24. Norman Conquest.

After Canute death, Edward was king of England. In 1066, upon Edward’s death, the Elders of England proclaimed Harold Godwin king of England. As soon as the news reached William of Normandy, he mustered (gathered) a big army by promise of land and, with the support of the Pope, landed in Britain. In the battle of Hastings, fought in October 1066, Harold was killed and the English were defeated. This date is commonly known as the date of the Norman Conquest. After their battle, William crown king and then he called the Conqueror.

The Norman Conquest brought great social and political changes to England, linking the country more closely with Western Europe and replacing the old English aristocracy with a Norman aristocracy. The English language was subjected to a long period of influence by Anglo-French, which remained in literary and courtly use until the reign of Edward III and in legal reporting until the 17th century.

25.The French loans in English.

The borrowing of words in the Middle English period is related to changes with French itself. For instance an /s/ before /t/ was lost in French but many loans in English were made before this took place, hence one has estate but état, forest but forêt in Modern French. In the case of hostel and hotel, the /s/ in the first word shows that it is an older borrowing from the same root, cf. Modern French hôtel (the accented vowel in the French examples here indicates that previously an /s/ followed the vowel).

In the course of time the difference between the two strands of French — Norman and Central — became more and more diffuse. Certainly there is no question nowadays of speakers being able intuitively to distinguish between the two.

SPLIT IN ENGLISH VOCABULARY As a generalisation one can say that the French loans are to be found on higher stylistic levels in English. With the later Central French borrowings this is obvious given the sectors of society where the loans occurred (see next section). The general split is between colloquial native words and more formal Romance terms and can be seen clearly in word pairs likeforgive and pardon. Other examples are begin : commence; hearty : cordial; happiness : felicity; help : aid; hide : conceal; meal : repast (only literary nowadays).

But for later English the etymological source of words is irrelevant and any two words can form a pair distinguished on a colloquial — formal axis as one can see in notice : perceive, both of Romance origin or even in the pair present : gift where in fact the Romance term is by far and away the more common in spoken English.

Semantic differentiation has frequently developed which may have neutralised any previous distinction in register: wedding : marriage, ask : demand.

26. Foreign borrowing of the Renaissance.

It was during the English Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and Latin entered English. This period in English cultural history (early 16th century to the early 17th century) is sometimes referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era", taking the name of the English Renaissance's most famous author and most important monarch, respectively. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I there was an explosion of culture in the form of support of the arts, popularization of the printing press, and massive amounts of sea travel.

The Renaissance Period. In England, as in all Euro pean countries, this period was marked by significant developments in science, art and culture and, also, by a revival of interest in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and their languages. Hence, there occurred a considerable number of Latin and Greek borrowings. In contrast to the earliest Latin borrowings (1st century B.C.), the Renaissance ones were rarely concrete names. They were mostly abstract words (e. g. major, minor, moderate, intelligent, permanent, to elect, to create). There were numerous scientific and artistic terms (e.g. datum, status, phenomenon, philosophy, meth od, music). Quite a number of words were bor rowed into English from Latin and had earlier come into Latin from Greek.

The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural contacts between the major European states. There fore, it was only natural that new words also entered the English vocabulary from other European languag es. The most significant were French borrow ings. This time they came from the Parisian dialect of French and are known as Parisian borrowings. Exam ples: routine, police, machine, ballet, matinee, scene, technique, bourgeois, etc. Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e. g. piano, violin, opera, alarm, colonel.

I. Germanic period

II. Old English Period (600-1100)

III. Middle English Period (1100-1500)

IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)

V. Modern English (1650-present)