Seminar 4 Middle English

The Lexicon: Middle English Loans

A. Loanwords.
The Norman Conquest changed the entire fabric of the English vocabulary, partly
through the thousands of French loanwords that resulted directly from the Conquest and
partly because English thereafter became permanently receptive to loanwords from virtually
any source. Today it is difficult to write even a paragraph without using at least a few
loanwords.
On a separate piece of paper, rewrite the following paragraph using only native
English words. In your dictionary, these will have O.E. or A-S (and perhaps also Germanic)
listed as their ultimate source. To save time in looking up etymologies, treat all personal
pronouns, the conjunctions and, but and or, all parts of the verbs to be and to have and all
prepositions of four or fewer letters as native words (even though this is not quite accurate
because, they, them, their, are from Old Norse). If a word is affixed, look up the base, for
example, for the word unsuccessfully, look up success. Leave all proper nouns as they are in
the passage. Whenever your dictionary lists the direct source of one of the words in the
passage as a language other than English, look the word up in the OED, note the date of its
fist recorded appearance in English, and enter the word and the date on the appropriate line.
By the eleventh century, the English and the Norse has achieved an uneasy peace, and
the Norse settlers were becoming assimilated into English society. But in 1066, another invasion
occurred that was to have a great effect on the history of English. Taking advantage of a
somewhat dubious claim to the throne of England, William of Normandy (William the Conqueror)
successfully invaded and then took over England. William and most of his followers were racially
Germanic, but their ancestors had abandoned their original language for French when they
settled in Normandy during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. Hence, the language brought to
England by William was French. French became the official language of the court, law, and of
administration for the next 350 years. However, there were many more English people than
French people in England, and the conquered English continued to speak their native language.
Many natives surely learned to speak French, but the French also had to learn English in order
to be able to speak to their English servants. The English spoken and written from about 1100
(i.e., shortly after the Conquest) until about 1500 is called Middle English.

French Loanwords
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Latin Loanwords
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Old Norse Loanwords

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1. Which words did you find it most difficult to replace with native equivalents?
2. How does your translation differ from the original passage?
3. Comment on the date of entry into English of the words from French, Latin and
Old Norse.
4. How do the Norse loans differ from the French and Latin loans? Suggest reasons
for this difference.
B. Lost Vocabulary
Biblical translations tend to be highly conservative in their language, partly because
of the religious nature of the texts and partly because of translators awareness of previous
translations. For example, the language of the King James Bible was old-fashioned by the
time it first appeared in 1611; the same is true of much of the language of the Revised
Standard Version of 1952. Consequently, when we find lexical replacements from one
translation to a later one, we can at least suspect that the words used in the earlier translation
were no longer suitable (though, of course, words are also sometimes replaced because of the
stylistic preferences of the translators). The following excerpts are from a late OE and a ME
translation of Matthew 13:44-46.
Anglo-Saxon Gospels, c. 1000
Heofona rice is gelic gehydum gold-horde on am cere, one behyt se man e hine fint; and
for his blysse g, and syleall t he ah, and gebig one cer. Eft is heofenarice gelic am
mangere, e sohte t gode meregrot; a he funde tan deorwyre meregrot, a eode he,
and sealed eall t he ahte, and bohte t meregrot.
Wycliffite Gospels, 1389
The kyngdame of heuenes is lijk to tresour hid in a feeld, the whiche a man that fyndth,
hidith; and for ioye of it he goth, and sellith alle thingis that hath, and bieth the ilk feeld.
Eftsones the kyngdam of heuenes is lic to a man merchaunt, seeking good maragrytis;
Sothely oo preciouse margarite founden, he wente, and solde alle thingis that he hadde, and
boute it.
5. The following words from the Anglo-Saxon version have been replaced in the
Wycliffite version. Look each of them in the OED and note the latest citation
given there for each in the meaning intended in the OE text.

rice

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gold-horde (gold-hoard)

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cere (acre)

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blysse (bliss)

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ah (owe)

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mangere (monger)

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deorwyre

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eode (look under go)

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6. The following words from the Wycliffite version replace the words listed in 5
above. Check the origin and first citation in English of each in the OED. If the
word was used in its meaning here in OE, simply write OE.
kyngdame

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tesour

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feeld

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ioye

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hath

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marchaunt

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preciouse

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wente

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7. What is the first citation in the OED for acre in the meaning of a definite
measure of land? How might this have affected the decision of the translators of
the Wycliffite version to use the word field instead?
8. Which of the replaced words from the Anglo-Saxon passage are totally lost in (all
meanings) today?
9. What are the sources of the newly appearing words in the Wycliffite passage?
10. What type of semantic shift in meaning of mangere (monger) was already taking
place by the time of the Wycliffite text?
11. Both the King James Bible (1611) and the Revised Standard Version (1952) use
the word joy in Matthew 13:44. What type of semantic shift has bliss undergone
that makes it suitable in this context today?