When Did English Kings Stop Speaking French?
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- After the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the installation of William, Duke of Normandy's dynasty as the new kings of England, for the first time in the history of the united kingdom its rulers no longer spoke English. Instead they spoke Norman French, a Romance language that left its mark on Modern English in the form of new vocabulary like pork, beef, castle, captain, forest. But in the new Netflix film "The King", Henry V is shown to be speaking English; and without a French accent. Is this accurate? In this video I take a look at when the kings of England stopped speaking French and started speaking English.
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When did english kings stop speaking french? When they started speaking german of course
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Wait werent the windsors from like the 1700s, (im assuming thats who you mean when u say german)
@Jim Hope dude not correct, they spoke spanish before that smh
Or Dutch. Jeez everyone has been on the English throne.
@EnglishXnXproud Phillip was Spanish, if you count jure uxoris kings
Question should be: When did the Norsemen stop speaking Norse and start speaking French?
Somewhat soon after being given the ruling rights in Nornandy, I believe. But like mentioned, it was not the same French as the one the King of France, for example, would have been speaking at the time
Edit: King of West Francia*
It wasn't quite "France" yet
@@iteachyou1575 didnt french revolution already start language unification
Like VERY soon. The Norsemen who were given the land were most probably just that - MEN, so all of their children already had French mothers. Poof, the second generation is probably mostly french speaking already.
@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 Exactly. It doesn't take long for languages/dialects/accents to develop.
Quickly. They were quite few next to the population of Normandy and instantly started mixing with the locals, especially the nobility.
I can’t tell you when they stop speaking French but I can tell you when English kings started
Alfred The Great, King Of Wessex Thank you Alfred, very cool!
YOUR NOT THE FIRST KING IT WAS KING ATHELSTAN!!! He united Wessex Mercia East Anglia and the other ones
Gustavo Gamer you’re* mom united Mercia
Alfred The Great, King Of Wessex æ œ Æ
Good man.
henry vii is interesting, English was possibly his 3rd language after Welsh (1st) and breton (2nd).
Henry Tudor, in spite of his heritage, usually favoured English.
@EnglishXnXproud Wouldn't their language be closer to Cornish though?
Is it certain Welsh was his first language? Would be interesting if it was the case. I did read that he could speak Welsh and write it but that he used English more.
@@historywithhilbert146 it's been a while since I studies this. His father was some tudor( I can't remember, he died in battle for against the Yorkists)-tudors were from the Welsh marches. Father dies fairly young, his mother Margaret baufort remarries (and again to Lord Stanley) but Henry Tudor eventually flees the country during Edward IV reign with Jasper Tudor ( his uncle) they are Welsh. They flee to Brittany and Henry Tudor spends a long time in exile in Brittany. As such his first language is Welsh, naturally, he was born there and his closest companion Jasper Tudor was Welsh. It is worth pointing out that Brittany and Wales ( as well as Cornish ) were very similar lingually, Brittany is names after the Bretons/Britons and the Britons were originally Welsh whereas the Englishhad their own ethnic origins (angle/Jute/Saxon etc). I think there is evidence that Henry vii spoke Welsh but you would have to dig for it.
@@Enviouskibbles Most of the noble families and the Breton court spoke Gallo at that time, not Breton. Only half of Brittany spoke Breton and it wasn't favoured by the nobles. The last Breton-speaking duke of Brittany died in 1119.
The upper class,, upper middle class still use more frenchified English words as a mark of superiority.
I noticed this myself; from listening to workmates I realised the working class' way of speaking plainly and simply is actually by use of more Germanic words, and it clicked just how much sense it actually made.
Like superiority
@@headlesschicken203 I got shocked the first time I heard americans say "filay" when they referenced a McDonalds burger: fillet o' fish. Americans surprisingly like fancy French pronunciations as I've heard a few others as well.
@@mikespearwood3914 yes Filay for fillet, cafay for café. But in French in real, it is pronounced filé café.
It is an interesting little experiment to do to see how class is related to the etymology of the words they use.
For the longest time when they had territory in France it wasn't a king of England that has lands in France is a French noble that was the king of England
Yep, a real can of worms making something like the Hundred Years War inevitable.
doczg88 I love England but I must admit it makes me cringe everytime they deny the obvious Frenchness of the Normans. It seems they’re still salty about being conquered by a bastard French nobleman...they find the idea of being conquered by vikings less humiliating.
Marchese di Montevecchio If England was France and France was England we wouldn’t have this problem of massive misinformation
Fabianus educated Englishmen know better , it’s the semi educated (or completely uneducated ) masses that learn history from Facebook memes and they repeat falsities that contain a grain of truth. “Normans were Vikings” is patently false but there’s “truth “ in that the Norman aristocracy was of partial Viking ancestry. They confuse ancestry with identity. It’s just as crazy as saying “ the Visigoths and the Romans conquered Mexico “ , just because the Spaniards are of partially Roman and Visigothic origins
@@javier6926 Actually, even in terms of real ancestry by William's time the norse blood of the elite was little compared with frankish "local" blood. For example, William itself had mainly frankish blood (it's possible to check his ancestry quickly on wikipedia), since all his ancestors since Rollo's time married with french women.
