How a battle fought almost 1000 years ago can make you a better writer
By: Tommy Boon
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Language, French, History

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

‘A cordial reception’

What images appear to you? Perhaps this phrase makes you think of murmured conversation, polite nods, canapés and pursed lips.

How about:

‘A hearty welcome’

For me, I hear laughter and the warm crackle of a fire.

Although the object of these sentences- ‘reception’ and ‘welcome’, are synonyms, they conjure different images and feelings.

I took these examples from a book by Simeon Potter, who talks about an idea that the feelings these two words stir in us are the result of an event that that took place in the medieval period. For Potter, it gave English a curious depth and variety.

The day that would eventually change the English language was October the 14th, 1066. Just over two weeks previously, an army under William, Duke of Normandy, landed on the English coast. This Norman invasion was timed with an attack launched by Viking forces in the north of England: the English King Harold had to defeat that army before marching his soldiers down to Hastings in the south.

The language that Harold would have spoken to his soldiers was cragged and rough. It came from the Germanic family of languages, and its licks and burr could be heard even in the Danish north of England.

On October the 14th, ‘The Battle of Hastings’ as it became known, saw one social order fall and another rise. Depending on accounts, the Saxon rein ended either when an arrow lodged itself in Harold’s eye, or when he was cut down by an errant Norman knight.

As they picked over the dead, the victors talked to each other in Norman French: a language heavy with Latin. These soldiers would become the aristocracy of England, making their French the language of the powerful for centuries to come.

The Norman aristocracy built a string of fortresses and castles across the English countryside as physical reminder of their power. In much the same way, their words layered themselves over the thick, mossy roots of Anglo-Saxon. Norman words were used to describe the powerful: ‘priest, ‘count’, ‘dame’, ‘duke’, and became used to describe the machinery of power: ‘money’, federal’, sovereignty’, ‘state’. Just as the invaders divided society, they also divided the language.

Even today, words that we use are marked by the Norman victory. When you choose to use ‘reception’, you tug on a different string of meanings than if you were to choose ‘welcome’.

In some ways, these Latin words still carry an aloof coldness. They tend to be abstract, lend themselves to corporate jargon and are still the words that we use to talk about the powerful.

You can often tell which words are Anglo-Saxon. They are the words peasants, workers, children, families, soldiers, and common men and women have used for millennia. Words like ‘mirth’, ‘mother’, ‘raw’ and ‘stone’ have tumbled out of taverns, been flung at cheating husbands, and have been squealed by playing children. These words are sodden with meaning: somehow they feel warmer and more whole than Latin ones.

The story of the Norman Invasion can tell us why some words impress us so much: why they form the skeleton of words used by politicians, scientists, and academics.

Kind of like how shadows make the colours in a painting brighter, however, the smoothness of Latin can also make the Germanic Saxon seem richer and deeper. The language we use to speak and write with has a swathe of textures: their histories can tell us where they should be daubed, pasted or spread.