This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Anglo-Norman language article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This entire article uses the word “French” freely interchangeably with “Anglo-Norman.” It’s not clear Anglo-Norman was a separate language at all by reading this article.
Is this page not somewhat duplicating Anglo-Norman?
"Other words such as captain, kennel, cattle and canvas exemplify how Norman retained a /k/ from Latin that was not retained in French."
What? The word for "captain" in French is "capitan" (KAP-ee-'ten). Have I misunderstood the passage? — Casey J. Morris 05:43, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
This is a bit of a simplification of the documentary reality: even the earliest Anglo-Norman texts and documents (e.g. Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, 1139; the Laws of William the Conqueror ca. 1150) also have "French" spellings. It's important to remember (a) that spellings aren't a reliable echo of pronunciation and (b) writers were "feeling their way" as they evolved a vernacular which was very far from standardized, anywhere. David Trotter ( talk) 23:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Anglo-Norman was a dialect, it was not a language. It says so in the first sentence of the article.-- Mais oui! 16:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Have replaced contentious dialect with variety. Let's see how that goes; since Anglo-Norman developed into a literary and administrative standard, that may be a more helpful description to the non-linguist. Man vyi 09:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
One possibility is to go with "Anglo-Norman (linguistics)" to avoid using either term. That's what's done with the various Chinese languages/dialects. E.g., Mandarin (linguistics), Cantonese (linguistics), Hakka (linguistics) LuiKhuntek 07:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Page not moved; no consensus. Eugene van der Pijll 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Languages of Oïl be renamed and moved to Langues d'Oïl. Comments and votes on Talk:Languages of Oïl, please, if you're interested. Man vyi 09:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I just added an infobox based on the one at French language. I've left the name as "Norman" for now, with the native name as "Normand". I wasn't sure how to handle the "total speakers" - I don't have time to find out numbers right now and in any case there are probably a lot more historical speakers than current ones. Please fill in missing params / correct errors as appropriate. Hairy Dude 04:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I heard once, the first novel in French language was written in England, since in France at this time Latin was still state of the art. Is this true? (Sorry for my English I'm German.) LanX -- 217.224.41.23 02:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
David Howlett (editor of the Dictionary of Medeval Latin from British Sources) wrote on this in The English Origins of Old French Literature (Dublin: Four Courts, 1996). It is certainly true that the majority of early "French" manuscripts (lietrary) are Anglo-Norman and Howlett suggests (to simplify his intricate argument) that the earliest texts display structural principles, utlimately Biblical, transmitted via insular authors (Celtic) and picked up by Anglo-Norman writers. David Trotter ( talk) 23:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK both words are of Germanic origin, so they can also derive from Anglo-Saxon. Please compare German "warten" and "Querelen" meaning "to wait" and "quarrel". Are you sure they entered English via French? Guerre comes from Frankish "werra" http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/guerre#.C3.89tymologie
also
thats "Garten" in German! This was most likely already an Anglo-Saxon word before Norman conquest. Please referre to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/jardin#.C3.89tymologie
Which sources do you use???
LanX -- 217.224.41.23 03:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
OK I checked it, all words originate in Germanic/Frankish but made a detour via Norman-French:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=war&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=wait&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=garden&searchmode=none
LanX -- 217.224.41.23 04:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have information of the origin of the term? I somewhat doubt the Norman called their language the "Anglo-Norman one". Matthieu 06:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
There was a widespread tendency in the 17th to 19th centuries - still used by those who know no better - for all English varieties of medieval and legal French to be called "Norman French". It was Maitland who pointed out that this is inaccurate: the specifically Norman dialect was only used for a century or so after the conquest, after which a form of the Parisian dialect was used instead. There is nothing Norman about the language of Britton, Littleton or most of the Year Books. -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
There is a case for ditching "Anglo-Norman" too, since (a) we don't know enough about the dialect(s) brought over by William and his men (b) what we do know suggests that it wasn't just Norman but also that he had Picards and men from western France with him (c) that Anglo-Norman overstates the Norman connection right through the Middle Ages, when other French dialects also exerted influence. Tradition favours Anglo-Norman but Anglo-French, or Insular French, might be better. David Trotter ( talk) 23:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
No, Gallo wasn't the language of the Conqueror and the majority of his Norman retainers. They mostly originated north of the linguistic Joret Line, and spoke a different dialect - as evidenced by the characteristic Ws: e.g. William was Willelm/Williame in Norman, not 'Guilliame'.
