English And French: How They Influenced Each Other

English and French have a long history of shaping each other (due mainly to their geographical proximity). This has generated a lot of false friends (false cognates) but also a lot of common grammatical structures and phonetic rules. It all started with a series of Norman invasions that culminated with the occupation of England by an army made up of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops in the 11th century. As usual, they imposed their language in the British Isles, making it obligatory for the clergy, politicians, and diplomats. But as with most invasions in history, not everyone in the host country welcomes the invader the same way, so the common people didn’t really widely adopt the use of French.

Proof of this is the words we use to refer to animals and their meat. “Cow,” “swine/pig,” and “hen” are all Anglo-Saxon terms (the common people were, for the most part working the land and feeding the animals, not really eating them as often as wealthy people did). But “beef,” “pork,” and “chicken” are all terms taken from French words (the people that usually got to enjoy those protein-rich meals were, again, either the French speakers or the wealthy locals).

French borrowings

We can find examples such as the aforementioned all around us. French borrowings have a special place in academic texts, and that’s why when you hear someone using those terms, you’d normally say they’re using a “fancy” or posh language. It’s so much so that 2/3 of the words used in the English language actually come from Latin (most of them through French). The rest come mostly from Old Germanic and a very small percentage from Greek and Celtic. French enjoyed the privilege of being the lingua franca of Europe for centuries due to their economic, political, cultural, military, and diplomatic clout. The trend has been inverted. Now, if we fast-forward to today, it’s a completely different story. Firstly, English took their language to the four corners of the globe starting in the 18th and all throughout the 19th (and part of the 20th) centuries. Then, the US came out victorious of the biggest armed conflict humanity has ever experienced and, though not through military presence, they laid out all the necessary foundations to be the dominant culture of the world up until this day (making English the de-facto global lingua franca). But it was also with the development of IT and the internet later on (and its global adoption) that the whole world started massively adopting certain terms.

Where false friends are used

Nowadays, in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, and many more, it became normal to hear words such as party, baby, establishment, fake news, manager, deal, know-how and branding, online dating, cocktail, and a very long list of terms used in marketing, commerce, IT, politics and other industries or circles. It’s no secret that many nations around the world have been increasingly adopting English terms to their daily lexicon. Still, it is nonetheless remarkable how deep into it the Germanic countries have gone. It’s very common to see headings of newspapers or magazines with advanced terms that require the readers to have a high level of English to be able to understand them.