It's really just the "lineage" that was viking, and maybe the "spirit" for adventure and conquests.
When you're talking about a bunch of trees, it's spelled "forest." "Forrest" is usually someone's name.
I'm just an idiot who doesn't check my videos haha
@@historywithhilbert146 Forrest Gump
@@vincentjennings6347 Forest Gum
“Run Hilbert, run”
“Box a chocolates.” He he😉
Those Picard speakers....."make it so."
I believe fine sire that thou are meaning to say,. " Make it thou so"
Not to mention, "Tea, Earl Grey, hot"
Ah the Picard. The people who discovered a device for measuring chickens: "Hen gage."
“Captain’s log!”...kids innuendo 🤣 (we’re a bit low-brow in my house!)
@@arcanics1971 I want to give you infinity thumbs up for that! *chef's kiss* top quality pun.
Sadly the French CUISINE did not influence the English very much...
Yep lol we still eat like peasants with our pies and stews and everything with potatoes 😂
Potatoes come from the new world not something a peasant from middle age Europe would of been munchin
@@stevshaboba7476 came in the 1500's
Jim Bob potatoes weren’t widely adopted in Europe until the early 1800s otherwise, french women wouldn’t have been scouring Versailles for grain.
@@armorsmith43 But, but the Google just told me that it was the 1500s 😂
I can imagine.
"You go there, hit them"
" They're your bloody relatives... you go and hit them!"
Glad my terribly explained analogy made some sense haha
Its tragic.
The answer is that they have never stopped speaking French. They did stop speaking it as a first language... But it is known that even the Hannovers and Saxe-Cobourg-Gothas speak it as a third language
Wasnt that the point of the question?Which language they speak as a first.İ think you forgot that
I mean yes but as Poké says this was about their first language and the language they used in government etc.
Queen Elizabeth II is fluent in French, she speaks it beautifully.
The Hanoverian king George I could not speak English. He therefore communicated with the ministers of his English cabinet in French.
Did the """younger""" Windsors still speak German at least as a second language? (the generation of Elizabeth II)
Fun fact : If England had won the 100 years war, the whole world would probably speak French. Because the two countries, united under a single monarch, would have evolved by speaking the language of the most populated regions: in the XVth century, France had 20 million inhabitants, and England: 5 to 6 million...
@Raynil Dralas Great comment. You deserve a peanut.
Not only that but the Elites of England were French. Henry V spoke English to his Serfs but spoke French to the Plantagenet Supporters in his Ancestral Homeland/France as France was technically in a Civil War within the Valois Dynasty between the Elites of Paris and the Elites of Burgundy plus the Plantagenet had Supporters In the Western Part of the Country. Even under Plantagenet England, the Population spoke French because the Plantagenet were French themselves and knew they had to appease the Natives to maintain their Hold on France for the brief time they have.
English is only the de facto business language because of the US. Even so Spanish is used in more countries
@@jbloun911 and you totally missed the point if French became the language of England then the USA would be speaking French today therefore making French the lingua franca
@@gjfkhvjzjsxbq should've, could've, would've
Given William 1's reign began in 1066 and Henry IV's reign began in 1399, that means English Kings spoke Norman French for 333 years.
Thank you. That was the answer I was looking for.
English vocabulary: 39% French/ 29% Latin/ 26% Germanic/ 6% Greek/ 4% other/ 3% Derived from place names.
Yeah but English is mostly Germanic, all the base vocabulary is Germanic
@@iain3713 "Germanic", "base", "vocabulary", might be very germanic, but very french also. ^^
Around 70 of words used in a passage will be Germanic, those numbers don’t really show a proper picture as most of the loan words are fairly obscure and not often used in English. Speaking English with only Germanic vocabulary is possible but not with French or Latin.
Riff Raff Latin doesn’t come from Greek, they only borrowed their alphabet
Riff Raff Germanic languages have nothing to do with Latin apart from loan words and shared indo european ancestry
"Dieu et mon droit" the motto of all English monarchs so far.
Ni shit, it was semper eadem
god and my right? also rlly glad i could translate that without looking it up lmao
@@thatb1h855 I think it is God and my Law. Not sure. Droit means both right and law.
Shantonu Basu yea im assuming french uses it interchangeably
@@thatb1h855 Spanish does. Derecho means both right and law.
I only know a little bit of French but I can pick out modern French alot better than I can old English.
They didn't stopped speaking French though, right? They started speaking both French and English.
You can think of it as when did they stop speaking French as a first language and started speaking English as a first language
Queen Victoria's brood were raised in German.
@@christopherellis2663 The current Queen speaks French.
@Mysterious Stranger Not really. It's more closer to Dutch than German, with Celtic, Latin, Greek, Danish, French, and later because you know, empire, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and a host of other bits and pieces of languages from all over the world thrown in for flavor. Then if you want to talk about British English as a separate thing, later words get imported from America, Australia, etc. Quite the pot of stew really.