In 1066 the Normans, along with romance speakers across western Europe, simply knew their local dialect as 'Romanz' - Roman - which is why we still call them romance. In Italy it was sometimes also called 'Vulgaro'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.115.70.210 ( talk) 14:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
I have reported this article on the copyright violations page. Whoever wrote this clearly just copied chunks of David Trotter's original article.
In England the phrase "double entendre" for an expression with both an innocent everyday and a risqué interpretation is in current use but has been superseded in France by "double entente".
Also, the phrase "bon viveur" has appeared in English news items in recent years but is utterly absent from Continental French, in which it is ungrammatical (bon vivant being the correct form).
Do these count as Anglo-Norman/Anglo-French neologisms or archaisms? If not, what are they? Dajwilkinson 00:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
No, these represent far later borrowings from French, probably from the nineteenth century. Another example is the use of "Ooh la la" to show that something is naughty or risqué: in French "oh la la" is a purely innocent phrase meaning "oh dear". -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
My query stems more from the idea found in the article on the Japanese language page regarding what is known as wasei-eigo, translatable as "English made in Japan". We instinctively know what a "salaryman" is but without the people of Japan this word would never have appeared. Is there a similar term for this kind of false French? Dajwilkinson 00:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Is it wrong to classify this variety as a French dialect? Aaker ( talk) 19:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The article says Anglo-Norman and Norman were different languages. In what ways were they different? For example, the article has some words showing some differences between Anglo-Norman and French, and some words showing some differences between Norman and French, but nothing showing any differences between Anglo-Norman vocabulary and Norman vocabulary. Dab14763 ( talk) 19:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I propose the sections detailing specifically Anglo-French (and not discussing Anglo-Norman) be split and used to create an article at Anglo-French (currently being used as a disambiguation page). In particular, the lengthy parts in "Use and development" seem appropriate for this shift. The Jade Knight ( talk) 10:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
It drives me mad when people confuse the two, so that phrases like "la reyne le veult" and the whole French-derived vocabulary in English are indiscriminately described as "Norman French". Conversely, I can see that you do not want the genuinely Norman borrowings to be forgotten about because they are swamped in a mass of later French.
In fact what is going on here is that there are several senses of the name, with none of them being inherently invalid, and a speaker or writer cannot unambiguously use any particular one of them without specifying to the audience which one they are using. And not every linguist would agree that they are "two different/separate things"—and with good reason: it does not necessarily make sense linguistically to try to impose a dividing line at any particular point, versus another point, inside the middle of a fluid spectrum. One look at the list of senses in a WP:RS dictionary shows the situation; for example, I'm quoting here Merriam-Webster Unabridged at "Anglo-French":
Additionally, we have the following facts:
Given these facts, it is misplaced frustration to be "[driven] mad when people confuse the two", because (1) it is inevitable that ambiguity is not at zero unless each user of the term explicitly specifies the intended sense (a principle that positively pervades natural language), and (2) it is not inevitable to believe that there are two separate things to be confused (rather a unitary spectrum to have gradations). And even if average people (i.e., everyone who isn't a philologist or linguist with advanced knowledge of European languages history, i.e., 99.9% of humans) don't know those gradations, that is, don't know which word was borrowed in which century from which dialect, that isn't confusion—that's just the normal baseline of the limits of topic knowledge in reality.
