论罗马统治和诺曼底征服之间的语言策略

JUNE, 2008

On The Influence of Roman and Norman Conquest on the Evolution of English Loanwords
Abstract: English vocabulary has almost more than one million words which can be divided into two parts according to its origin, native words and loan words. English has shown a marked tendency to go outside her own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages to widen her vocabulary. From a historical perspective, Latin, one of the oldest languages in the world, has exerted an important influence on English’s vocabulary during different periods. The Roman Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin civilization and made significant additions to English vocabulary. And the continuous war between Britain and France especially the Norman Conquest from the beginning of the 11th century to the middle of the 14th century resulted in not only the revolution of society but also the changes of English and its vocabulary. This paper analyzes the development of the English loan words, the way in which loan words were introduced into English, and the influence of Roman and Norman Conquest on the English loan words, and the difference between the influence of the Conquest of Roman and Norman on English Loanwords, in the hope that it can raise our interests in studying English and finally help us discover the way to master the English vocabulary which is extraordinarily rich.
Key Words: loanwords; borrowing; Roman and Norman Conquest; influence
论罗马统治和诺曼底征服对借词发展的影响
摘  要：英语有超过一百万的词汇，依据来源可以被分为两大部分，一个是本族词，另一个是外来词。英语倾向于走出国门从其他语言借用各类词语来扩展自己的语库。拉丁语是世界上最古老的语言之一，它影响了世界上的很多语言。在历史上的不同时期，拉丁语都对英语产生了很重要的影响。在597年，罗马的基督教传入英国，这使得英国加强了同拉丁文化的联系，并且为英语带来了大量的拉丁词汇。在十一世纪初到十四世纪中期，英法之间不断的战争尤其是诺曼征服不仅影响了英国社会的发展而且影响了英语和英语词汇的变化。这篇论文分析了英语借词的发展、借词以何种途径被介绍到英语、罗马统治和诺曼征服这两个历史时期对英语借词的影响以及两次征服对英语借词影响的不同，以此提高我们学习英语的兴趣，最终找到掌握英语丰富英语词汇的好方法。
关键词：借词；借用；罗马统治和诺曼征服；影响

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. The Background of Borrowing in Languages 1
1.1 The Definition of Borrowing in Languages 1
1.2 The Characteristics of English Loanwords 2
2. The Influence of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.) on English Loanwords 3
2.1 The Borrowing of Latin in the Period of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.) 3
2.2 The Borrowings of Latin after the Period of Roman Ruling (450 A.D. —1150 A. D.) 5
3. The Influence of Norman Conquest (1066) on English Loanwords 7
3.1 The Borrowing of French before Norman Conquest 7
3.2 The Borrowing of French during Norman Conquest 8
3.3 The Borrowing of French after Norman Coquest 8
4. The Difference between the Influences of the Conquest of Roman and Norman on English Loanwords 10
4.1 The Reasons that Resulted in the Difference 10
4.2 The Difference between the Classes of Loanwords Caused by Two Conquests 13
5. Conclusion 14
Bibliography 17
 
Introduction 
English has a vocabulary of almost more than one million which can be divided by its origin into two parts, native words and loan words. Our study of the English vocabulary must obviously begin with the native element which was brought to Britain in the fifth century by German tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes who eventually overran the Britons. But the fact that up to 70% of the English vocabulary consists of borrowed words makes us unable to forget the effect of the loanwords. After having been invaded by Rome and France, English has shown a marked tendency to go outside her own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages. In the course of centuries of this practice English has built up an unusual capacity for assimilating foreign elements from every quarter of the globe. And the source and scope of the foreign elements depend upon historical factors. The Englishmen employed many Latin and French words through the invasion of Roman and Norman into Britain.

