on the vocabulary, and then examine the social conditions that made French such an important source of borrowing for English.What areas of life were affected or change by French?Administration,law, church, and military; food and drink,fashion,science and learning,etc.

   Why did English borrow so many words from Norman French? Compare the situation with the Celtic flight before the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The key is the Prestige of French—but need to interpret this matter more sensitively—while Norman French was the initial influence, this lasted only a hundred years.

   How the French language has influenced the English? A. L. P. Smith has pointed out in his book "The English Language" that "the main additions to the English language, additions so great as to change its character in a fundamental way, were from French, first of all from the Northern French of Norman conquerors and then from the literary and learned speech of Paris." Even before the Norman conquest, the English had become acquainted with the Norman culture and the way of its life, because of the social, political and Ecclesiastical intercourse between the two nations. During the reign of Edward, the confessor, several Norman nobles were placed in important positions in England and the fortified buildings in which they stayed were known as 'castels' (castles), 'capun' (capon) and 'bacun' (bacon) are two other words introduced at the tea time and they serve to suggest the greater luxury of French cooking which was new to the English. After the conquest, we find a stream of French words entering the English vocabulary and they suggest the influence of an occupying power over a conquered people. 'Prisun' (prison), 'tur' (tower), 'market', 'rent', 'justice', etc., have been thus introduced into the English language. After the Norman conquest, we find the 'church', the 'courts of law', the 'arts of war', trade with the 'continent' and the 'pastimes' of the aristocracy becoming Norman-French intermingling. Words like 'battle', 'court', 'countess', 'treasure', 'charity', etc., were derived from French. In the thirteenth century the contact with France was much weakened. Meanwhile the English and the Normans had become merged into one people and in another hundred years English had become accepted as the National language of the country in place of Norman-French. Frenchified terminology became restricted to the court of law. Among the French legal terms which were retained and are still in use are 'plaintiff', 'defendant', 'privilege, etc. The dialect of French that was becoming culturally important was Central or Parisian French. A series of central words like 'chancellor', 'charity', 'chattel', were introduced into English though their Norman French equivalent 'cancelar', 'carited' and 'cattle' were already known to English. Among the French loans from 1100 to 1300 the following words may be taken as representative of different objects- 'prisun', 'chapel', 'grace', 'service', 'miracle', 'religion', 'bataille', 'basin', 'lamp', 'beast', etc. The 14th century witnessed a great increase in the number of French loans. These were no longer limited in use to the educated or upper class but became integral parts of the language. During this period we find that there is a very high proportion of French loan words relating to hunting, cooking and the art of war to English vocabulary. For instance 'colonel', 'lieutenant', 'major', 'captain', etc. have been derived. While French influence on the English language was general and wide spreading during the Middle English period, it was no longer so after the beginning of the 16th century. Though like Latin, French continued to be the source of new words; the French loans after the 15th century were confined to particular classes of technical words restricted in use to the better educated people. The 16th century borrowings, for instance, were mostly technical terms and the common man had little to do with them. The 17th century is significant in the history of the French loans as it was a period of very close contact between the English and the French in matters of literature and social intercourse. One if the subjects which engaged the attention of the satirists and playwrights of Restoration was the indiscriminate imitation of all things French by 'smart set' in London. Words like 'dragoon', 'stockade', 'ballet', 'burlesque', 'tableau', 'chagrin', champagne', 'native', 'forte', 'soup', etc. are the representative of the 17th century borrowings from French. While the 18th century was also rich in the French entrants into English vocabulary, the 19th century was also the richest of all in those. Along with the usual borrowings of the military terms, we find those relating to diplomacy and those called forth by the French Revolution. The loan words of the 18th century are 'guillotine', 'regime', 'bureau', 'canteen', 'picnic', 'police', 'coup', etc. The 19th century witnessed a rich harvest of French loans. These include along with the usual military terms those relating to art and letters, textiles and furniture. 'Barrage', 'communique', 'renaissance', 'restaurant', 'matinee', 'motif', 'menu', 'chauffeur', 'elite', etc. are the examples of the 19th century borrowings. The kind of objects and ideas devoted by the French loans made during the two centuries following the Norman conquest till their own story of the conquering Normans and their authority over the conquered English. Waniba the jester in Scott's "Ivanhoe" points out how the living animals like ox, sheep, chalf, swine and deer have continued to bear their English names even after the conquest while the flesh of these animals used as food has been referred to by French words like 'beef', 'mutton', 'pork', 'bacon', etc. Terms relating to war were naturally adopted from the language of the conquerors. War itself is a French word. So are 'battle', 'assault', 'banner', 'armour', etc. The terms relating to family relationships have also been borrowed from the French. Thus 'uncle', 'nephew', 'niece', 'cousin' have all come from French. The use of the French prefix was extended to 'grandson' and 'granddaughter' in Elizabethan times. 'Mother-in-law' and 'father-in-law', though compounded of English words, are literal translation of Old French designations.

  The antipathy towards anything foreign, particularly if it had a papist tinge, shown by the Puritans was replaced by the wish to emulate all that was sophisticated and modern in France in particular.  Latin loanwords became less frequent as French loans proliferated.