All of this adds up to the fact that no one can credibly look down on anyone else for "confusing" the "two" or not knowing where and how a dividing line lies between the "two" [segments of "one"] (which is why the word "erroneously" has been duly deleted over at the disambig page Anglo-French); and *if* Wikipedia has two separate articles for two segments of the spectrum (which I would not bother doing), they can't be titled "Anglo-Norman" and/versus "Anglo-French" with any true clarity; instead, they would have to be titled something else, such as, potentially, "Anglo-Norman French (11th-12th centuries)" and "Anglo-French (13th-15th centuries)", or some such. Not really worth doing one when one article could have chronologic sections instead. I say that because this is a general encyclopedia, even if a set of philological monographs could have two volumes on the segments. Cheers all, Quercus solaris ( talk) 18:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
"The word glamour is derived, unglamorously, from AN grammeire, the same word which gives us modern grammar. Apparently glamour meant magic or magic spell in Medieval times" The word "grimoire", a book of magic spells, jumped to my mind reading this sentence, should it also be part of the discussion?
The article currently reads: "The words veil and leisure retain the /ei/ (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by /wɑː/ voile, loisir."
This is strictly incorrect, if it intends to suggest that the Modern English diphthong [eɪ] descends without change from the Anglo-Norman sound represented by ei.
In fact, English [eɪ] is a fairly new sound, arising around 1800 (or only slightly earlier). Anglo-Norman ei was not retained, having merged with ai, which became English ai (presumably [aɪ] or something similar), which in turn merged with English long a, whose sound rapidly mutated (by raising and fronting) from [aː] to [æː] to [ɛː] to [eː] (as it still is in Scottish Standard English) and thence to [eɪ]. The spelling ai is seen in the very old borrowing faith (early Norman feid, feit, fait). With secondary destressing we see e (e.g. power from poeir, later pooir, MF pouvoir and endeavo(u)r, formerly endever, from en+deveir, later devoir).
What would be more correct is to simply note that the Modern English sounds descended in some cases from Anglo-Norman ei prior to the French change of ei to oi (which was, of course, originally pronounced something like [ɔɪ]). But many words were borrowed in the Middle Ages after the change: anoint, boil, cloister, coin, coy, enjoy, join, joint, joy, loin, loyal, moist, noise, oil, ointment, royal, soil (n. and v.), voice, void; and in these cases the diphthong has been preserved with minimal change since the Middle Ages. RandomCritic ( talk) 04:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Do we want to use accents like féchoun (é) and caundèle (è) even though they didn't exist yet? Such accents are added by modern editors to help the reader understand. These sort of accents didn't appear until around 1780 according to the TLFi. Also, does Norman refer to the Norman language or to Anglo-Norman, in sentences like "English therefore, for example, has fashion from Norman féchoun as opposed to Modern French". Finally, AN and PF should be written out ( WP:PAPER) but I'll do that now. -- Mglovesfun ( talk) 12:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
A few days ago I removed the following statement:
It has recently been restored as the statement was sourced, but I didn't provide a "source" for my removing it. I don't know how I am meant to reference the deletion of a statement, as it's no longer in the article. Anyway, let me do it here so it can be redeleted for good.
The claim is untrue, as the changes in inflection and word order began in Late Old English, and were not brought about by Norman French. The easiest reference to this I can give, is in Baugh & Cable, A History of the English Language, 4ed. (which is a standard textbook). In Chapter 7 they give details of how grammatical and phonological changes emerged from Old Engilsh, and specifically on page 163, they say:
The only change which is really attributable to French is the inflow of new vocabulary. As the paragraph below speaks about vocabulary, this paragraph should be deleted. Emma May Smith ( talk) 22:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The translation provided is too word-for-word to render the exact thought behind the motto. I suggest here "Reviled be whoever thinks ill", but also "Reviled be whoever has ill thoughts" or (...) vile thoughts" or "(...) abject thoughts", etc... Any other idea ? Condor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.50.33 ( talk) 14:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
The article starts out by defining Anglo-Norman and says it's a synonym of Anglo-Norman French. Then it suddenly starts talking about Anglo-French without explaining what that is and only indirectly(!) says it's something different (by using a verb in the plural). In addition, the first use of the undefined term is followed by a sophomoric "its" that can be interpreted as referring to two synonyms for one language or to "correspondence". Very sloppy and chaotic. -- Espoo ( talk) 09:45, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
The introduction says that Anglo-Norman had little grammatical influence on English, which is probably correct. The only example given, however, is the noun-adjective word order in certain titles like attorney general. This is a bad example. The older Germanic languages did allow this word order, though they used it rarely. Moreover, this worder occurs in English outside of titles, particularly with participles (cf. my "the example given" above). The most striking instance of a likely Anglo-Norman influence is actually that English has lost V2 word order. All Germanic languages (without exception!) do have this, as did Old English and early Middle English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.115.180 ( talk) 19:22, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
'Compare also: wage (Anglo-Norman) - gage (French)'
vs
'Mortgage, for example, literally meant death-wage in Anglo-Norman'
105.227.61.241 ( talk) 13:57, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
This article seems to mention only England and Ireland, but of course exactly the same was true of Scotland after the Norman Conquest of northern Britain nominally headed by the usurper David I on behalf of William's son Henry I.