1. The Background of Borrowing in Languages
1.1 The Definition of Borrowing in Languages
Borrowing is the “process by which one language or dialect takes and incorporates some linguistic element from anther” (Antony Arlotto, 1986). Also as summed up in the Encyclopedia American: “…The English language has vast debts. In any dictionary, some 80% of the entries are borrowed. The majority are likely to come from Latin and of those more than half will come through French. A considerable number will derive directly or indirectly from Greek.”(The Encyclopedia American1980, Vol.10).
Borrowing words from other languages is an important source of new words. Borrowing occurs when one language adds a word or morpheme from another language to its own lexicon. The pronunci ation of the borrowed item is often altered to fit the phonological rules of the borrowing language. The borrowed word remains in the source language, so there is no need for its return. Most languages are borrowers, so their lexicons can be divided into native and non-native words. A native word is one whose history or etymology can be traced back to the earliest known stages of the language (Fromkin 2003, 512) while non-native one is the loanword.
At present there are some 7000 different languages spoken on our world, and every one of these languages has a vocabulary containing many thousands of words, Moreover, speakers of every one of these languages keep contact with neighbors who speak different languages. That is to say, in every language there exist loan words. Such borrowing is one of the most frequent ways of acquiring new words, and speakers of all languages do it. For example, Turkish has borrowed heavily from its prestigious neighbor Arabic, and Latin has also borrowed some words from a Germanic language. English-speakers have long been among the most enthusiastic borrowers of other people’s words on earth, which is really a rare phenomenon in the world’s languages, and many, many thousands of English words have been acquired in just this way. The Englishmen get kayak from an Eskimo language, ukulele from Hawaiian, yogurt from Turkish, mayonnaise from French, algebra from Arabic, sherry from Spanish, and waltz from German. Among these loan words, Latin and French constitute the greatest part.
1.2 The Characteristics of English Loanwords
In every language there exist loan words. However, in the English language, there are much more loan words, which is really a rare phenomenon in the world’s languages.
The English vocabulary may be classified by three main criteria: by origin, by level of usage, and by notion. By origin, the English vocabulary is classified into native words and loan words. Words of Anglo-Saxon origin or of Old English are native words, while those borrowed from other languages are loan words or borrowed words. Most of the loan words have been perfectly naturalized by English people in usage. And by level of usage, it can be divided into common words and literary words. Common or popular words are words which connected with the ordinary things or activities necessary to everyday life. The great majority of English words are common words. Literary words are chiefly used in writing, especially in books written in a more elevated style, in official documents, or in formal speeches. In English most of the literary words are of French, Latin or Greek origin. That is to say, most of the loan words are mainly used in the writing, and comparatively seldom used in ordinary conversation.
In what ways have loan words come into the English language?
Britain is situated in Western Europe and is separated from the European continent by the North Sea, the Strait of Dover and the English Channel. The neighboring countries of Britain include France, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Irish republic, and Iceland. And at the periods of Old English and Middle English, Britain were invaded by many invaders like Rome, Anglo-Saxon, France and many other European conquerors. And the invaders brought their cultures, beliefs, of course their languages to Britain. So the conquerors’ words have come through conquest. The history of early English vocabulary is one of repeated invasions, with newcomers to the islands bringing their own language with them, and leaving a fair amount of its vocabulary behind when they left or were assimilated. After having been invaded, the words from invaders’ were used widely through the commerce, travel, literature, mass media, i. e. newspaper, radiobroadcast, television and many other ways in Britain.

