New Light on Early Middle English Borrowing from Anglo-Norman: Investigating Kinship Terms in grand‑

Abstract

Abstract It is well known that the set of kinship terms in Middle English showed considerable influence from French. In the case of aunt and uncle, this accompanied major restructuring of the system of kinship terms, as the Old English set of four distinct terms for paternal and maternal uncles and aunts were replaced by just two terms for ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’, regardless of whether paternal or maternal. In comparison, the words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ have attracted little attention, as their story has appeared simpler: Old English had words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’, irrespective of whether paternal or maternal, and so did Middle English. The terms are also similar in structure, with native terms in which words for ‘father’ or ‘mother’ are the head and eald ‘old’ is the modifier (whether in a compound or a phrasal structure) being replaced by borrowed terms (grandsire, granddame) or hybrid terms (grandfather, grandmother) in which French grand ‘big’ is the modifier. This paper shows that behind this apparently simple story there lurk some significant complications which point to considerable disruption and instability in the terms for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ in both Middle English and French (with interesting and perhaps significant parallels also in other West Germanic languages). Consideration of these complications also casts new light on early lexical borrowing into Middle English from Anglo-Norman.