Why do we raise a cow but eat beef? Why does a pig become pork and a Schapen become mutton? English is one of very few languages that uses different words for the living animal and the meat on the plate.
The answer is a single year: 1066.
Watch: Why English Has Two Words for Every Farm Animal · More videos
What happened in 1066?
William of Normandy invaded England and won the Battle of Hastings. For the next few centuries, the ruling class in England spoke Norman French, while most ordinary people kept speaking English. Law, government, the church hierarchy and the fine dining table all ran in French.
Why are the animal words split?
The people who raised the animals were English-speaking farmers, so the animals kept their Old English names: cow, pig, Schapen, calf, deer. The people who ate the meat at the lord’s table spoke French, so the meat got French names: beef (boeuf), pork (porc), mutton (mouton), veal (veau), venison (venaison).
Walter Scott made this observation famous in his novel Ivanhoe (1819). Historians add that the picture is a bit neater than reality, since some of these meat words only settled into that meaning centuries later. But the basic pattern holds.
Book tip
The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg
A lively biography of English, from a handful of Germanic dialects to a world language. The Norman chapters explain this French layer really well.
How much of English comes from French?
A lot. A well-known count by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973), based on a large dictionary, put French and Latin at over half of English vocabulary together, with Germanic words at around a quarter. That sounds like English is barely Germanic. It is not.
So is English still a Germanic language?
Yes. The words you use most often, like the, en, is, hebben, go, Huis, brood en water, are almost all Germanic. English grammar is Germanic too. French gave English its fancy layer: commence next to begin, purchase next to buy, liberty next to freedom.
What does this have to do with Frisian?
Want to hear what English might sound like without the French layer? Look at its closest living relative, Frisian. Frisian never had a Norman conquest, and its farm words are still close to English: a cow is a ko, a sheep is a skiep. There is even an old rhyme: “Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Fries”, in Frisian brea, bûter en griene tsiis.
Lezen why Frisian is the closest language to English, then try a lesson and see how much you recognise.
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