2. The Influence of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.) on English Loanwords
2.1 The Borrowing of Latin in the Period of Roman Conquest (43 A. D.—410 A. D.)
The history of the development of the English language can be divided into three periods: Old English (OE450--1150), the transitional period from Old English to modern English is known as Middle English (ME1100-1500), and The English language from 1500 to the present is called Modern English. After 43 A.D., Latin was introduced with the invasion of the Romans.
Latin was spoken rather extensively for period of about four centuries before the forming of English. Latin was introduced when Britain became a province of the Roman Empire. It was in A.D. 43 that the Emperor Claudius decided to undertake the actual conquest of the island. With the knowledge of Caesar’s experience behind him, he did not underestimate the problems involved. Accordingly an army of 40000 was sent to Britain and within three years had subjugated the peoples of the central and southeastern regions. Subsequently campaigns soon brought almost all of what is now England under Roman ru le.
It was inevitable that the military conquest of Britain would have been followed by the Romanization of the province. Where the Roman lived and ruled, there Roman ways were found. Among the other evidences of Romanization must be included the use of the Latin language. A great number of inscriptions have been found, all of them in Latin. The Latin language was used by the Roman military and official class. Therefore Latin was the official language in England.
They do not in themselves indicate a widespread use of Latin by the native population. Latin did not replace the Celtic language which is used before the invasion of Rome in Britain. And Latin was probably only used by the members of the upper classes and some inhabitants of the cities and towns. Occasional graffiti scratched on a tile or a piece of pottery, apparently by the worker who made it, suggest that in some localities Latin was familiar to the artisan class.
Latin was not the language of a conquered people. It was the language of a highly regarded civilization, at first commercial and military, later religious and intellectual, extended over many centuries and was constantly throughout the Old English period.
More than half of the English words have come from Latin, directly or through some other tongues, such as French, even before the Anglo-Saxons came to England, Roman life had made inroads the ruder culture of the Germanic peoples on the continent and had been established for some centuries on British soil; much of the derivational apparatus, such as prefixes, suffixes, and other compounding elements of various kinds, is Latin, and in the building of new words in English the changes have been rung on these over and over again down through the later centuries; even today the scientist and inventor depend largely on new Latin coinings for names of plants, commercial products and so on.
 Latin has been a major influence of English throughout its history, and there is evidence of its role from the earliest moments of contact. The Roman army and merchants gave new names to many local objects and experiences, and introduced several fresh concepts. About half of the new words were to do with plants, animals, food and drink, and household items: pise ‘pea’, plante ‘plant’, win ‘wine’, cyse ‘cheese’, catte ‘cat’, cetel ‘kettle’, disc ‘dish’, candel ‘candle’. Other important clusters of words related to clothing (belt ‘belt’, cemes ‘shirt’, sutere ‘shoemaker’), buildings and settlements (tigle ‘tile’, weall ‘wall’, ceaster ‘city’, strat ‘road’), military and legal institutions (wic ‘camp’, dibt ‘saying’, scrifan ‘decree’), commerce (mangian ‘trade’, ceapian ‘buy’, pund ‘pound’), and religion (masse ‘Mass’, munne ‘monk’, mynster ‘minister’).
2.2 The Borrowings of Latin after the Period of Roman Ruling (450 A.D. —1150 A. D.)
The Latin element together with the Greek element is considered the classical elements in the English vocabulary. Although the Romans ended the rule of Britain in 410 A.D. and the Roman army all left the islands of Britain, the language of Latin still played a role to affect the English language. The Latin element came into the English vocabulary at different times. There were five Latin influences on English in the history of the English language. But the greatest influence of Latin upon English has occasioned by the introduction of Christianity into Britain in 597. There are five hundred years between the introduction of Christianity in 597 and the close of the Old English period.
It is possible that the first wave of religious feeling which resulted from the missionary passion of the seventh century, and which is reflected in intense activity in the building of church and the establishing of monasteries during this century, was responsible also for the rapid import of Latin words into the vocabulary. The many new conceptions that followed the arrival of the new religion would naturally demand new expression and would at times find the resources of the native language inadequate. During this period Latin words had been making their way gradually into the English language. A few words such as church and bishop were borrowed earlier. Many words were reintroduced later. The examples may be given in their modern forms. The list includes alter, angel, candle, canon, discipline, martyr, mass, minister, nun, offer, organ, rule, temple and others.
The Anglo-Saxons had of course already encountered Latin as used by the Continental Roman armies and the Romano-British, but only a few Vulgar Latin words had come into Old English as a result. By contrast, the missionary influence resulted in hundreds of new words coming into the languag e, and motivated many derived forms. The new vocabulary was mainly to do with the church and its services, theology, and learning, but there were also many biological, domestic, and general words, most of which have survived in Modern English.
Words are generally taken over by one language from another in answer to a definite need. They are adopted because they express ideas that are new or because they are so intimately associated with an object or a concept.
With the introduction of Christianity a whole vocabulary of special terms was introduced, such as ark, creed, front, mass, temple, and Vulgate. Some of these religious terms the Romans had themselves already acquired from Greek, particularly bishop, church, devil, minister, priest, school which were borrowed earlier. But the majority of words in Old English had to do with the church and its services, its physical fabric and its ministers. These words have survived in only slightly altered from in Modern English, they include abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, Arian, ark, candle, canon, chalice, cleric, cowl, deacon, disciple, epistle, hymn, litany, manna, martyr, mass, minister, noon, nun, offer, organ, pall, palm, pope, priest, provost, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, shrift, shrine, shrive, stole, subdeacon, synod, temple, tunic.
Many animal and plant names were introduced in the process of translating Latin literature into the Anglo-Saxon language, such as lily, lion, pear, phoenix, poppy, tiger, some of which are closely related to Greco-roman mythology in terms of their culture senses. Most of the Latin verbs that have come into English entered later in shorter form through early French, such as cease, chase, or in longer form directly from Latin as accentuate, permeate. We have numerous terms of divinity and theology, lake carnal, foreordination, Unitarian; of philosophy, mathematics, and physics, such as diameter, radius, vacuum; of law and government, like coroner, corpus, veto; of botany, especially, hundreds of terms recognizable as Latin, such as mallow, calyx, and the New Latin coinings like dahlia, wisteria, and freesia, which owe their forms to Latin but derive from proper names and other words not necessarily from Latin; of many geographical and topographical terms, such as Capricorn, silvics and tellural.

