Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Is English French-fried?


Exploring some aspects of Frenchness in English.

By DR LIM CHIN LAM


FOR the title I do not really mean “French-fried”, which term I use merely to catch the reader’s attention. Rather I mean that English is somewhat “Frenchified”, which term I use not in a derogatory sense but with awe at the ways in which French has enriched the English language. Incidentally, the influence of French – and with it that of Latin as well – on English (then Old English of Anglo-Saxon England) is not some recent happening, but one going as far back as the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 CE. READ MORE