Anglo-Norman words

Last week, the lay-out and presentation of the online AND [ http://www.anglo-norman.net ] was updated (for the first time since it was opened to the public back in 2006!), making it compatible for use on computers, tablets or handheld devices and adding new features. In the next couple of blog-posts, we will talk you through some of the possibilities and changes. One immediately striking difference is that the main AND page now has two search boxes – two main ways of accessing entries in the dictionary. 1. Use ‘jump to’ for browsing the alphabetical list of headwords. At start-up, the left-hand area of the screen shows a segment of the headword list starting with the first entry. As before, forms in  white  link directly to a substantive entry. Forms in   yellow indicate a cross-reference headword, and lead automatically to the referenced substantive entry or entries. Click or tap on a headword to fetch the entry into the main area of the screen. ...

Last month, we discussed the presence of loanwords from Irish in Anglo-Norman, and this month, we would like to look further into the linguistic contact between Anglo-Norman and Celtic languages – this time focusing on Welsh. While there has been considerable research into the influence of (Anglo-)French on the Welsh language, particularly in the literary sphere, linguistic contact between the two languages in the administrative and judicial spheres remains relatively poorly studied [1] .  Among the materials and sources used for the compilation of the AND we find two editions that bring together documents written in Wales by Welshmen: the Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning Wales , and the Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales . The former contains mainly records of correspondence between the English royal court and nobles in Wales, while the latter provides evidence of petitions from individuals throughout Wales to the English king. There are limitations ...

Over the last few months, our blog posts have focused on loan words in Anglo-Norman - from Greek, from Italian, from Mongolian ... This month and the next, we are going to have a look at some Anglo-Norman words borrowed from Celtic languages. Medieval Britain was a multilingual environment, and it is clear that there was a high level of contact between Anglo-Norman, Middle English and Medieval Latin, resulting in a high level of loan words between the languages. But these were not the only languages used at this period in the Anglo-Norman regnum, which also included Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It is perhaps surprising then that relatively few words in the AND are tagged as deriving from either Welsh or Irish and no borrowings seem to have come from Scots Gaelic. This is a phenomenon that bears a closer look, suggestive of a very different contact situation in the Celtic countries than in England. Can the pattern and frequency of borrowings offer insights into the use of Anglo-Nor...

The alpha, but not quite yet the omega, of Greek lexis in Anglo-Norman. As primarily a Romance language, Anglo-Norman more often than not traces the origins of its lexis back to Latin. As such, determiner comes from determinare , leun 2 from leo and oreison from oratio – three entirely random but straightforward examples of how this type of development is so integral to the formation of a romance language that the AND will not highlight these words as Latin in origin. Evidently, Latin did not have exclusive rights to the formation of Anglo-Norman vocabulary – as our blogposts of the last few months have already testified, with examples from Mongolian (or not), Persian and Italian. Indeed, Anglo-Norman in its very nature is, to some extent, defined by an influx of Germanic, and specifically Anglo-Saxon/English, elements. For this month’s post we will take a look at the role of the second Classical language that contributed so much to the pan-European vocabulary: Greek. And w...

A map of medieval Southampton based on the  Terrier  of 1454: http://3dvisa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/paper_jones.html My previous AND blog [ July 2016 ] on luxury fabric colours introduced the study of Anglo-Norman / Italian language contact, an area which has been largely overlooked by academics so far. [1] Tuscans, Genoese and Venetians played a crucial role in the economy of late medieval England and Italian merchants and bankers could be found in many social niches. They dominated the textile and wool markets, they were the main importers of sugar and spices, they acted as personal money-lenders to the King and ran the Royal Mints, they worked closely with the London Guilds (such as the Worshipful Company of Grocers) and they were the undisputed European masters of shipping. One of the aims of my recently submitted PhD thesis ( Money Talks: Anglo-Norman, English and Italian language contact in medieval merchant documents, c1200-c1450 ) is to uncover probable Italian b...