6. The Norman Conquest. Effects on the language.

The Norman Conquest was not only a great event in British political history but also the greatest single event in the history of the English language. The Norman Conquerors of England had originally come from Scandinavia. First they had seized the valley of the Seine and settled in what is known as Normandy. They were swiftly assimilated by the French and in the 11^th c. came to Britain as French speakers. Their tongue in Britain is often referred to as “Anglo-French” or “Anglo-Norman”, but may just as well be called French. The most important consequence of Norman domination in Britain is to be seen in the wide use of the French language in many spheres of life. For almost three hundred years French was the official language of administration: it was the language of the king’s court, the church, the army and others. The intellectual life, literature and education were in the hands of French-speaking people. For all that, England never stopped being an English-speaking country. The bulk of the population spoke their own tongue and looked upon French as foreign and hostile. At first two languages existed side by side without mingling. Then, slowly and quietly, they began to penetrate each other. The three hundred years of the domination of French affected English more than any other foreign influence before or after.

The lexical borrowings in this period came equally in many spheres of life and sometimes they denoted some things really absent in the Old English. Perhaps windese – window, was a specific oval kind of an opening in the dwelling that only the Scandinavians knew, or feologa – fellow – that was a kind of specific relations between people when they shared common property and conducted some economic activity jointly. These are not originally found in the English society (lagu-law, wrang-wrong, husbonda-husband, casten- to cast, taken- to take, skye -sky).

So, during the invasion such words were borrowed: they, them, their, ill, ugly, ransack, skate, skirt, sky, skill, skin, but the words now are different in meaning.

7. The welfare system of Great Britain.

A welfare state is a concept of government where the state plays the primary role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. The Welfare state was introduce to gain a minimum standard of living for everyone, and as far as it can go, the Labour Party successfully introduced the Welfare state to Britain. The welfare state was set up for a reason, and tried to help five main problems within the United Kingdom: the problems of poverty, Squalor (бруд), the problem of housing, Idleness(безробіття), referring to the problem of unemployment, Ignorance, referring to the problems with education and finally, Disease, referring to the health of the citizens. Social welfare is administered in three ways in United Kingdom, the National Health Service, the Social Services program, and the Pensions Service program .The National Health Service provides a system of government supplied health care. The agency employs over two million doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and other health care workers to achieve this end. It has at its disposal a budget of over £ 60 billion. Welfare in Great Britain also consists of a Social Security program that is admission Service, and also it provides financial aid to individuals and families that qualify. It also promotes what it calls an "equality scheme".