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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
Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift. The Great Vowel Shift was a series of pronunciation changes in the vowels of the English language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s [1] (the transition period from Middle English to Early Modern English), beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English.
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).
They were first adopted into English from early Old French, and the ending was spelled ‑our, ‑or or ‑ur. [9] After the Norman Conquest, the ending became ‑our to match the later Old French spelling. [10] The ‑our ending was used not only in new English borrowings, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used ‑or. [9]
Although the Old English diphthongs merged into monophthongs, Middle English began to develop a new set of diphthongs.Many of these came about through vocalization of the palatal approximant /j/ (usually from an earlier /ʝ/) or the labio-velar approximant /w/ (sometimes from an earlier voiced velar fricative [ɣ]), when they followed a vowel.
A vowel pronounced /ɑː/ in General American (GA) and /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation (RP) when preceded by /w/ and not followed by the velar consonants /k/, /ɡ/ or /ŋ/, as in swan, wash, wallow, etc. (General American is the standard pronunciation in the U.S. and Received Pronunciation is the most prestigious pronunciation in Britain. In ...
American English: AuE Australian English: BahE Bahamian English: BarE Barbadian English: CaE Canadian English: CIE Channel Island English: EnE English English: FiE Fiji English: InE Indian English: IrE Irish English: JSE Jamaican English: NZE New Zealand English: PaE Palauan English: ScE Scottish English: SIE Solomon Islands English: SAE South ...
Some English words can be written with diacritics; these are mostly loanwords, usually from French. [14] As vocabulary becomes naturalised, there is an increasing tendency to omit the accent marks, even in formal writing. For example, rôle and hôtel originally had accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accents are almost ...