@@hhale English imported words from French to fill in the mid-standard and Latin to cover the high-standard words put in the gaps opened by the Renaissance, followed by Industrial Revolution, followed by Modern and Postmodern eras. New words just kept being coined for the matter. However, it is still nearly completely Germanic in everyday language.
And also, your hypothesis is complete bullshit. Languages like Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Celtic and "other" have nearly no contribution to the English language. In fact, it wouldn't make sense to say Portuguese, Spanish or Danish influenced English because those languages developed from Latin and Old Germanic, from which English borrowed words anyways so they basically wouldn't have "invisible" influence.
If you want me to describe it, English is a house. Foundations made by Germanic, and floor made by Germanic. Furnished and regulated by French, and covered in walls of Latin. And then you've got some few Greek accessories here and there.
All I know is that you folks had a hell of a lot of Henrys to keep straight.
Unfortunately Richard lost it's popularity. ;)
Not compared to the French and their Louis kings.
Or worst, Egypt and Ptolemy
@stephen noonan actually, 8 of each.
Germans with their Williams and Fredericks
French or Old French or Norman French which is vastly different from French today. However to this day the King or the Queen speak French fluently. Victoria spoke a lot of German and was told constantly to speak English to the Hoi Polloi.
Because the British royal family is originally from Germany, and Victoria spoke German with her family, too
magnifique vidéo
Continuez ce bon travail
Σωτήρης λιδακης How ironic
Merci!
A fascinating video. As a student of French history, this is extremely useful.
Conversely, the Scots called their Anglic language 'Inglis' (aka English) and what we now call Scottish Gaelic "Scottis" until a bunch of wars with England prompted a rethink of what to call their language - hence 'Inglis' became 'Scots' and 'Scottis' became 'Erse' (Irish - Gaelic).
Did you just make this up?
Lothian and Ulster are just Greater Northumbria change my mind
@@Burgermeister1836 that is stupid , only bits of northern Ulster spoke Scots , the true language of Ulster was always Irish and it is still spoken there
Interesting thing is, the Anglo-Saxon chronicle was continued up to the times of Henry II in something like late Old English. And there is at least one Norman royal charter written in Old English (and not in French or Latin). The one I mean is from the reign of Henry I. So, Old English didn't disappear from formal use immediately after the Norman conquest. It was a process.
Edward III had Chaucer as court poet, so he obviously understood and even enjoyed Middle English poetry. So, maybe the lowest point of public use of any version of the English language was between Henry II and Edward III.
Thank you for this! Looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Apart from a few, they didn't speak French in the first place. Norman was a separate language, a sister language if you will to French. Most of the basic vocabulary was considerably different, and then you add in the Old Norse Component. Norman developed into several varieties each with their own unique characteristics, but didn't have much in common with French. Yes, French and Norman did share a common Gallo-Romance ancestor, but Norman did not branch off of French, it branched off of Gallo-Romance. French is just one of many related Gallo-Romance languages. French wasn't the language brought over by William the Conqueror, it was Norman. Now, some kings of England did speak French, like Henry du Bois and some of the Plantagenet family, but most spoke Norman, or more accurately Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman only had something like 60% mutual ineligibility with French. The Norman accent was pretty damn different to that of a French one, so no Henry V would definitely not have spoken English with a French accent. We also know that Richard the Lionheart natively spoke Old Occitan, and spent a good portion of life speaking it instead of Norman or English.
How did William Chaucer express it in his Canterbury Tales? -
"She spoke the French of Stratford- atte-Bowe
for French of Paris was to her unknowe."
@@c.norbertneumann4986 Although Norman was the prestige language of the middle and upper classes, some did speak French. However, French (which originated in the areas around Paris, and not native to Normandy or other parts of modern France), was introduced to England at least 200 years after the Norman Conquest. We don't really have any references or mentions of the French language before about 1300, and it's introduction was probably after Edward I of England married Margaret of France in 1299. Before that when the Angevins took the English throne, most of the nobility natively spoke Norman, and would have had little to no contact with French speakers. This was also around the time when some of the nobility began natively speaking English again. Norman and French were also used rather sporadically for official government business, with Latin still being the preferred language of government.
Actually it was a dialect of French
60% of the English vocabulary have a French (and Normand ,but it's a French dialects anyways) origin ,which also make the fact that 52% of the English vocabulary is of Latin origin .
Fun Fact :If we don't count the other 2 langage of the Gallo-Romance family (Occitan and Franco-Provençal ,do not confound with Provençal ,which is a dialect of Occitan) ,English is the 4th closest langage to French ,here the classement :
1-Italian (89% of lexical similarities)
2-Spanish (75%)
2-Portuguese (75%)
4-English (70%)
5-German
For 6th and 7th position ,I forgot which one between Romanian and Dutch is 6th .
Someone speaking French can completely understand Italian (Written) ,Occitan and Franco-Provençal without ever learning anything in the langage .
Someone speaking French can also do the same with Spanish and Portuguese ,but for these ,you atleast need the basics .
Norman French was French.
Just stop trying to deny.
@@bobjoe7508 As a native Frenchman, everything you wrote is wrong.