   The proliferation of Fr. loans eventually became a cause of concern and as a result an anti-French faction gradually formed which aimed to check the great influx of words.  To be sure, because there was no academy which dealt with such matters like in France often the gentlest of men would disagree over what was polite and proper in usage and what was affected.  Even had there been an English academy, I believe that there would have been just as many disagreements because of the transitive term polite, which was the criterion for assessing affectation.

  ‘Polite’ became one of the most important words during the Restoration for it distinguished the speech of what came to be known as the English gentleman and the common brute.  Polite usage was something quite separate from ordinary or colloquial usage.Two issues that stemmed from polite usage: proper pronunciation and appropriate vocabulary.  It was common view at this time, according to N. F. Blake, “that pronunciation should be as close as possible to the written form”       Thus, any speaker “who wished to be polite clearly had to be reasonably educated in order to read and to be familiar with the spelling system of the language”. Indeed, by making pronunciation dependent on spelling, nobody could be a natural polite speaker, not even the upper middle classes because it was not an imitation of a former aristocratic dialect.  Education is what was of the utmost importance, not birth.  Men like Jonathan Swift and John Dryden often ridiculed those who were or wanted to be members of the nobility and spoke in a strange way.

  Blake observes that women were typically a target of harsh criticism because it was believed that the language they spoke was either “too affected or too coarse”.  In this context affected literally refers to the use of unnecessary French loans.  Hence in plays written in the Restoration period, it is quite common for female characters to be satirized for their affected use of French words.So in Dryden’s Marriage á la Mode (1673) there is ‘an Affected Lady’ called Melantha who is ‘one of those that run mad in new French words’.  She peppers her conversation with phrases like mon cher, voyag’d, Bete, honete, home, bien tourney, obligeant, charmant, ravissant.   In short, instead of speaking politely Melantha speaks what critics referred to as “á la Mode de Paris”.

   Such satirical writing and branding however must be taken with a pinch of salt.  Indeed, even Dryden was not opposed to the principal of borrowing.  In fact, he defended the principal in the prefix to his translation of Virgil’s Æneid (1697).  He states that our old Teuton monosyllables are all right for necessity, but if we want magnificence and splendour we must borrow words from aboard.

  In assessing the linguistic situation and the criticisms, one cannot entirely rule out that it mattered who was introducing the French Loan.Women were often typically targeted because they were not permitted to influence the English language.Only the well educated and well respected gentleman/literati was permitted to borrow.When others borrowed irrespective of the reason, necessity or copia verborum, there choices and often even their character were ridiculed.  To illustrate, let us take into consideration Addison remarks concerning the Duke of Marlbourough’s report on his successful campaign against the French on the continent:

  The present War has so Adulterated our Tongue with strange Words, that it would be impossible for one of our Great Grandfathers to know what his Posterity had been doing, were he to read their Exploits in a Modern News Paper.The Warriors are very Industrious in Propagating the French Language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their Power.Addison objected to the new military words which had come into use such as manoruvre, bivouac, corps, terrain, and enfilade.However,these loans have become well established.  Other military terms adopted after or just prior to the Restoration include: cartouche, brigade, platoon, mêlée, envoy, and aide-de-camp.  Loans belonging to specialized registers such as the military were borrowed out of necessity.

    While French loans did contribute to many specialized registers as demonstrated above, social loans such as repartee, liaison,naïve,class,décor, rapport, malapropos, métier, faux pas, beau, verve, ménage; and cultural loans such as rôle, crayon, soup, cabaret, cravat, memoirs, champagne, ballet, nom-de-plume, pool, denim, attic, mousseline and vinaigrette constitute the majority of loans.By cultural it is meant loans which would fit into the register arts, literature, dress, games and dancing, and food.

   In the eighteenth century, food and cooking continued to attract French loans (e.g. casserole, croquette, ragout, hors d’ oeuvre, liqueur); so do literature, music, and art (critique, belles letters, connoisseur, vaudeveille, dénouement, précis,brochure).

   The wholesale borrowing of French words was still a cause of much concern even by the eighteenth century.  George Campbell protested against redundant synonymy:Are not pleasure, opinionative, and sally, as expressive as volupty, opiniatre, and sortie?  Wherein is the expression last resort, inferior to dernier resort; liberal arts, to beaux arts, and polite literature, to belles letters?

   In spite of such protests, many of the French loans which were branded as affections withstood the test of time as the analysis of Addison’s remark above demonstrates.As a result, the English lexis is very rich and speakers have a vocabulary at their disposal which allows them to express very fine nuances of meaning.  Indeed, due to wholesale borrowing English speakers have the freedom to modulate their tone, to control the formality or informality of their language to fit the needs of their rhetorical situation, or by using the words, create the rhetorical situation they want.  To illustrate, let us consider for example the French loan faux pas.  Hypothetically, let us say you utter the following sentence “I realize I’d committed a serious faux pas by joking about his wife’s family” to friends (who do not have English or Linguistic majors) while telling an anecdote instead of saying “I made a serious blunder by joking about his wife’s family”.  The first sentence to most native speakers feels slightly formal or even literary compared to the second sentence which is not felt to be stylistically marked.By choosing faux pas, instead of blunder or even mistake,one is modulating their style to fit the situation with its unique social variables.  At any rate, many native speakers feel that the majority of social and cultural French loans are more formal or literary than their native counter part(s).

