English Language - Foreign Elements

The Norman Conquest had but an in-direct influence on the development of English grammar, on the other part of the language, the vocabulary, its effect was so great as almost to transform the character of our speech. Old English contained but a small proportion of borrowed words; but when it ceased to be a literary language, and almost all its Iearned compounds perished, their place was gradually taken by words borrowed from the French speech of the Norman invaders.