Good job really.
Oh btw, have you ever, ever taken a norman french text or a parisian french text and compare them?
Yhea, I bet not. Both are intelligible to me.
Could you do one on when the various barbarian invaders of the 3-400s started speaking the tongues of the common folk? I.E. when the Visigoths started speaking proto Spanish, Franks started speaking proto French, Lombards and Ostrogoths started speaking Italian or when the Eastern Roman empire's elite started speaking Greek?
Or another fun one, after the Arab conquest of the Middle East and the Magreb how long did it take for the different peoples to switch from Berber, Coptic and the other languages to Arabic?
Thanks, love your videos!
For Greek in Eastern Rome, it has always been the case since the conquests, as it was considered a noble language in the same way Latin is in the medieval era onwards
@MISERICORDI A Okay, should have prefaced it by saying "proto Italian" like the others. Still curious if under those hundredish years of rule if they started assimilating. And still curious how long it took for the Lombards to assimilate (if they did).
@washington gibz Well a lot of them did though, right? Now a lot of the Magreb is mostly Arab speaking right? Are those people the descendants of Berbers who assimilated into Arab culture, Arab settlers or maybe a mix of both?
@@MaxArturo Isn't he majoring in Anglo-Saxon studies?
Yes, I'm just saying he prefers it, but he has do what he is passionate about.
What I always found interesting is the difference how English names meat, and how English names the animals the meat comes from.
Here you really can see the Anglo-Norman influence:
cow - beef
calf - veal
pig - pork
chicken - poule
As you can see, the animal kept the name it got from Old Saxon, while the meat got the Anglo-Norman name. You can clearly see who raises the animal and who eats the meat.
SiqueScarface Sheep - mutton
Witch-hag
Great aspect! And seem legit! Never thought about that before!
The first post-conquest king to speak at least some English was Henry I, who had a wife of English descent. It's possible that had the crown not passed to the Angevins, the switch to English as a first language might have happened sooner. As it is, all Plantagenet English kings from Edward I onward were bilingual.
Richard II's bodyguard not only spoke to him in English, they called him 'Dickon' to his face (source: the Yale history of the reign of Richard II).
Thank you so much for your very interesting video, Hilbert. I love History .
Thank you Daisy glad you enjoyed it!
@@historywithhilbert146 Hilbert, sure you 're most welcome always here. Blessings and peace to you.
@@daisypeters3216 Likewise Daisy! Hope you have a fab weekend!
@@historywithhilbert146 Hilbert, have a nice and blessed weekend too. Sure I always want to watch your amazing videos. 😘💖👍🌟🌟🌟
We have NEVER had English kings (or queens) since the death of Harold Godwinson.
@Guru Charan If that is taken into regard then every monarch of Europe is related to Charlemagne the Great of the Franks. Generally maternal descent is not taken into account. Henry was descended from a French count of Anjou, hence the dynasty being named as the Angevin dynasty. Later they named themselves as Plantaganets Or Les Plantagenet.
@Guru Charan The point is that matrilineal descent was not the factor behind William the Conqueror's invasion of England. Yeah you were right about the other monarchs but matrilineal descent was secondary to patrilineal descent and only applied if there was no male heir in countries which followed semi Salic law and not Salic law. The descent from Alfred the Wessex through the maternal line was not a cause for William the Conqueror invading England. Neither was it the factor behind the rise of the Angevins. Why are the Houses to which the monarchs belong named after their paternal ancestors? If maternal descent was taken into account while naming a dynasty, every English king would belong to the House of Wessex and not be named as the Plantaganet, Tudor, Stuart dynasty etc
@Guru Charan Yeah you were right about Charlemagne. The great is redundant but I do see it used sometimes.
The Normans were English by the late 1100s. Godwinson was a usurper anyway, he invented his claim.
Good video, sticking to the facts for those of us who have wondered about this. I'm a subscriber from this. Thanks.
Many people have difficulties to ear that French was the official language of England while it was not in France. The first official writing was made in french by the Norman in their conquest of England.
You are a disingenuous Francophile. The English language was relegated to second-rate status until the 1400s, certainly; but not crushed out of existence. It was still an unofficial court language, not treated as an alien tongue.
Henry IV was the first king to make the official language be English in his court. From then on all subsequent monarchs spoke English as the official language of the realm.
Extremely interesting, I was wondering about this for a greater while.
"It's probably not a good idea... to speak the same language as the people you're fighting..." Never stopped the Prussians
They had a different causus belli or reason for war, at least long term it was german unification. Either their national ideas were to their advantage, or I have played to much Europa Universalis. Gs.
Neither did with the many hispanic countries lol, (Poor Bolivia the Poland of South America)
True but Prussia was fighting to unify Germany, which most Germans viewed as a 'nation' in some sense.
Laughs in Yugoslavian
or the Americans (the Civil War)
French is still seen as a fancy pants upper class language despite France losing it's global position of prestige a long time ago. Fun fact: the Russian Nobility spoke French up until the Napoleonic wars made that become unfashionable.