Walter of Coventry (fl. 1290) wrote “The modern kings of Scotia count themselves as Frenchmen [i.e. Norman], in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Scots [=Gaels north of the Forth] to utter servitude". Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.7.111.241 ( talk) 18:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Anglo-Norman language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 06:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No move. We have no agreement that the language is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC among other uses. I'll move the dab page to Anglo-Norman. Cúchullain t/ c 15:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Anglo-Norman language →
Anglo-Norman – This page can be moved to match its headword, since
Anglo-Norman is only a redirect. The ISO 639-3 name is simply 'Anglo-Norman' and this is also the name used in the
Oxford English Dictionary. Alternatively, the page could be moved to
Anglo-Norman French to match the
Oxford Dictionary of English.
AndrewNJ (
talk) 09:44, 9 November 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran
(talk) 20:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
It is quite obvious that the term "Anglo-Norman" is fairly recent, since all the accounts of the era describe the language spoken by the Norman nobility in England as simply "French". I'm fairly certain this term was invented by nationalistic 19th century British historians who wanted to mark a separation between their French rivals and the foreign elites that ruled England centuries ago, but it would be great to have sourced accounts of the term's origins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.150.142.207 ( talk) 09:19, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Footnote 9 refers to "Fuderman," but neither References nor Bibliography lists the publication in question----.
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Anglo-Norman language article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This entire article uses the word “French” freely interchangeably with “Anglo-Norman.” It’s not clear Anglo-Norman was a separate language at all by reading this article.
Is this page not somewhat duplicating Anglo-Norman?
"Other words such as captain, kennel, cattle and canvas exemplify how Norman retained a /k/ from Latin that was not retained in French."
What? The word for "captain" in French is "capitan" (KAP-ee-'ten). Have I misunderstood the passage? — Casey J. Morris 05:43, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
This is a bit of a simplification of the documentary reality: even the earliest Anglo-Norman texts and documents (e.g. Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, 1139; the Laws of William the Conqueror ca. 1150) also have "French" spellings. It's important to remember (a) that spellings aren't a reliable echo of pronunciation and (b) writers were "feeling their way" as they evolved a vernacular which was very far from standardized, anywhere. David Trotter ( talk) 23:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Anglo-Norman was a dialect, it was not a language. It says so in the first sentence of the article.-- Mais oui! 16:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Have replaced contentious dialect with variety. Let's see how that goes; since Anglo-Norman developed into a literary and administrative standard, that may be a more helpful description to the non-linguist. Man vyi 09:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
One possibility is to go with "Anglo-Norman (linguistics)" to avoid using either term. That's what's done with the various Chinese languages/dialects. E.g., Mandarin (linguistics), Cantonese (linguistics), Hakka (linguistics) LuiKhuntek 07:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Page not moved; no consensus. Eugene van der Pijll 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Languages of Oïl be renamed and moved to Langues d'Oïl. Comments and votes on Talk:Languages of Oïl, please, if you're interested. Man vyi 09:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I just added an infobox based on the one at French language. I've left the name as "Norman" for now, with the native name as "Normand". I wasn't sure how to handle the "total speakers" - I don't have time to find out numbers right now and in any case there are probably a lot more historical speakers than current ones. Please fill in missing params / correct errors as appropriate. Hairy Dude 04:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I heard once, the first novel in French language was written in England, since in France at this time Latin was still state of the art. Is this true? (Sorry for my English I'm German.) LanX -- 217.224.41.23 02:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
David Howlett (editor of the Dictionary of Medeval Latin from British Sources) wrote on this in The English Origins of Old French Literature (Dublin: Four Courts, 1996). It is certainly true that the majority of early "French" manuscripts (lietrary) are Anglo-Norman and Howlett suggests (to simplify his intricate argument) that the earliest texts display structural principles, utlimately Biblical, transmitted via insular authors (Celtic) and picked up by Anglo-Norman writers. David Trotter ( talk) 23:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK both words are of Germanic origin, so they can also derive from Anglo-Saxon. Please compare German "warten" and "Querelen" meaning "to wait" and "quarrel". Are you sure they entered English via French? Guerre comes from Frankish "werra" http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/guerre#.C3.89tymologie
also
thats "Garten" in German! This was most likely already an Anglo-Saxon word before Norman conquest. Please referre to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/jardin#.C3.89tymologie
Which sources do you use???
