In the beginning was the word in french

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The
flooding of the English vocabulary with Norman-French words began in
the 13-th century and reached very large proportions in the century
that followed.

Norman-French
loans in the English vocabulary may be subdivided into two main
groups: 1) early loans – 12 – 15^thcenturies;
2) later loans – beginning from the 16^th century.

Early
French loans were thoroughly naturalized in English and made to
conform to the rules of English pronunciation. The early borrowings
from French were simple short words as distinguished from later
introductions. This will be seen from an examination of the number of
common monosyllabic words derived from early French, e.g. age,
air, arm, bolt, brace, breeze, brush, cage, calm, cape, car, case,
cause, cease, cell, chain, chance, chase, chief, chaise, claim,
clear, close, corpse, course, court, crime, cry etc.
All these words have become an integral part of the language, being
as truly a part of common speech as words native by origin. They have
been so assimilated in sound and inflection as to be recognized as
foreign only to the eye of a philologist.

So,
the unprecedented enrichment of the lexicon through borrowing altered
the etymological composition of English after the conquest. Data on
the exact number of words borrowed from French is difficult to
obtain, but according to one estimate the number of French words
adopted during the Middle English period was slightly over 10,000. Of
these, about 75 percent have survived and are still used in
present-day English.

The
French dominance is particularly felt in the vocabulary of law. Most
words pertaining to law are of French origin, e.g.accuse,
attorney, court, defendant, fee, felony, guile, heritage, judge,
justice, justify, penalty, plaintiff, privilege, session, suit,
advocate, inquest, sentence, barrister etc.

It
was also natural that many of the terms relating to military matters
should be adopted from the language of the conquerors, as, for
instance, army,
arms, admiral, assault, armor, banner, battle, dart, dragon, ensign,
guard, lance, mail, navy, sergeant, soldier, troops, vessel, victory,
war etc.

There
is a predominance of French words in the vocabulary of cookery, which
is shown by a great many words, such as:lunch,
dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew, to boil, to fry, dainty, jelly,
pasty, pastry, sauce, sausage, soup, toast etc.

We
shall find a very large number of French words denoting different
objects that make life enjoyable, e.g.
comfort, flower, fruit, pleasure, feast, leisure, delight, ease etc.

Among
French borrowings there are also such semantic groups of words: a)
words denoting family relations: parent,
cousin, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece; b)
words relating to fashion: luxury,
coat, lace, pleat, embroidery;
c) words belonging to jewelry: topaz,
emerald, pearl;
d) words relating to state government: administer,
empire, state, government, realm, people, nation, crown, power,
authority, parliament, council;
e) words connected with the church: blame,
lesson, pray, service, tempt etc.

It
should be stressed that words continued to be borrowed from French
into English after 1650, too, mainly through French literature, but
they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely
assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these
borrowings:

1)
words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres,
conservatoire, brochure, nuance, pirouette, vaudeville;

2)
words belonging to military affairs: corps,
echelon, fuselage, manoeuvre;

3)
words relating to buildings and furniture:
entresol, chateau, bureau;

4)
words relating to food and cooking: ragout,
cuisine.

We
should also mention the 18-th century installment to the vocabulary
of literature, e.g. novelist,
publisher, magazine, editor etc.

In
many cases words borrowed from the French language have more
derivatives in English than in French. For instance,mutin has
only two derivatives in French (mutiner,
mutinerie)
while in Modern English there are four well-known derivatives
of mutiny, namely: mutineer,
mutinous, mutinously, mutinousness.

The
following phonetic peculiarities are indicative of later adoptions
from French: a) keeping the accent on the last syllable, e.g. cravat,
finance, finesse, supreme etc.;
b) ch pronounced
as [ ]: avalanche,
chandelier, chaperon, chaise, charade, chauffeur, charlatan, chic,
douche, machine;
c) g before e and i pronounced
as [ ]: beige,
massage, prestige, regime, rougeetc.;
d) ou pronounced
as [u], e.g. coup,
rouge, sou;
e) eau pronounced
as [ou]: beau,
chateau, bureau etc.;
f) final consonant p,
s, t not
pronounced, as in: coup,
debris, ragout, trait, ballet, debut.

To
sum it up, we can come to the conclusion that French borrowings which
had come to the English language at different times constitute the
largest group of borrowings. French loans in the English vocabulary
may be subdivided into two main groups: 1) early loans –
12–15^th centuries;
2) later loans – beginning from the 16^th century.
It should be added that early loans are known as Norman French
borrowings, because they were borrowed from Norman French (also known
as Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman), which was one of the provincial
dialects of the French language. But later loans are known as
Parisian borrowings, because they were borrowed from the Parisian
dialect of the French language.

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