I‘m just amused that the average English person is so in awe of multilingualism, something that is totally normal for much of the rest of the world... To me, it‘s nothing special to grow up with three languages and pick up a couple more. I knew people who at 11 were starting on their seventh language when going to secondary school.
I do think the development of Norse to Norman to Middle English via Anglo-Saxon is fascinating, though, so thanks!! I was never entirely sure of the time frame.
It’s because English speakers really don’t have the same need to learn other languages as non-English native speakers because English is the lingua franca.
@@AWOL401 something of an illusion in 2020...
Woeschhuesli it’s not an illusion. Practically every person under 40 in Europe speaks English, as you do. Most young people in major Asian cities speak English. In China students learn English (not German). Even international air traffic control is in English.
@@FredBTs Thats right and false, on paper it is, as french who's in his 20s, I would say 20% of people could have a conversation in english, not more, languages in France are still seen as useless since we don't really need it
Davout According to Eurobarometer nationally 39% ofFrench speak English but in the large cities the % is much higher. English is the language of science, computers, international aviation, the internet and more ,you do need it.
You're a student? Impressive work and wish you well in your studies, which you so obviously enjoy. Went on to your video on Agincourt and enjoyed that as well. So am looking forward to watching more from your library and your new uploads.
Nice video Hilbert, this was related to my ancestors also by surname I mean, but I am an American. Though oddly my ancestors cousins with my surname keep getting places named after them, though Vernon is just a name of a town in Normandy France. Then Reviers is just a town near Caen prior to that, then Meulan is near Paris. It is all of our history really.
Paradise lost? Did the revolution chase the local nobliaux away?
Calling the Normans 'French' is like calling the modern Scottish and Irish 'English'
Or Hitler would be German. Which is wrong and it annoys me as a German
@@lastprussian71or deutchlanders German because they don't call themselves Germans
@@denny414
Prussian and Bavarian are quite different dialects.
Exactly. The Normans came to be the last of the people-groups to make up the English. Francophile revisionism is ridiculous, as though William was a Capetian or somesuch. The Normans were assimilating as early as the late 1100s.
What about Henry III? I think that he was the first to have switched from French (spoken by his father John Lackland?)
Gérard Jacquemier
Very interesting. When will you be giving us a video on English spelling? I've always wanted to grow up and know how to spell 'forest'. It was a shock to find I'd got it wrong all these decades.
Keep doing it, this was quality. Much better than what the tv channels could make.
Thank you so much! I'll be uploading more on Friday :)
History With Hilbert awsome, i just subbed your channel now
Captain Picard has his own language! Cool! There should be a video on it. Make it so!
Good idea that!
Well, shit...someone beat me to it...
Yes, it is known as Jean-Luc
Such misinformation.
It's good that you pointed out that not only did they speak French but most of them were ethnically French as well
What is "ethnically French"?...The Normans were of Scandinavian origin, who are a Germanic people, just like the Anglo-Saxons...
@@caezar55 yeah but they became french by marrying the French and having half and then 3/4 and then 7/8 French descendants. It's really not hard to understand. That's how gentics work. William The conqueror was barely Scandinavian.
@@micahistory If it's not hard to understand, how come you don't understand it? The Normans who invaded England would have been close to 100% Scandinavian DNA. They mostly married among themselves in Normandy. Remember in those days it was rare for most people to leave their village their entire lives.
@@caezar55 that's not true. Most of them married French women because most of the Normans were men. And if you know something about history, you know there are always way more men who leave than women. It's the same reason why most Latin Americans have Iberian paternal ancestry but Indigenous maternal ancestry.
As for William, it is well documented that his ancestors were mostly French, that isn't even speculation
@@caezar55 Ethnicity, Nationality and Origin are all different...
We can trace our DNA and Origin to our ancestors, we are given our Ethnicity at birth and we can choose our Nationality
Recently though all of these are just considered one same thing and it might be because of English language and western culture...
My Origin is half Serbian and half Bulgarian, I am an Ethnic Serb of Serbian Nationality...
Very worthwhile. I enjoyed this
Excellent stuff !
Since you attend Cambridge, do you plan on ever making a video on the old Anglo-Saxon church right across from the _Eagle_ pub?
I passed it just this morning actually - maybe I should.
@@historywithhilbert146 Do it...do it...do it !!! (Serious football attitude)
The legal culture may have been functionally trilingual. Testimony regarding certain matters in English, official correspondence between attorneys and the judges in Norman french, with document and records being kept in Latin. Haha imagine that as an attorney/judge. Speaking to your client/the parties in English, your peers in Norman, and then reading about what just happened in Latin :P
I remember the documentary a history of Britain in the episode Nations, Simon Schama said that Long Shanks was the first king to habitually speak English.
No the Process began during the Hundred Years War. Even Edward III and his son still spoke in Old French as a first language. Even in Occitan (Old Language of the current South of France). Perhaps since Henry IV.
Great stuff. 👍
Cheers Jeff!
If you watch Inside the commons, a bbc doc from 2015, they still use a line written in Norman Norman French in that place.
