Introduction

The issue addressed in this essay is whether later Anglo-Norman (AN) was no more than a fossilized version of the French brought over with the Conqueror, or whether it continued to evolve as part of the French dialect continuum. Much has been made of what, according to Kibbee, was a ‘fundamental difference’ between the French used in England and that used on the Continent by virtue of the fact that there it was a mother tongue, whereas in England, after the initial few generations following the Conquest, it was not. But that does not mean that later AN can be treated as a foreign language barely understood by its users, the position seemingly taken by Pope and roundly condemned by Rothwell and Trotter. It is true that AN had features that seemed to make it distinct from those of continental French. Continental French scribes of the thirteenth century corrected AN manuscripts on grammatical points such as the use of a les for aux, de les for des, and que for qui as a subject relative pronoun. It is therefore easy to conclude that AN was ‘une langue à part’, cut off from the mainstream development of the French language, and to agree with Kibbee, who called later AN an ‘artificial language’. It will be argued here, however, that later AN was in key respects evolving in parallel with continental French, and that the notion that it was ‘artificial’ cannot be accepted as it stands.