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Usenet Posted 21 years ago
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British parliament French?

Someone told me, British parliament spoke french in the past. However, they still need to learn french, or able to speak french...

Is it true, and why?
  

Top answer

[nq:1]Someone told me, British parliament spoke french in the past. However, they still need to learn french, or able to speak french... [/nq] It was true.

  • [nq:1]Someone told me, British parliament spoke french in the past.
  • However, they still need to learn french, or able to speak french...
  • [/nq] It was true.
  • Parliament spoke French when the whole of the ruling class spoke French, or at least something they called French.
  • It would have been pretty unrecognisable to a contemporary French person; modern historians call it Anglo-Norman.
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16 Answers
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[nq:1]Someone told me, British parliament spoke french in the past. However, they still need to learn french, or able to speak french... Is it true, and why?[/nq]
It was true. Parliament spoke French when the whole of the ruling class spoke French, or at least something they called French. It would have been pretty unrecognisable to a contemporary French person; modern historians call i
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[nq:1]Someone told me, British parliament spoke french in the past. However,they still need to learn french, or able to speak french...[/nq]
Modern parliaments are a development from Saxon
political institutions (Witanagemot?) England was conquered in 1066 by the French-speaking Normans
(descendants of Viking settlers in Normandy) so the languages of government became French and Latin.
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[nq:1]Modern parliaments are a development from Saxon political institutions (Witanagemot?) England was conquered in 1066 by the French-speaking Normans (descendants ... call Early English (as distinct from Anglo-Saxon) which became by the 15th century the normal language of officialdom in England.[/nq]
"Early Modern English", shirley. Anglo-Saxon is, nowadays, usually called "Old Engli
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[nq:2]Modern parliaments are a development from Saxon political institutions (Witanagemot?) ... the 15th century the normal language of officialdom in England.[/nq]
[nq:1]"Early Modern English", shirley. Anglo-Saxon is, nowadays, usually called "Old English".[/nq]
This use of "Old English" was once controversial. The editors of *The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 189
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[nq:1]Vestiges of Norman French survive in law and government, e.g. the last formal act of making a new law is its signature by the monarch with the words Le Roy le veult, The king wishes it.[/nq]
Come, even today?
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snip
[nq:1]Modern parliaments are a development from Saxon political institutions (Witanagemot?) England was conquered in 1066 by the French-speaking Normans (descendants ... call Early English (as distinct from Anglo-Saxon) which became by the 15th century the normal language of officialdom in England.[/nq]
I think Latin remained the language of written record for another centu
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[nq:2]Vestiges of Norman French survive in law and government, e.g. ... the words Le Roy le veult, The king wishes it.[/nq]
[nq:1]Come, even today?[/nq]
oui!
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[nq:2]Come, even today?[/nq]
[nq:1]oui![/nq]
but England doesn't have a king
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[nq:2]Vestiges of Norman French survive in law and government, e.g. ... the words Le Roy le veult, The king wishes it.[/nq]
[nq:1]Come, even today?[/nq]
We do have the possibility of *** change today, but ...
[nq:2]Except for these few rubrics, no one nowadays needs to speak French in Britain.[/nq]
Sadly, we have stopped going across to thump the Frogs into better manners, but it p
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[nq:1]On 09 Feb 2005, Don Phillipson wrote snip[/nq]
[nq:2]Modern parliaments are a development from Saxon political institutions (Witanagemot?) ... the 15th century the normal language of officialdom in England.[/nq]
[nq:1]I think Latin remained the language of written record for another century or so, didn't it? (I could be wrong on that, but whilst I've worked with accounting

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