I suspect that another reason for the shift was the custom of nursemaids and governesses, generally of lower rank. Such would, most likely, be speaking English and thus influencing the first words spoken by the noble youngsters.
Gulf Arabs today tend to speak Tagalog because they are raised by Filipinos maids!
The hand that rocks the cradle.
Or it could just be a case of language skills getting diluted over the generations after immigration.
They kept on marrying French princesses for ages and they probably brought along their nurses and friends. The language if parluament was French until the 17th century. Nobiliteit were French, and still today the higher classes have French names like Lefebvre and still look more French than Saxon. The Anglo-saxons turned into the lower classes when the Normans took their castles, land and possessions by force. It’s all in the Doomesday Book.
@@marjet2228 there's an interesting Wiki page on the subject here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Norman_language
I can recommend Melvyn Bragg's book "The adventure of English".
He made an audio version which is superior to the print in that pronounciation is such an important aspect of language.
I seem to remember that Norman French only lasted as a language of legal status for three hundred years after the Norman conquest.
A lot of Norman's only summered in England, returning to Normandy and Picardy for the milder winters.
Until they were a few generations into their occupation they could have avoided "going native". When they started having babies in England things would have changed.
Hence Queen Eleanor having the right to call her son the "Prince of Wales" after giving birth to him in Caernarvon.
I’d say the beginning was Edward longshanks. He supposedly “habitually spoke English.”
Yes I thought the tide turned to English when chaucer wrote the canterbury tales in english I think that was Edward III though but it shows english was understood by the royal court by then where it was first preformed
I always wondered this, so thanks for the video. I always wondered which language Henry VIII, the most fascinating English king, spoke natively- and I did think it was English as he would write notes and letters in English, and legislation would be drafted in English.
Wow. Finally found a channel being produced and presented by a genuinely knowledgeable historian. Not like the horrible, cumbersome narration of second-rate content that we find on other channels.
Interesting how after the Normands, then Plantagenet and 2-roses war periods, you have the Tudors who declared themselves as Welsh (Owen Tudor), the Stuart who kept their number and title of Kings of Scotland independently from their English titles, and then, the German period... It's definitely hard to define an English identity according to English kings... When you think that English kings only got rid of their German titles in 1917, just because they were in war with Germany...
Neat. Hilbert is reading all the comments. Hi Hilbert!
Hi Jacinto! Thanks for getting involved ;) For once I'm getting involved as I should!
Eleonore of Aquitaine never spoke French as a first language, she spoke the Occitan language and was a notable patron of poetry in that language. In fact her children, including Richard, grew up native speakers of both French and Occitan.
Aliénor d'Aquitaine parlait le Poitevin , le plus proche du Français des langues occitanes !
Occitan is old French
Henry Pernoix L' Occitan ( ou langues d'oc ou oui = hoc ) regroupe toutes les langues romanes parlées jadis dans le tiers sud de la France . Les langues d'Oil ( oui = hoc ille ) regroupent toutes les langues romanes parlées jadis dans les 2/3 tiers nord plus la Belgique romane et la Suisse romande ! Le Vieux Français appartient aux langues d' Oil !!!!!
Éléonore d'Aquitaine was a perfect French speaking French women who married the French king of england.
Le Capetien tu peux l'écrire en Français sans te soumettre ainsi à l'impérialisme globalisée anglo-saxon !
Everyone knows they were speaking an ancient form of Chinese since the Great Britain was a part of China since ancient times.
'La Reyne le veult' (Norman French for 'The Queen wills it') are still the words used in Parliament to signify Royal Assent to a Bill, that thereby becomes an Act of Parliament. So, in a sense, our laws only come into force through the use of Norman French. In the 21st century. In a country exiting the EU in just a few days. Mon dieu. #TiesThatBind.
I'm having so much fun seeing people saying norman French isn't French while it's just a dialect of French just like you always had in France per region. I have no issues reading a norman French text, it's my own language and I'm not Normand.
Eh ben, Dieu est ton droit. Ou pas, que la reyne le veuille ou non
Funny how readable this is with modern french. "La reine le veut"
I like your channel you're an amazing...
Do you have any videos on the Danelaw or any recommended reading on the topic? I am having trouble finding any good sources on Norse rule in a England.
There's a fair bit of literature on the topic, is there any specific aspect you want to find out about?
History With Hilbert I am interested in several aspects such as everyday life, culture, influence on history, as well as prominent figures.
When the actor that plays English king is a French, and the French king is played by an English😂
I love how they mention that Falstaff is mentioned having to fight for king Richard when they discuss it they should trust his word if it is going to rain or not.
Liked the film a little more then Braveheart for being more accurate, but also being able to include bits of fiction from the play.
@Owen Lee
I am actually not a Shakespeare expert quite yet, but I know many parts were taken from Henry IV Parts II, III and Henry V.
Good stuff sir , I'm wondering if you would be able to make a video about Berbers in North Africa and the conquest of the Arabs
They also used to speak German as the King of England, the Kaiser of Germany, and Tsar of Russia were cousins during the early 1900s. They spoke German to each other along with their grandmother.