3. The Influence of Norman Conquest (1066) on English Loanwords
3.1 The Borrowing of French before Norman Conquest
French vocabulary influenced Middle English so remarkably after the Norman Conquest that people are likely to ignore the fact that French loan words can be located in Old English too. Indeed, it would be surprising if there had been no such influence, given the close contact which had grown up in the 10th and 11th centuries. The monastic revival, in particular, had started in France, and many English monks must have studied there. Above all, there was close contact between the English and French two cultures following the exile to Normandy of Edward the confessor. Edward lived in France for 25 years returning to English in 1401 with many French courtiers. Whatever the political consequences these events had brought about, the linguistic consequences were a handful of French loan words, among them: capun ‘capon’, servian ‘serve’, bacun ‘bacon’, arblast ‘weapon’, prisun ‘prison’, castel ‘castol’, and cancelere ‘chancellor’.
As new words arrived, there were many cases from Anglo-Saxon time where the Englishmen duplicated words that had already existed in English. In such cases, there were two outcomes. Either one word could supplant the other; or both would co-exist, but develop slightly different meanings. The first outcome was very common, in most cases the French word replacing an Old English equivalent, for example, leod gave way to people, wlithy to beautiful, and stow (n.) to place. Hundreds of Old English words were lost in this way. But at the same time, Old English and French words often both survived with different senses or connotations, such as doom (OE) and judgment (F), hearty (OE) and cordial (F), and house (OE) and mansion (F). Sometimes pairs of words were used.
One of the chief reasons that Old English texts are so difficult for us to read is that so many of the native English words used in those texts were later driven out of the language by borrowing from French. More than 60 per cent of the Old English vocabulary has disappeared, and the Norman Conquest is the greatest single reason for this.
3.2 The Borrowing of French during Norman Conquest
We may trace the history of the English-speaking peoples by studying the kinds of loanwords in their language, their source, and when they were borrowed. Before Norman Conquest in 1066, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes inhibited England in the 5th century. They were of Germanic origin when they came to Britain in the fifth century to eventually become English. Original ly, they spoke Germanic dialects, from which Old English developed directly. These dialects contained some Latin borrowings but few foreign elements beyond that.
When in January, 1066, Edward the Confessor died childless, England was again faced with the choice of a successor. The day after Edward’s death Harold was elected king. William, the Duke of Normandy, however, was a second cousin to the late King. While William was on a visit to England, Edward had promised him that he should succeed him. Only by force then could William hope to obtain the English crown. The battle of Hastings, fought in 1066, resulted in the defeat of the Anglo-Saxon army. While William won the battle of Hastings, he had not yet succeeded to the English throne. It was only after he had burned and plundered the southeast of England that the citizens of London decided that further resistance would be useless. At last, they surrendered and on Christmas Day 1066 William was crowned King of England. This is one of the most important events in the history of England.
3.3 The Borrowing of French after Norman Coquest
For existing side by side for a long time in England, The French language had an important influence upon the English language and this influence is direct and observable. In fact, the number of French words that came into English was very great in the Middle English period.
The Normans spoke French, and after the Normans ruled England, they were holding all the important positions in the church and government. Though the common people continued to speak English, Norman French became the official language. And for three centuries after the conquest, French was used for all affairs of states and for most commercial, social, and cultural matters. About 9000 French words poured into English after the year of 1250 and till 1500, 75% of them are still in use at present. The West Saxon literary language was abandoned, but regional varieties of English continued to be used in homes, churches, and the marketplace. During these three centuries, vast numbers of French words swarmed into English, most of them are terms of government, religion, law and military affairs, of which the following are representative:

state     reign    royal    sovereign   tyrant      council   assembly
religion   sermon  baptism  vicar     confession    penance   prayer
equity   judgment  crime    suit     attorney      summons  verdict
navy     peace    enemy    arm      combat     skirmish   siege

