Lu: hello everyone, and welcome back to Britain under the microscope, 欢迎你又回到“闲话英伦”，你好，Anlan.
An: Hello everybody.
Lu: so carrying on our previous topic, we are still going to look at the history of English. So last time, you were telling us about the Anglo-Saxons, and how English language, especially old English originated from Germanic language, (yeah)日耳曼语族的一个语言。We also listened to the old English which English people today would not understand.
An: In the last episode, we answered the question why is English no longer like this, the reason behind this is 1066, 1066 is when the Normans conquered Britain and Battle of Hastings is one of the famous state in Britain history.
Lu: Normans, so 诺曼人。so the Normans they came to control over what is now England.
An: yes, the Normans'king-William the Conqueror, he killed the Anglo-Saxons king and he took the control over the whole England,
Lu: and it was 1066. 1066年。
An: yes.
Lu: so how did that change the language people speak. So what did the Normans speak then.
An: The Normans spoke a type of French which means such Norman French. It became the language of government and law.
Lu: ah, so because they controlled the country now
An: yes, so imagine what would that would be like, if you were in Anglo-Saxons, all of a sudden, your language, your king changed, you will (be) roled by people that spoke completely different language from you.
Lu: how did that even work, do you have to then learn Norman French?
An: to be honesty, many of them didn't really have to. The nobles they all spoke French, and this really influenced the English.
Lu: The nobles 就是贵族。So essentially people who are controlling the country they were speaking Norman French, but common people they still spoke old English.
An: yes
Lu: so how did this influence the English, the language.
An: twenty-eight percent of English vocabulary comes from French, and you can see lots of vocabulary is about the government, the church, fashion, food, so topic that was very important to the nobles.
Lu: ah and also when we would say quite high-end stuff,（yeah）高大上的词，and there are more French. The common words were more English(yes). I think lots of Chinese learners when they are learning French, the would recognize a lots of vocabulary very very similar or almost the same as you would see in English.
An: yes it's true. And it's same for English speakers as well, and educated English speakers they can probably just about read a newspaper in French, (Lu: without learning English). just by recognising the words, but the proper means that because the language has changed so much over years, there were lots of words in French that look the same word as the English, but have different meanings. So this is what we learned at school, because in Britain, most people learn French at school, you learned False French, we call them.
Lu: ah the False French, so the words that they are look similar or they are the same, but they mean different things. (An:yes absolutely). I think it's kind of like Chinese and Japanese, we have lots of False French as well. And before in one of my shows, we talked about in English, you often have at least two words for exactly the same meaning and one is always very short, the others longer and more complex, that's about the French influence.
An: absolutely, English is only one language in the world that pretty much has two words to describe most things.
Lu: for example?
An: so for example, start is an Anglo-Saxons word , well is commence
Lu: commence like the French XXXXX
An: yeah, or finish
Lu: or terminate, the French XXXXX
An: yeah, so formal words normally come from French, so in Britain English, lots of French words use in formal situations, and most informal words come from old English, including most of the English swearwords.
Lu: swearwords 骂人的话 so again, it's like the high-end words tend to be French version and very very common words that people use, especially 老百姓 would use, are old English. You mentioned that there are lots of French vocabulary about government, church, fashion and also food. So what about food?
An: well, if you think about it, English is a very strange language, because we have two different words for the meat of an animal and the animal itself.
Lu: So in Chinese we just say 猪-猪肉、牛-牛肉。 we just add the word flash, so in English it's just two completely different word.
An: so for example pig-pork, sheep-mutton, cow-beef. That is because the name of animals come from the old English. This is what peasants who look after the animals spoke.

Lu: ah the farmers (An:the farmers) they use old English.
An: but the nobles who ate the food spoke French, so they used French words to describe the food.
Lu: oh that's why because the pork, beef and mutton, these are all from French words, and the farmers never ate those?
An: oh not often
Lu: this is certainly something very interesting. So how does that influence English in general, well because they are still two different languages.
An: over the years, over the centuries, French and old English came together and this becomes Middle English.
Lu: Middle English, so we have old English, and now is Middle English.从古英语到了中古英语。
An: that's because it was only in the 14th century, that English became an official language of the government. For the century, before that, it was Latin or French that was used in government.
Lu: ah it now only became official language in 14th century. When I was learning about English literature, you think Middle English, you think of Geoffrey Chaucer. Is that representative of the Middle English?
An: yeah, so Geoffrey Chaucer, he was one of the first writers to write in Middle English, and he wrote the Canterbury Tales.
Lu: a very famous, a classic
An: yeah, and about pilgrims who went to Canterbury and they told each other stories to entertain themselves. So English people, we can understand a little bit of the Canterbury Tales. So I will listen to the prologue, the first part of the Canterbury Tales. And tell me what you think.
Lu: let's see if it's more understandable than old English.
XXXXX
An: So what do you think?
Lu: I can recognize certainly words, but the pronunciation seems quite strange.
An: yeah, it is. This is one of the reasons why English spelling is so strange. Because if you see the words “Britain”, they actually resemble modern English spelling, but the pronunciation is different, this is why the English spelling is so strange. In the 15 century, printing comes to England, books will be printed and there was more away standard way of spelling English.
Lu: and before that, there wasn't?
An: before that, you could go to different parts of England, and they spoke completely different dialects, you could not understand,
Lu: so they were using the same words, just pronounce differently.
An: so the problem is that English spelling hasn't changed very much since printing, but the pronunciation has changed a lot.
Lu: oh that's why sometimes it's very difficult to look at the English words and know the pronunciation.
An: oh absolutely, that's because the sound “R” in English, there are ten was to write them, and if you want something like the sound “I”, there are 36 ways of spelling that sound in English.(Lu: 36? and another examples?)
An: "E"
Lu: the 长E/i:/how many ways?
An: 42.
Lu: so when you are learning English, pretty much, you just have to remember in each individual spelling then.
An: absolutely, it's same with when you go to school in China, when students are learning Chinese, lots of times is taken away of learning ten characters or learning 20 characters in remembering the next day for a test. In England, it's remember the spelling ten words, and your testing is your spelling.
Lu: so it's the same 背单词，英国人也要背英文单词。
An: oh absolutely, and the same issue now is because we use computers, because we use predictable text in mobile phone, and lots of people can't remember how to spell words in English.
Lu: oh, I think we have the same problem here in China, 英国人也会提笔忘字。So in this episode, we've looked how the Norman's invasion changed English and how English developed from old English to Middle English, but it still sounds like rather manner language.
An: yes, English was only a language that spoke in a small area of what is now Great Britain, (Lu: and by a few peasants), yeah, by a few peasants. So it was barely Britain, it was only spoken by the peasant. And this is what we can look at the next episode is how English starts to move beyond the UK, beyond the England, and starts to become a world's language. So until then, please let us know what you think in the commence, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask us, we will see you next time. Bye.

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