Forrest lol. Great vid
I know I saw that back and thought ffs Hilbert if I employed myself I would've been fired xD
It took over 3 centuries before English kings actually became English
I know my history but did not know when this happend. Thanks .
What is the music you are using starting at 5:54? Neither of the songs listed in your credits are this piece of music. I like it very much and want to know the artist. Thanks
C’est vraiment dommage !😔
When we speak several languages, we are open minded !
Oh! Is that how all my matière grise fell out?
The irony is that all the monarchs since the Glorious Revolution have spoken German as their native language. Prince Charles doesn't, though.
@stephen noonan According to what I read, the royal family switched to English in the 1930's.
The background music is somewhat familiar. Might I ask, what film or television series is it from?
They stopped speaking French following the confusion at Crecy. The Norman officers spoke only French while foot soldiers and archers spoke only English. A decree was made that henceforth all Norman's of the upper classes had to learn English.
My friend Charles Petrie, Son of #2 at British Embassy in late 70's, spoke French and German. I would say most British aristocrats spoke French for hundreds of years after 1350 which is the real shift.
Strictly speaking it, the hundred years was not England fighting France.
It was a French duke, also king of England versus the king of France.
If you're a silly Francophile desperate to rewrite history, sure, you can frame it that way.
The Normans began to assimilate by the late 1100s, language notwithstanding.
“Veal” is French while “calf” is English. English farmers saw the animal on the hoof hence calf while on the French nobleman saw it on the table as veal
totally unrelated to the topic but were you using mount and blade music at the first few minutes of your video?
If I can judge from my own language, from all the texts that were found from the 11th century, there was barely any difference between dialects. I assume since French is a related language, North French dialects were very similar. There was probably no significant difference between Norman and Picard.
True, all were mutually intelligible...
Agree, I come from northern France, just close to Picardy, and Picard and ch'timi are basically the same languages, and my norman family are quite the same, few different words I guess
As a Frenchman I agree.
The normans spoke French just like other regions with regional dialects: all intelligible even to a XXIth century man.
Languages were basically on a continuum in most of the European countries. So two neighboring regions' languages were probably mutually intelligible as they weren't too far apart; but the further apart two regions were, the less likely they'd be mutually intelligible.
“about Henry the 7th”
me: wha-
“nope that’s wrong”
me: ah
Plantagenêt house has his origins from a warrior peasant named Tertulle the Forester, also known as Tertulle of Gâtinais, son of Torquat, from Redon in Western France, which he was ennobled by king Charles II the Bald in the IX century.
very good video
Interesting that “Weald” is cognate with (and originally identical in meaning to) German “Wald”.
Indeed, and in the more northern parts of England it is "wold".
Our wealds and wolds aren't quite as wooded as they used to be, though. Now "wold" is thought of as moorland, and the Weald is very pastoral.
I say we make the Weald a weald again. Though as I work in forestry, I am biased.
Edric of the Weald May the Major Oak endure!
"Should I speak French or English?"
Both, pal.
What about Richard Ist who spoke usually Gasconian (Occitan dialect of Aquitania) ?
What is the soundtrack in this video that's used at 5:55 until 7? You didn't include it in your description
5:04 Actually Hilbert Richard died in Pontefract Castle not the Tower of London. Great video anyway.
Good point! "In the tower" just slipped out but you're absolutely right! Thanks!
You should do a video about Anglo-Norman French there’s actually a dictionary that exist be interesting if you could talk about that.😬
I love languages and history too! Do you have any idea what kind of long term jobs one could do with those interests?
Historian, Tour guide, Teacher of history, Interpreter.
I mean a lot of the skills involved in learning languages and studying history critically can be applied to lots of tasks, but if you want to stick to the pure subjects there's jobs like being an interpreter, translator, tour guide, going into academia, research etc. :)
@@historywithhilbert146 Thank you very much ^_^
Correction: Richard II most likely died in Pontrefact Castle in Yorkshire, pretty far away from the Tower of London.
Summary: why did English Kings stop speaking French? Because King Henry the lV's first language was English.
@Treavor Alvardo what do you consider to be English?
@Treavor Alvardo then the royal family can easily be said to be English
@Treavor Alvardo William's (Duke of Cambridge) firstborn son is three quarters English. He is successor to the throne after William. His mother Kate Middleton is of English ethnicity, and so was William's mother, the Lady Diana Spencer (although she had a Norman surname and some Scots in her family tree). Only his grandfather Charles (Prince of Wales) is German-rooted.
@Treavor Alvardo First almost full English king since Harold II.
@Treavor Alvardo All kings of england were foreigners.
Danes, French, Welsh, Scotish, Dutch, Germans, Germans again (lol)
When did Scottish kings stop speaking Gaelic?
Samuel Terry .... Well when did they shunned being Picts in the first place?
Samuel Terry
Short answer: They never spoke Gaelic.
Long answer:
Scotland as we know it formed in 843. The Irish Scotti tribe had colonised the west and dominated the Pictish kingdom in the north of Scotland, and replaced Pictish with Gaelic. This is where Scottish Gaelic comes from. It was never widely spoken by the Scottish elite, nor by royalty.