   For a greater portion of the Middle English period (M.E.) French (Fr.) was the governing vernacular of England.  It was the language of the ruling elite, many of which spoke little if any English, the language of the court, and the language in which polite literature was written.  Hence, studies using the Oxford English Dictionary revealing that Fr. was the primary source of loans outnumbering Latin, the second largest source, four to one should hardly surprise us. As Baugh points out “where two languages exist side by side for a long time and the relations of the people speaking them are as intimate as they were in England, a considerable transference of words” is “inevitable”. As to the quantity of loans, Baugh states that it is “unbelievably great” and that “there is nothing comparable to it in the previous or subsequent history of the language”. Baugh, as well as many other linguists, believe that the upper classes carried over so many French words into English for the following reasons: to supply deficiencies in the English vocabulary; due to an imperfect command of the English vocabulary; yielding to a natural impulse to use a word long familiar to them.  Whatever the motive or reason, the English lexis benefited greatly.It is necessary to point out that the majority of native speakers today would not recognize these words as foreign, because they have become apart of the common core.To illustrate, consider, for example, a sample of lexemes added to the military register: army, navy, peace, enemy, arms, battle, combat, skirmish,siege,defense,ambush, stratagem, retreat, soldier, garrison, guard, spy and the ranks of officers such as captain, lieutenant, and sergeant.They hardly seem foreign and it would be impossible to even imagine trying to discuss military matters without these lexemes.Other registers that were flooded with French borrowings were government and administration, law, ecclesiastical matter, fashion, food, social life, art learning and medicine. In the Early Modern English period (EModE), Fr. would continue to contribute to the English lexis; however, the quantity would be considerably less and motives would be different.

   Because English was a “base speche” many writers such as Sir Thomas Elyot made a conscious effort to enrich the lexis.  Their choice was not always a matter of practical consideration, coining new words for new concepts, but a matter of stylistic concern, providing richness to the lexis, known as copia verborum, which was considered the hallmark of a literary language.

    French loans from the opening of the period to approximately the Restoration reveal that both of the aforementioned motives for borrowing are valid.  To illustrate, let us take into consideration a number of military and naval terms: trophy 1513, pioneer 1523, pilot 1520, colonel 1548, volley 1573, and cartridge 1579.  One could argue, and in those days many did, that the first three loans are examples of copia verborum because perfectly good native words −respectively, prize (1300), founder (1340), and steersman (1000)−existed to express these things while this cannot be said of the last three lexemes. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that one is walking on a fine line when labeling a lexeme as copia verborum.  While the word steersman and pilot are almost completely synonymous at this point, the introduction of pilot did give the speaker the ability to express a fine nuance of meaning.

   The latter part of Boorde’s comment that “the speche of Englande of late dayes is amended” is indicative of the shift in attitude towards the English lexis.  Indeed, many felt that English was rich enough to express almost anything and that many were borrowing for the sake of magniloquence.  This started a conflict known as the Inkhorn Controversy, which died down in the course of the seventeenth century.To be sure, those in favor of borrowing won the battle;however, the affectation of innovations, particularly French continued to be criticized, especially during the Restoration period.

   Among the various types of changes which took place in the period in which Middle English borrowed from French through direct contact, are those which led to a mixing of Germanic and Romance elements. Thus one has cases of assimilation in which an English word was created on the basis of a similar sounding French word. Here one has an instance of the French form complementing the English one. For example, the English verb choose obtained a noun choice on the basis of a borrowing of French choix.

   In some cases one can no longer decide whether the Germanic or the Romance form of a word has survived into Modern English. Thus in the case of the adjective rich one cannot tell whether it is a continuation of the Old English rice or the later French borrowing riche. However, one can in many cases see a contamination of the morphology of words due to French borrowing. With the previous adjective one can see the Romance suffix in the noun formed from it: richess as opposed to Old English richdom with the Romance ending -ess.

    The form of a word may have been changed without its meaning having been affected. With the Old English word iegland / iland (cf. German Eiland) one arrives at the later spelling island under the influence of French isle. Note that the s here is unetymological, i.e. was never pronounced in English. Some French loanwords were influenced by changes later than Middle English. This is for example the case with Old French viage which was borrowed into Middle English but where the later French form voyage was borrowed into English and adapted in its pronunciation. The same is true of the Middle English noun flaute which was changed under the influence of later French flute.

   The Norman Conquest of 1066 left England as a trilingual country,although most people would speak one or two of the dominant languages.Latin was the language for record keeping,learning and church.French was the language of the Norman aristocracy and therefore also the language of the common folk and menials.

When the Norman took over England,they changed the language of government and the court almost overnight and disregarded existing institutions.Instead,they took on almost wholesale institutions derived from France,including the feudal system which guaranteed strong control by the king.