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French Speakers
Watching The Plantagenets notice that the king and nobles are all speaking French, understandable as that's where they came from, when did they finally speak English, and would the ordinary people have spoken English throughout?
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Quote wiki here "French was the language of the king and his court until the end of the 14th century. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the French status in the royal family. Nevertheless
22:48 Wed 17th Dec 2014
Ordinary folk would have spoken a form of English. Won't have been the modern version though.
I'm no expert so I'm unsure of the date but we have had plenty of disagreements with those across the English Channel over the years. English would have been adopted when the court decided it wanted to differentiate itself from that lot.
I'm no expert so I'm unsure of the date but we have had plenty of disagreements with those across the English Channel over the years. English would have been adopted when the court decided it wanted to differentiate itself from that lot.
OG is surprisingly right - Norman French lost ground during the hundred years war a bit like the king of Prussia pubs being closed in 1914-15.
1360 - first parliamentary sessions in English
1375 - Ding ding Gt vowel shift ( in English )
Chaucer writes in both *French and English - I think it is the Prioress who speaks French ( sweetly ) but with the accent of Stratford-atte-Bowe
1360 - first parliamentary sessions in English
1375 - Ding ding Gt vowel shift ( in English )
Chaucer writes in both *French and English - I think it is the Prioress who speaks French ( sweetly ) but with the accent of Stratford-atte-Bowe
in one of Walter Scott's books it says meat (mutton, beef etc) had French names (mouton, boeuf) but the animals had English names: sheep, cow. That was because the English peasants had to raise the animals but the French overlords got to eat them.
I'm not sure if this is true, but it's right in saying the ordinary people kept on with English, it was just the establishment who spoke Norman French, until it eventually became unpopular because the Plantaganet kings, especially John, started losing all their French territories and those living in England started to identify as English not French.
I'm not sure if this is true, but it's right in saying the ordinary people kept on with English, it was just the establishment who spoke Norman French, until it eventually became unpopular because the Plantaganet kings, especially John, started losing all their French territories and those living in England started to identify as English not French.
Quote wiki here
"French was the language of the king and his court until the end of the 14th century. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the French status in the royal family.
Nevertheless, during the 13th century, intermarriages with English people became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English nationalism, the status of French diminished.
French was the mother tongue of the English king until Henry IV (1399–1413). He was the first to take the oath in English, and his son, Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English.
By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite."
The Queen is well-versed in royal court French and speaks it extremely well as a language - not sure about that son of hers, who stumbled over his Welsh and needed many a pint to sound half-intelligible in the lingo.
"French was the language of the king and his court until the end of the 14th century. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the French status in the royal family.
Nevertheless, during the 13th century, intermarriages with English people became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English nationalism, the status of French diminished.
French was the mother tongue of the English king until Henry IV (1399–1413). He was the first to take the oath in English, and his son, Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English.
By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite."
The Queen is well-versed in royal court French and speaks it extremely well as a language - not sure about that son of hers, who stumbled over his Welsh and needed many a pint to sound half-intelligible in the lingo.
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