LanX -- 217.224.41.23 03:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
OK I checked it, all words originate in Germanic/Frankish but made a detour via Norman-French:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=war&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=wait&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=garden&searchmode=none
LanX -- 217.224.41.23 04:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have information of the origin of the term? I somewhat doubt the Norman called their language the "Anglo-Norman one". Matthieu 06:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
There was a widespread tendency in the 17th to 19th centuries - still used by those who know no better - for all English varieties of medieval and legal French to be called "Norman French". It was Maitland who pointed out that this is inaccurate: the specifically Norman dialect was only used for a century or so after the conquest, after which a form of the Parisian dialect was used instead. There is nothing Norman about the language of Britton, Littleton or most of the Year Books. -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
There is a case for ditching "Anglo-Norman" too, since (a) we don't know enough about the dialect(s) brought over by William and his men (b) what we do know suggests that it wasn't just Norman but also that he had Picards and men from western France with him (c) that Anglo-Norman overstates the Norman connection right through the Middle Ages, when other French dialects also exerted influence. Tradition favours Anglo-Norman but Anglo-French, or Insular French, might be better. David Trotter ( talk) 23:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
No, Gallo wasn't the language of the Conqueror and the majority of his Norman retainers. They mostly originated north of the linguistic Joret Line, and spoke a different dialect - as evidenced by the characteristic Ws: e.g. William was Willelm/Williame in Norman, not 'Guilliame'.
In 1066 the Normans, along with romance speakers across western Europe, simply knew their local dialect as 'Romanz' - Roman - which is why we still call them romance. In Italy it was sometimes also called 'Vulgaro'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.115.70.210 ( talk) 14:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
I have reported this article on the copyright violations page. Whoever wrote this clearly just copied chunks of David Trotter's original article.
In England the phrase "double entendre" for an expression with both an innocent everyday and a risqué interpretation is in current use but has been superseded in France by "double entente".
Also, the phrase "bon viveur" has appeared in English news items in recent years but is utterly absent from Continental French, in which it is ungrammatical (bon vivant being the correct form).
Do these count as Anglo-Norman/Anglo-French neologisms or archaisms? If not, what are they? Dajwilkinson 00:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
No, these represent far later borrowings from French, probably from the nineteenth century. Another example is the use of "Ooh la la" to show that something is naughty or risqué: in French "oh la la" is a purely innocent phrase meaning "oh dear". -- Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 21:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
My query stems more from the idea found in the article on the Japanese language page regarding what is known as wasei-eigo, translatable as "English made in Japan". We instinctively know what a "salaryman" is but without the people of Japan this word would never have appeared. Is there a similar term for this kind of false French? Dajwilkinson 00:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Is it wrong to classify this variety as a French dialect? Aaker ( talk) 19:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The article says Anglo-Norman and Norman were different languages. In what ways were they different? For example, the article has some words showing some differences between Anglo-Norman and French, and some words showing some differences between Norman and French, but nothing showing any differences between Anglo-Norman vocabulary and Norman vocabulary. Dab14763 ( talk) 19:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I propose the sections detailing specifically Anglo-French (and not discussing Anglo-Norman) be split and used to create an article at Anglo-French (currently being used as a disambiguation page). In particular, the lengthy parts in "Use and development" seem appropriate for this shift. The Jade Knight ( talk) 10:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
It drives me mad when people confuse the two, so that phrases like "la reyne le veult" and the whole French-derived vocabulary in English are indiscriminately described as "Norman French". Conversely, I can see that you do not want the genuinely Norman borrowings to be forgotten about because they are swamped in a mass of later French.