French words continuously enriched the English vocabulary in the Middle English period. The words are connected chiefly with food and drink, with arts, with fashion and with diplomacy.
Until the Normans came, when an Englishman slaughtered an ox for food, he ate ox. If it was a pig, he ate pig. If it was a sheep, he ate sheep. However, “ox” served at the Norman tables was beef (boeuf), “pig” was pork (porc), and “sheep” was mutton (mouton). These words were borrowed from French into English, as were the food-preparation words boil, fry, stew, and roast. Over the years French foods have given English a flood of borrowed words for menu preparers:

aspic      bisque      bouillon      brie          brioche
canapé     caviar      consommé    coq au vin     coupe
crepe      croissant    croquette     crouton       escargot
fondue     mousse     pate         quiche        ragout

Words connected with arts are:
baroque    baton    matinee    nocturne    renaissance  
repertoire  resuee    painting    sculpture
Words connected with fashion, dress and material are:
beret      blouse    corsage    crochet   dress   robe     lace
Among diplomatic terms we find:
attaché    charge   communism    dossier    secretariat    entente

French influence became increasingly evident in English manuscripts of the 13th century. It has been estimated that some 1000 French words came into English at that time. These words were largely to do with the mechanisms of law and administration, military, but they also included words from such fields as medicine, art, fashion, culture and luxury food. Many of the new words were quite ordinary, everyday terms. Over 70% of these words were nouns. A large number of these words were abstract terms, constructed to be used to describe such new French things and about three-quarters of all these French loans are still in the language today.
4. The Difference between the Influences of the Conquest of Roman and Norman on English Loanwords
4.1 The Reasons that Resulted in the Difference
The Latin and French were both introduced respectively by the invasion of Rome and France. And the French and Latin belong to the same subfamily of the Indo-European family: Italic family. But the influence of these two languages on English loanwords is quite different. The Roman Empire and the Norman invader both ruled Britain for a long time. But there are differences between the influence of Conquest of Roman and Norman on English loanwords. I think there are many reasons to explain this point.
First reason is the difference between the nature of Latin and French.
The most widely studied language family in the world is the Indo-European. It contains the following subfamilies: Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including the Romance languages), Slavic, and two extinct subfamilies, Anatolian (including Hittite) and Tocharian.
Latin is one of the most important classical languages and was a language used by Romans during the Roman Empire, which dated to the years before and after the birth of Christ. Latin is a member of the family of Italic languages. No other known languages, including English, have achieved the success and longevity of Latin. The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. Latin is the language that was originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire.
When a language ceases to change, we call it a dead language. Classical Latin is a dead language because it has not changed for nearly 2000 years. The change that is constantly going on in a living language can be most easily seen in the vocabulary. Old words die out, new words are added, and existing words change their meaning. Much of the vocabulary of Old English has been lost, and the development of new words to meet new conditions is one of the most familiar phenomena of English.
While few people in the west outside of monasteries could read Latin in the year after 600, the French changed rapidly. Broadly speaking, the trend or direction of change in the Romance languages has been the reduction of the Latin case system through elimination of the distinctive endings. French, which is not like Latin, had changed to be fit for common people to speak and read.
Second reason is the difference between the history of Rome and France.
Rome at first was a small village in central Italy before it became the Roman Empire. After having conquered and controlled all of Italy, southern Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt, Roman Empire became the most powerful and largest empire in the world. Romans finished what no other people had managed before: ruled the entire world under a single administration for a considerable amount of time. The Romans would consider their empire as the instrument that brought law and justice to the rest of the world; in some sense, the relative peace and stability they brought to the world did support this view. The Romans devoted much of their brilliance to military strategy and technology, administration, and law, all in support of the vast world government that they built. Having attached so much importance to construction of the large scale project and the infrastructure facilities, the Romans ignored the reinforcement of the core of the Roman culture, the Latin.
Whether a language can become popular in foreign land, it depends on the assimilation of this language. Latin is a language which is highly stylized and polished and it is often used in church in Rome. Few people know how to read and speak Latin except a few monks in Europe. And moreover, the Romans did not do anything to simplify Latin to make it suitable for common people to read and speak. And when Roman Empire invaded Britain, the inhabitants in this island were Celts. The language the Celts used is Celtic language, not a uniform language. Latin did not have a direct contact with Old English in England, and such Latin words as could have found their way into English would have had to come in through Celtic transmissions. So Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain. When all the Roman troops eventually returned to the continent, thus ending the Roman occupation of Britain, the Roman civilization as had been attained under Roman influence was largely destroyed, the Roman towns were burnt and abandoned, and the use of Latin began to decline after A.D. 410.
When ancient Gaul, now is modern France was conquered by the Romans in the 2nd and 1st century B.C., its inhabitants spoke Gaulish, a Celtic language, which was rapidly supplanted by the Latin of the Roman overlords. French derives from Latin and therefore belongs to the Romance group of indo-European languages. By the 9th century, the language spoken in what is now France was sufficiently different from Latin to be a distinct language. It is called Old French and was current from the 9th to the 13th century.
About 449 an event occurred that profoundly affected the course of history. In that year, as traditionally stated, began the invasion of Britain by certain Germanic tribes—the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles—which conquered England. The English language of today is the language that has resulted from the history of the dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes. That is to say, there appeared a language used by the inhabitants who lived in Britain after Romans left. This language is called English. 
The influence of the Fre nch language upon the development of English language is direct, evident and considerable. French and English was used together by the upper classes and common people for a long time in England, and the transference of French words into the English vocabulary could not be avoided. These two languages are related languages in a sense, because French is a Latin language with German and English influence, while English is a Germanic language with Latin and French influence. Thus there are some similarities between them. So it is easy for Normans who lived in Britain after the Norman Conquest to learn English. Through this way, there will be more French words introduced into Britain. For 200 years after the Norman Conquest, French remained the language of ordinary intercourse among the upper classes in England, and English was the speech of the mass of the people. At first those who spoke French were those of Norman origin, but soon through intermarriage and association with the ruling class numerous people of English extraction must have found it to their advantage to learn the new language. In the thirteen century, the French language has got the wide popularity and it enjoyed all over civilized Europe in the thirteen century. At this time France was commonly regarded as representing chivalrous society in its most polished form, and the French language was an object of cultivation at most of the other courts of Europe. So the words introduced by Normans do not only belong to the court or administration terms, but also include everyday-use words.
4.2 The Difference between the Classes of Loanwords Caused by Two Conquests
We can know through these two reasons mentioned above that though English borrowed many words both from Latin and French, the class and the extent of the borrowed words from these two languages are different from each other. It was not decided by certain individual. Instead it depended on the characteristics of source languages and of the way the two conquerors controlled Britain.
As we have discussed in the second and the third parts of this thesis, the languages of Latin and French have exerted an influence on the English vocabulary in specific fields. If we make a contrast between the influences of these two languages on English loanwords, we can find out that the difference between the influences rested with the following point:
We may say that the use of Latin as a spoken language did not long survive the end of Roman rule in 410 A.D. in the island and many Latin words were lost in the disorders that accompanied the Germanic invasions. And after the Christianity was introduced in 597 into Britain, a lot of Latin words were pouring into there again. The great majority of these words in Old English have to do with the religion, i.e. the church and its services, its physical fabric and its ministers, and some more or less learned or literary words. For many years after Norman Conquest French was only used in the upper classes in England, at this time the French words which were introduced into Britain were mostly to do with government, religion and nobility. But after the intermarriage and more communication between French and English people, a large amount of French words swarmed into Britain. These words were not only the terms of government, religion, and nobility, but most of them were used in daily life including the food, drink and household items.

