French words in English: A brief history

Why do we use so many French words in English? Well, it all goes back to the time of William the Conqueror. This video explains the origin of many of the French words we use in English... in less than two minutes!

You'll learn where our names for animals come from and why so many of the words we use in government, justice and the arts come from French.
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If you're a learner of English and would like a video explaining an aspect of our wonderful language, let me know in the comments.

[anshulmishra]

I am noticing that I can't stop binge watching your videos because of information like this!

[randomz]

This is a really good video. I love how you are actually appreciative of the French language. I myself have been learning French for a year now and have developed an affinity to everything related to the language, so this was a cool perspective to see.

[thetooginator]

Rob - This may interest you: Persian gets the vast majority of its governmental, judicial, and scientific words from Arabic (and for basically the same reason).

[livrowland]

Interesting but it's a bit too brief for such an important topic. You could have talked for example about more recent borrowings too and how they still often look French, like a tête-à-tête, savoir-faire, raison d'être etc. Or, how there are many post-Norman borrowings from culture, fashion and cuisine etc due to French expertise in certain areas.

[Marsannouille]

Je découvre votre chaîne et déjà, je vous adore! Merci!

[TheElectra]

I've discovered a huge flaw in your videos: they're too short! Come on, Rob, don't be shy! Some of these topics deserve a lot more attention.

[Arkelk]

Sir Walter Scott in his novel "Ivanhoe" also had one of his characters (Wamba?) observe that Anglo-Saxon was used for the working, hard part while Norman French was used when the animal was ready to eat.

[lisaedmondson]

Brilliant again!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
I’m having so much fun with your channel. Thank you, once more.

This topic was also well explained in the sumptuous BBC documentary series: The Adventure of English. The episode on French in English is just fascinating.

[klarissaclairiton]

Surrender is a good example of a reflexive French verb in English. He surrendered to the authorities - Il s'est rendu aux autorités.

[JimCvit]

This channel should definitely have more subs! I love it!

[wolf]

The connection between the French names for the food and the Saxon names for the live animals was covered by Walter Scott in _Ivanhoe_ in 1819 in a delightful dialogue between Wamba the jester and Gurth the Swineherd while they were both searching for a missing swine.

[reddblackjack]

I love these videos! Really enjoyed the one about German words we should stea. So, thanks. In case your plan is to make others about stealing words, I know a French word we SHOULD steal. I'm a retired cook who worked mosty in breakfast, banquets and buffets( the Three B's). And when you have to cook eggs for a hundred people or more you might consider making them BAVEUSE. Which is basically wet scrambled eggs not completely finished. If you and your staff are making hotel pans full of eggs at a breakfast buffet, by the plate where it sits under a heat lamp, or you've got a hundred wrappers with tortillas and cheese that need to be made into breakfast tacos by putting a scrambled eggwith potatoes and a meat then wrapped and sold. Vabeuse eggs are how most cooks make lots of eggs. And, like me, mix in cheeses for cheesy scrammies, that's the time you add those cheeses is whilst they're wet. So, just in case you need another video idea, here you go. English really doesn't have a good single word.

[fridayschild]

More! Give me more! More history and examples! LOVE ❤ your informative vlogs!💖

[RedNightDragon]

Rob, as a language expert, you should know that the Normans were SITTING, not were sat. Love your stuff, but had to point this out as it has completely taken over in the UK, but not in the US, where I'm originally from or Canada.

[andredavis]

Reminds me of a book I read (called Honi Soi Qui Mal Y Pense) written by Margeret Walter on the history of both the French and English languages intertwined since the Celtic/Roman times. Makes for terrific reading for those interested on how these 2 languages evolved.
In particular, she analised a list of 1200 Englishisms which should no longer be used (in France). She found that 80% were originally French words exported to Britain and coming back centuries later with a modified meaning !!!

[mariawesley]

I'm so glad you mentioned the difference in animal names. Decades ago a vegan friend was telling me that the reason animals' names were different when we ate them was so we could alleviate our guilt at consuming them. I set her straight on the Norman's influence in England and who was tending the animals and who was being served the animals.

[jeuluis]

Love your channel I really hope you grow! I’m watching this eating porc ( bacon) haha

[dallasbateman]

I am a statistician by trade and a language enthusiast by night, so I love your pie chart. It's interesting that English is a Germanic language but is 58% French and Latin (both Romance languages) while only 26% German. And that remaining 16% is probably heavily weighed in Greek and Arabic (non-Germanic languages). I totally understand why it's Germanic, but I wonder how long it will be until English would be considered a Romance language?

[mizusenshisongs]

We read some Anglo-Norman poetry in my Brit Lit 1 class in college, and out of interest (and also being a French minor) I looked up the Anglo-Norman originals (the versions in our textbook being "translated" into modern English). They looked very much like Old French mixed with English to me, which I guess makes sense since that is exactly what it was. I feel like you can see the influence of this in Middle English texts like Chaucer's work, since Middle English emerged not long after Anglo-Norman.

Interestingly, Old French is not that different from Modern French. I took Modern French in school and then read passages in Old French and recognized a lot of words, albeit often with different spellings (words that end in "oi" today usually ended in "oy" back then), and likely using words that have been dropped from French in the meantime, like verbs that aren't used anymore. This is probably because, while English has gone through many versions, French has only had three: Old French, Middle French, and Modern French.

[lachaineduteeshirt]

Thank you Rob for your video, we learn lot of things. Just for information, some say that french words in english are 41%. It might be since i can see french roots to so many english words