In fact what is going on here is that there are several senses of the name, with none of them being inherently invalid, and a speaker or writer cannot unambiguously use any particular one of them without specifying to the audience which one they are using. And not every linguist would agree that they are "two different/separate things"—and with good reason: it does not necessarily make sense linguistically to try to impose a dividing line at any particular point, versus another point, inside the middle of a fluid spectrum. One look at the list of senses in a WP:RS dictionary shows the situation; for example, I'm quoting here Merriam-Webster Unabridged at "Anglo-French":
Additionally, we have the following facts:
Given these facts, it is misplaced frustration to be "[driven] mad when people confuse the two", because (1) it is inevitable that ambiguity is not at zero unless each user of the term explicitly specifies the intended sense (a principle that positively pervades natural language), and (2) it is not inevitable to believe that there are two separate things to be confused (rather a unitary spectrum to have gradations). And even if average people (i.e., everyone who isn't a philologist or linguist with advanced knowledge of European languages history, i.e., 99.9% of humans) don't know those gradations, that is, don't know which word was borrowed in which century from which dialect, that isn't confusion—that's just the normal baseline of the limits of topic knowledge in reality.
All of this adds up to the fact that no one can credibly look down on anyone else for "confusing" the "two" or not knowing where and how a dividing line lies between the "two" [segments of "one"] (which is why the word "erroneously" has been duly deleted over at the disambig page Anglo-French); and *if* Wikipedia has two separate articles for two segments of the spectrum (which I would not bother doing), they can't be titled "Anglo-Norman" and/versus "Anglo-French" with any true clarity; instead, they would have to be titled something else, such as, potentially, "Anglo-Norman French (11th-12th centuries)" and "Anglo-French (13th-15th centuries)", or some such. Not really worth doing one when one article could have chronologic sections instead. I say that because this is a general encyclopedia, even if a set of philological monographs could have two volumes on the segments. Cheers all, Quercus solaris ( talk) 18:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
"The word glamour is derived, unglamorously, from AN grammeire, the same word which gives us modern grammar. Apparently glamour meant magic or magic spell in Medieval times" The word "grimoire", a book of magic spells, jumped to my mind reading this sentence, should it also be part of the discussion?
The article currently reads: "The words veil and leisure retain the /ei/ (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by /wɑː/ voile, loisir."
This is strictly incorrect, if it intends to suggest that the Modern English diphthong [eɪ] descends without change from the Anglo-Norman sound represented by ei.
In fact, English [eɪ] is a fairly new sound, arising around 1800 (or only slightly earlier). Anglo-Norman ei was not retained, having merged with ai, which became English ai (presumably [aɪ] or something similar), which in turn merged with English long a, whose sound rapidly mutated (by raising and fronting) from [aː] to [æː] to [ɛː] to [eː] (as it still is in Scottish Standard English) and thence to [eɪ]. The spelling ai is seen in the very old borrowing faith (early Norman feid, feit, fait). With secondary destressing we see e (e.g. power from poeir, later pooir, MF pouvoir and endeavo(u)r, formerly endever, from en+deveir, later devoir).
