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Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; French: ancien français) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2] and mid-14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a group of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse.
English words gave way to borrowings from Anglo-Norman following the Norman Conquest as English lost ground as a language of prestige. Anglo-Norman was used in schools and dominated literature, nobility and higher life, leading a wealth of French loanwords to enter English over the course of several centuries—English only returned to courts of law in 1362, and to government in the following ...
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep, groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry, brush and rock (from French).
The influence of French on English pertains mainly to its lexicon, including orthography, and to some extent pronunciation. Most of the French vocabulary in English entered the language after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Old French, specifically the Old Norman dialect, became the language of the new Anglo-Norman court
Older Southern American English is a diverse set of English dialects of the Southern United States spoken most widely up until the American Civil War of the 1860s, gradually transforming among its White speakers—possibly first due to postwar economy-driven migrations—up until the mid-20th century. [1]
Old English (Englisċ or Ænglisc, pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ]), or Anglo-Saxon, [1] was the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages.
American English also favors the double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). [103] Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United ...
Since the Norman conquest of 1066 many Latinate words entered the English lexicon via French, which has – via Old French – a substantial base of Old Dutch (or Old Low Franconian) and Middle Dutch. For instance, French boulevard comes from Dutch bolwerk. In cases it is not clear whether the loanword in French is from Dutch or another ...