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Originally Posted by fsquared
More like bastard child of Anglo-Saxon and French...but I don't really know what you mean by never having been a 'high' language here...that's a social phenomenon. England became quite powerful in the Middle Ages and has had a high prestige and a rich literary tradition since Old English (Beowulf), Middle English (Chaucer), etc.
BTW, apparently the "Lancashire" dialect of British English has historically had low prestige. I don't know what it sounds like myself.
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Like Deepwaters said, the langauge of the English royals was French during parts of the Middle ages. French was used by the royals, and an unrefined version of English was used by the poor people. The reason why some people didn't want the Bible translated into English in the Middle Ages was because the church thought the English language was not worthy enough to have the Bible translated into it. Shakespeare wrote his plays in English so that it would be accesible to common people. Shakespeare gave the language credibility in the literary filed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deepwaters
Anglo-Saxon is a Germanic language, yes, but fsquared is right, the mix-in is French, not Latin. It happened mainly because French became the court and literary language of England for several centuries after the Norman conquest.
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I wonder what the English language and culture would be like if the Normans had failed to conquer England?