spelling became even more confused when the revival of Middle-English writing introduced into French various peculiarities of Anglo-Saxon orthography (e.g. the spellings ea and eo). Allowance must be made also for those 'uplondisshe men' who, like William of Wadington, were reared in the country, where there was neither burg ne cité, and wrote a language of which they readily admitted they had but an imperfect knowledge. The rise of Paris as a seat of learning and the home of a brilliant court finally established for all times the superiority of Parisian French over other dialects, even over Provençal and Anglo-Norman, and made it the literary language of the whole of France. The vocabulary, and especially the spelling, of Anglo-Norman was bound to be affected to some extent. Later writers, like Gower, even endeavoured to write Parisian French.[1] But on the whole, the uniformity of the dialect was very little, if at all, impaired. From the twelfth century onward, Anglo-Norman was and remained a distinct language. Foreigners like Garnier, the biographer of Thomas Becket, might pride themselves on the superiority of their speech, because it was acquired abroad;[2] Welshmen like Walter Map[3] might poke fun at 'Marlborough French'; the fact remains, that 'Marlborough French' or French 'after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe' was the language current throughout the country. It is true that Luces de
- ↑ Tanquerey (op. cit., pp. 828 sq.) has also detected the influence of N.-E. and E.-French on verbal endings, after 1250. This influence is chiefly noticeable in non-literary texts, and would seem to have affected the spelling rather than the pronunciation.
- ↑ 'Mis languages est buens; car en France fui nez,' v. 5820.
- ↑ Referring to a certain Gaufridus, bishop elect of Lincoln, Map says: 'Cessit igitur apud Merleburgam, ubi fons est quem si quis, ut aiunt, gustaverit, Gallice barbarizat, unde cum viciose quis illa lingua, loquitur, dicimus eum loqui Gallicum Merleburge,' De Nugis Curialium, ed. M. R. James (Anecdota Oxoniensia), 1914, p. 246.
