The English Language: a True Hybrid

​

English is the only major language spoken today that is a true hybrid.

​There are only two other important living languages that descended from more than one parent: Yiddish, which has a High German grammar but is richly endowed with vocabulary and expressions derived from Hebrew, Aramaic and various Slavic languages, and Jopara, a blend of Spanish and the indigenous Guaraní tongue that is widely spoken in Paraguay.

 

​The story of modern English began with the Norman conquest in the eleventh century. Old English, one of its ancestors, had been spoken throughout England and parts of Scotland for centuries. It evolved from Germanic dialects spoken by Angles and Saxons who migrated from the European continent in the early Middle Ages, replacing the languages of Roman Britain.

​

Its other parent was Old French. How did French get to England? Blame the Normans: they were Vikings who had settled in Normandy in the 9th and 10th centuries and adopted the Gallo-Romance dialect of Old French that was spoken there at that time.

​

​Duke William of Normandy played a starring role in the drama. He was the son of Robert I, who never married, and a mistress, making him illegitimate. That fueled his ambition to become a real king. When his cousin once removed, King Eduard the Confessor of England, died, William (falsely) claimed that the throne had been promised to him, built a large fleet and invaded England in 1066. He has been known as William the Conqueror ever since.

 

​The Normans established themselves as that country’s new ruling class. The new French-speaking aristocracy ruled over the Old English-speaking commoners, and the courts naturally also used French. Over the course of the next few centuries, the two languages gradually blended to create a version of English that was closer to what is spoken today.

​

​Last wills and testaments began to be written in English around 1400. Laws were written in Latin until around 1300, in French until about 1485, in both English and French for a few more years, and exclusively in English from 1489 onward.