Normanization In Middle English

Middle English refers to the varieties of the English language spoken after the Norman Conquest (1066) and until the late 15th century.
The Middle English period was marked by momentous changes in the English language, changes more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. Some of them were the result of the Norman Conquest and the condition that followed in the wake of that event. Others were the constitution of the tendencies that had begun to manifest themselves in old English. These would have gone on even without the conquest, but took place more rapidly because the Norman invasion removed from English those conservative in fluencies that are always felt when a language is extensively used in books and is spoken by the influential educated class. The changes of the period affected English both in its grammar and its vocabulary. They were so extensive in each department that it was difficult to say which group is the most significant. Those in the grammar reduced English from a highly inflected language at an extremely analytic one. those in the vocabulary involved the loss of a large part of the old English word-stock and the addition of thousands of words from …show more content…
The English, of necessity, had become “Normanized”, but, over time, the Normans also became “Anglicized”, particularly after 1204 when King John’s ineptness lost the French part of Normandy to the King of France and the Norman nobles were forced to look more to their English properties. Increasingly out of touch with their properties in France and with the French court and culture in general, they soon began to look on themselves as English. Norman French began gradually to degenerate and atrophy. While some in England spoke French and some spoke Latin and a few spoke both, everyone, from the highest to the lowest, spoke English, and it gradually became the lingua franca of the nation once