Around Lothian in the south east, which was controlled by anglo-saxons until 973, Old English was still being spoken when the Scots conquered it. Lothian was the wealthiest part of the new Scottish kingdom; its Old English speakers were never assimilated into the Gaelic culture as there were so many of them, so they continued speaking Old English.
King David I seized the Scottish throne in 1124. He had been raised in England speaking Old English and set up the capital city of Edinburgh in this elite Old English speaking part of the kingdom. French also would have been understood at court.
In the 15th century, the Scots stopped referring to their language as ‘English’ and started calling it ‘Scots’ due to rivalry with England. Scots and French were the languages of the Scottish court.
Scots later became regarded as uncivilised, much like Gaelic, especially after the union with England in 1603 when court moved to London. Scottish elites preferred to learn the middle and later modern English language that was spoken in England and Scots slowly died off. Now, Scotland speaks a dialect of Modern English called ‘Scottish English’. This is different to Scots, which is a dialect of Old English that developed separately to what is spoken in Scotland today.
Gaelic spread from Ireland into Dál Riata (north west) and from there into Pictland (north east), which was Gaelicised and together formed the Kingdom of Scotland ('Scotland' coming from the Latin name for the Irish, 'Scoti'). Scottish kings spoke Gaelic until it started to decline under Malcolm III in the mid 11th century after he married an English princess, then had a brief revival under Donald III until he was succeeded by Malcolm's children (who were raised in England) and thereafter rapidly declined (especially under David I in the mid 12th century)
Not all of modern Scotland was Gaelic speaking though, the Kingdom of Scotland originally only encompassed the Highlands. Lowland Scotland spoke Old Northumbrian English ever since the Anglo-Saxons conquered Brythonic Gododdin (capital city at Edinburgh, later renamed Lothian) in the early 7th century; same as in Brythonic Strathclyde and Cumbria (though to a lesser extent than in Lothian) when they too were incorporated into Bernicia/Northumbria until the mid 9th century Viking invasions; and Lothian was part of the Kingdom of England until the Scots invaded from the north and they were all annexed into the Kingdom of Scotland in the early 11th century
When the Tudors ended and they moved to London
@@tacosmexicanstyle7846 the Scottish kings definitely did speak Gaelic , why would there names be Gaelic then . like Macbeth , Duncan (Donnchadh ) , Donald (Domnall) Malcolm (Mael Colm) . the kingdom monarchs were originally Gaelic speaking
2:07 "Forrest" is a name that is probably based on "forest" where the wood grows
Great video. Just one comment: Wasn't a 'forrest' a very particular form of land use rather than just a tract of 'woodland'? It was essentially a stretch of landscape preserved for hunting by the nobility and was actually not mostly woodland. You can see this land use in the New Forest in Hampshire today. Much of it is heathland, for example. Our use of forest is a misuse of the term as well as a French loan word. So it's not so much that French-speakers said 'forest' while Englishers said 'wood'; it's more that over time people conflated a 'forest' with a wood, which were distinct things.
In Germany a person working in the woods is called a "Förster", so if the English took "Forest" from the French (probably not), before it became French it was a Frankish word.
Forest in modern french is forêt and means forest/woods. Havings done with kings' and nobles' hunting priveleges for some time now, they mary have repurposed the word as well.
There is of course a technical difference between Kings of England and English Kings since never mind some of them were French, we have had Danish, Welsh, German and even Dutch (cue the anthem) Kings and the next one will be half Greek.
And Don't Forget Scottish,The Stuarts(Stewarts).
Would have needed subtitles if in the English of the age, Chaucer is incomprehensible today and sounds to my ear like Flemish in parts
Hearing Chaucer's work is like listening to a drunk old man from northern England tell you a story.
You sort of understand... but not very much
Chaucer's English has alot of writing in accent and often un-stranded spelling.
"a draughte of londoun ale" or "a draught of London ale" one is the modern spelling.
I read a couple of Chaucer's poems(?). I really liked the rhythm of it, the language & the spellings & could, with great brain strain, grasp the gist of it. It made me laugh quite a few times... so the humour came through! My head felt quite weird after... like it had strained my brain & forced it to expand! 😂 I would def have a go at trying to read some more.
The name gives it away? He wrote in middle English even if he was no doubt fluent in middle French. Very few would be able to watch a film in middle English without subtitles
Having a French name doesn't make someone a native French speaker, while I've no doubt he was able to speak Anglo-Norman there had been immigration from France since the Norman conquest so plenty of time to integrate linguistically. Many English names are derived from French
The painting at 5.09 is interesting. Is it meant to be a portrayal of Henry IV's court? If yes and if the figures are based on real people, I would love to know who the young page holding the end of a cape, in the foreground is?
Do you know where one can find online copies of Henry V's letters? Google so far is telling me to buy hard copy books which are out of print and leather bound university manuscripts.
Titus: many libraries will copy out of copyright books for you. The Fort Wayne Public Library has done this for me in the past, even binding it. Duquennes University library copied manuscript pages for one of my college projects.