What would be more correct is to simply note that the Modern English sounds descended in some cases from Anglo-Norman ei prior to the French change of ei to oi (which was, of course, originally pronounced something like [ɔɪ]). But many words were borrowed in the Middle Ages after the change: anoint, boil, cloister, coin, coy, enjoy, join, joint, joy, loin, loyal, moist, noise, oil, ointment, royal, soil (n. and v.), voice, void; and in these cases the diphthong has been preserved with minimal change since the Middle Ages. RandomCritic ( talk) 04:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Do we want to use accents like féchoun (é) and caundèle (è) even though they didn't exist yet? Such accents are added by modern editors to help the reader understand. These sort of accents didn't appear until around 1780 according to the TLFi. Also, does Norman refer to the Norman language or to Anglo-Norman, in sentences like "English therefore, for example, has fashion from Norman féchoun as opposed to Modern French". Finally, AN and PF should be written out ( WP:PAPER) but I'll do that now. -- Mglovesfun ( talk) 12:17, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
A few days ago I removed the following statement:
It has recently been restored as the statement was sourced, but I didn't provide a "source" for my removing it. I don't know how I am meant to reference the deletion of a statement, as it's no longer in the article. Anyway, let me do it here so it can be redeleted for good.
The claim is untrue, as the changes in inflection and word order began in Late Old English, and were not brought about by Norman French. The easiest reference to this I can give, is in Baugh & Cable, A History of the English Language, 4ed. (which is a standard textbook). In Chapter 7 they give details of how grammatical and phonological changes emerged from Old Engilsh, and specifically on page 163, they say:
The only change which is really attributable to French is the inflow of new vocabulary. As the paragraph below speaks about vocabulary, this paragraph should be deleted. Emma May Smith ( talk) 22:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The translation provided is too word-for-word to render the exact thought behind the motto. I suggest here "Reviled be whoever thinks ill", but also "Reviled be whoever has ill thoughts" or (...) vile thoughts" or "(...) abject thoughts", etc... Any other idea ? Condor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.50.33 ( talk) 14:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
The article starts out by defining Anglo-Norman and says it's a synonym of Anglo-Norman French. Then it suddenly starts talking about Anglo-French without explaining what that is and only indirectly(!) says it's something different (by using a verb in the plural). In addition, the first use of the undefined term is followed by a sophomoric "its" that can be interpreted as referring to two synonyms for one language or to "correspondence". Very sloppy and chaotic. -- Espoo ( talk) 09:45, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
The introduction says that Anglo-Norman had little grammatical influence on English, which is probably correct. The only example given, however, is the noun-adjective word order in certain titles like attorney general. This is a bad example. The older Germanic languages did allow this word order, though they used it rarely. Moreover, this worder occurs in English outside of titles, particularly with participles (cf. my "the example given" above). The most striking instance of a likely Anglo-Norman influence is actually that English has lost V2 word order. All Germanic languages (without exception!) do have this, as did Old English and early Middle English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.115.180 ( talk) 19:22, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
'Compare also: wage (Anglo-Norman) - gage (French)'
vs
'Mortgage, for example, literally meant death-wage in Anglo-Norman'
105.227.61.241 ( talk) 13:57, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
This article seems to mention only England and Ireland, but of course exactly the same was true of Scotland after the Norman Conquest of northern Britain nominally headed by the usurper David I on behalf of William's son Henry I.
Walter of Coventry (fl. 1290) wrote “The modern kings of Scotia count themselves as Frenchmen [i.e. Norman], in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Scots [=Gaels north of the Forth] to utter servitude". Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.7.111.241 ( talk) 18:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Anglo-Norman language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 06:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No move. We have no agreement that the language is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC among other uses. I'll move the dab page to Anglo-Norman. Cúchullain t/ c 15:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Anglo-Norman language →
Anglo-Norman – This page can be moved to match its headword, since
Anglo-Norman is only a redirect. The ISO 639-3 name is simply 'Anglo-Norman' and this is also the name used in the
Oxford English Dictionary. Alternatively, the page could be moved to
Anglo-Norman French to match the
Oxford Dictionary of English.
AndrewNJ (
talk) 09:44, 9 November 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran
(talk) 20:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
It is quite obvious that the term "Anglo-Norman" is fairly recent, since all the accounts of the era describe the language spoken by the Norman nobility in England as simply "French". I'm fairly certain this term was invented by nationalistic 19th century British historians who wanted to mark a separation between their French rivals and the foreign elites that ruled England centuries ago, but it would be great to have sourced accounts of the term's origins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.150.142.207 ( talk) 09:19, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Footnote 9 refers to "Fuderman," but neither References nor Bibliography lists the publication in question----.