Anglo-Norman, Medieval Latin, and Words of Germanic Origin

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Trotter
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
French Word ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Norman French ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines words of Germanic origin found in the DMLBS and considers them especially with respect to the relationship between three languages of medieval Britain: namely Medieval Latin, Middle English, and Anglo-Norman French. A detailed examination of numerous examples reveals complex routes of transmission of items from Germanic sources which demand consideration of multiple sources over many centuries. In particular, because of the way the vernaculars developed and the nature of the extant evidence, it is often the case that the earliest evidence for an English or French word is found in a Latin word. The circuitous and overlapping interaction and contact between these languages can be seen very clearly in the example of warda, and the discussion shows, by reference to the theory of etimologia prossima and etimologia remota, how the Latin word must be analysed with regard both to etymology and semantics in order to reveal the different layers of influence at different stages of the word’s development in this multilingual society.

That Word ‘Caput’

1939 ◽  
Vol 9 (25) ◽  
pp. 26-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Gosling
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Word ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
French Word ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

A brief survey of the indebtedness of the modern languages of Europe, and in particular our own, to the Latin word caput may be not without interest.The French did not adopt the classical meaning of caput, but, by way of the slang of the Roman soldiers in all probability, preferred the Latin testa = a tile, French tête. But caput did enter Gaul as the early French chief and modern chef (e.g. chef d'orchestre, chef de cuisine, whence, by the way, the English ‘chef’). English borrowed this word from French under the guise of chief, and from the early French word chevetaine formed the English chieftain. But in one word the French did adopt the classical meaning of caput, and that was in the word couvre-chef (modelled presumably upon the Vulgar Latin capitegium), meaning a covering for the head. This was adopted in Middle English as curchef (kerchief) and signified originally a cloth to cover a woman's head. It was an easy step from this to the modern ‘handkerchief’. Further, Vulgar Latin had a phrase ad caput venire, ‘to come to an end’, ‘to accomplish’. This was taken over into early French as a chief venir: later the verb venir was lost and the phrase a chief was made into the verb achever. Our English word achieve was the inevitable offspring.

scholarly journals Animal vocalization and human polyglossia in Walter of Bibbesworth’s thirteenth-century domestic treatise in Anglo-Norman French and Middle English

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 525-541
Author(s):  
William Sayers
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Animal Vocalizations ◽  
Animal Vocalization ◽  
Norman French ◽  
Extensive List ◽  
Linguistic Communities

Walter of Bibbesworth’s late thirteenth-century versified treatise on French vocabulary relevant to the management of estates in Britain has the first extensive list of animal vocalizations in a European vernacular. Many of the Anglo-Norman French names for animals and their sounds are glossed in Middle English, inviting both diachronic and synchronic views of the capacity of these languages for onomatopoetic formation and reflection on the interest of these social and linguistic communities in zoosemiotics.

Anglo-Norman verse on New Ross and its founders

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (110) ◽  
pp. 113-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Sayers
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Irish Population ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Witness Testimony ◽  
Arthurian Romance ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Early Production ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Norman French ◽  
Medieval Ireland

Literary evidence for political and social developments in medieval Ireland comes down to us in a variety of languages: Latin; a rich and — by European standards — early production in the Irish vernacular; Old Norse; Middle English; with sparser reference in Old English, Welsh and other nearby linguistic communities. Some of this evidence, tightly circumscribed in time, is also in Anglo-Norman French, and reflects a very different Ireland from that of Arthurian romance. These Anglo-Norman works, composed in Ireland or in Britain on the basis of eye-witness testimony, constitute a unique body of material, though their value as historical evidence is constricted in two ways: firstly, they are limited to three preserved texts; secondly, they are rigorously selective in their criteria of historiographical relevancy and in their treatment of the native Irish population, culture and political presence.

scholarly journals On Non-integrated Vocabulary in the Mixed-language Accounts of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1315–1405

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Wright
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Business Writing ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Weights And Measures ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Base Language

Accounts of institutions and private individuals between the Norman Conquest and about 1500 were routinely written in a non-random mixture of Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English. If the base language was Medieval Latin, then only nouns, stems of verbs, and certain semantic fields such as weights and measures could appear in English or French, with all the grammatical material in Latin and English and Anglo-Norman nouns, verbs, and adjectives Latinised by adding a suffix, or an abbreviation sign representing a suffix. If the base language was Anglo-Norman, then only the same restricted semantic fields and nouns and stems of verbs could appear in English. This situation changed over time, but was essentially stable for almost five hundred years. The chapter asks why, if English words could easily be assimilated into a Latin or French matrix by means of suffixes or abbreviations representing suffixes, were all English words not assimilated? Why did letter graphies such as <wr->, <-ck>, <-ght> persist in mixed-language business writing? One effect is to make the text-type of business writing very unlike any other genre—half a glance is all it takes to recognise a mixed-language business document and that may have been an advantage.

The Latin of the Early English Common Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Brand
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Single Action ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
Norman French ◽  
Early English

A distinctive feature of the English royal courts created in the last quarter of the 12th century was that they kept a full record of their business in Latin and the clerks who did this developed a distinctive vocabulary to translate the Anglo-Norman French they heard in court. This paper looks at some of that Medieval Latin lexicography for the legal profession: the development of specific terms for litigants and their representatives and judges; for the writs for initiating litigation and to secure the appearance of opponents; for the plaintiff’s claim or complaint and the defendant’s defence; for the modes of proof and judgement. The chapter concludes with a more detailed examination of the specific terminology of a single action (of replevin) which allowed someone whose property had been taken in distraint to challenge the justice of an unjust distraint.

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