How many French words are there in English?
How did they get there?
French and English are fundamentally different languages in term of grammar, structure and syntax. Despite this incompatibility, all English speakers understand some French.
The average native speaker will automatically recognise around 1500 French words — without needing to consult a dictionary. This figure expands greatly when a looser connection is included. In fact nearly 30% of all English words come directly or indirectly from French.
The main influx of French words can be traced back to the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Unlike the Romans, the Normans introduced a legal and administrative system written in their own language. The Norman dialect was not generally spoken outside court.
Over generations the Norman dialect became increasingly associated with power and influence and a new form developed, Anglo-Norman. This retained a distinctive identity while at the same time there was a substantial crossover into the indigenous language.
Court and Learning
Eventually Anglo Norman morphed into a new form, Middle English, while French remained the language of court and learning. Many Anglo-Saxon words remained in common use but lost their social status. Around 10,000 French words (typically with Latin roots) came into common usage. Around 7,000 of these survive in modern English.
The Normans also had an enormous impact in key areas of vocabulary:
particularly politics (coup d’état), legal language (jury, verdict) and diplomacy(chargé d’affaires). Their legacy includes 1,700 cognates (words identical in the French & English).
Many of these cognates are easily translatable. Au contraire, for example, may sound more glamorous than on the contrary but is essentially identical. Some French words and phrases do, however, capture a precise nuance not available in English. Here are some common examples:
Pronunciation
French influence on English words can also be seen in pronunciation. One
example is the diphthong (long ‘o’ sound) boy, for example. Or the ‘th’
sound in thin/shin.
The pronunciation of French words in English generally defers to the original language. Ballet, for example, has a silent ‘t’ rather than a sounded one - as is the case in Spanish. Some common nouns have been completely anglicised: even the most ardent Francophile will use a hard ‘s’ for Paris.
Why have so many French words survived into modern English?
English has long overtaken French as the primary international lingua franca. It is by far the most used second language, though often in a truncated form sometimes known as global English or Globish. French, in contrast, has been slowly declining in influence within the Anglosphere.
In the UK it is no longer the automatic choice of second language within school, and this this trend is even more pronounced in the USA. Canada, of course, remains an exception, though widespread French usage is localised. French may dominate in Montreal but not in Toronto, where 85.9% only speak English (2016 Census).
Despite Brexit, English still remains a key language in the corridors of Brussels. A majority of the remaining twenty-seven countries are on Team English when it comes to the most useful lingua franca.
French vocabulary still has great cachet amongst the educated elites across the world. Words associated with learning, culture and luxury have particularly high status: haute couture, haute cuisine, chic, elegance etc. This has fed into the culture wars, with Bart Simpson leading the charge against the ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’.
Accusations of linguistic snobbery and elitism have a long history. Fowler, in his Modern English Usage (1926) talks about the ‘vulgarity’ of the excessive use of French words and phrases. As the joke goes: Pretentious? Moi?
Forty years later The Beatles did not release Michelle as a single in the anglophone countries, reportedly because John Lennon feared this would soften their image. Ironically, McCartney wrote les mots qui vont très bien ensemble without knowing what they meant, having got them from the wife of an old school friend see here
Sometimes a French word will sound misleadingly chic in English. Bistro for example, has romantic French associations but the Russian origin is “bystro” meaning “fast”. A “bistro” should technically serve burgers and fries under bright lights rather than the menu du jour by candlelight.
