Anglo-Norman Borrowings in Irish

Abstract

In the present paper an attempt is made to analyze and classify French lexis borrowed into Irish during the Middle Ages. The French language flourished in Ireland in the XII c., giving way to English in everyday communication in the XIII c., but still used on a formal level till the XV c. The strong influence of Anglo-Norman dialect of French in this period caused an active borrowing of French vocabulary into Irish. Most of the borrowings, however, have analogous correspondences in Middle English, this fact obscuring their origin: it is not clear whether they have been borrowed directly from Anglo-Norman or brought into Irish by means of English. Here phonetic form of the word can be of help in defining the source language, as a number of distinctive features can be found in both types of borrowed words. Such cases are illustrated in the paper and the importance of phonetic analysis for their chronological classification and dating is also emphasized. Semantics of the borrowed vocabulary is also discussed here showing what spheres of life in society underwent the most considerable influence of the invaders. Words mostly belong to specialized language and serve to name the ideas and objects not typical or new to Irish society before the Norman Conquest. A number of significant and relatively homogeneous semantic groups of borrowings are singled out and illustrated; distinct parallels with English are also traced here. It is shown that unlike the English language, Irish did not allow the borrowed words to become a center of already existing semantic groups, they always remained at the periphery and are now perceived as stylistically marked. Nevertheless, the borrowed French vocabulary was assimilated by the Irish language and the instances of still existing borrowings have become a natural part of the modern lexis. The question of a trustworthy dating is also raised here. The required information is drawn from documents created during two centuries after the Conquest, but it is phonetic analysis, which often proves most reliable, especially if the date of the earliest written fixation of the word can hardly be ascertained. The first written instances of borrowings can be found in the late XIII c., but documents of the conquest period are rare as a whole. However, in certain cases the dating is possible, and here a rough two-period classification of these instances is introduced and grounded.