5. Conclusion
Compared with many other languages, English seems to have a rich and very large vocabulary. Vocabulary plays such an important role in language, so it is important to have some knowledge of its development and growth. The study of the historical development of the English vocabulary should not be conducted in isolation from the growth of the English language itself. And the English vocabulary is a complicated mixture of Germanic words and Romance words. The Germanic words are words which English shares with languages like German, Danish, and Norwegian. The Romance words are words which English shares with languages like French, Spanish and Italian. More than half of the English vocabulary is derived from Latin and French. The Roman Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin civilization and made significant additions to English vocabulary. The Norman Conquest made English for two centuries the language mainly of the lower classes while the nobles and those associated with them used French on almost all occasion. The Roman invasion and the Norman Conquest both have extraordinary influence on the English loan words, but there’s a little difference between the influences of these two conquests. English is a flexible language. In the process of its development, it inevitably assimilates words from other languages and changes daily in order to enrich its vocabularies and meet the demands of the social development.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all tho se who helped me during the writing of this thesis.
Firstly, I gratefully acknowledge the help of my supervisor Ms. Deng Yunsheng. I appreciated her for generously sharing her knowledge and time, for being patient with my questions. In these several months, Ms. Deng gave me her invaluable assistance, encouragement and guidance in my preparation of this thesis, and she also offered her directions and suggestions to support me to finish and amend this thesis.
Secondly, I thank my friends and my roommates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.
Last my appreciation would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years.
 

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