Influence of French on English England, kept their Norman mother tongue, while the more modest rural and urban strata continued to speak English. Norman was a particular variety of the Gallo-Roman language, spoken in Normandy. It was one of the Oil languages alongside, among others, the Picard and the Walloon. The Norman language was modified in contact with the Anglo-Saxon language. It then integrated words and phrases from English and give birth to a dialect, Anglo-Norman, still spoken on the Anglo-Norman isles. Anglo-Norman can be described as a vernacular language, on English soil in the 11th century, in the field of literature, culture, court and
Anglo-Norman language English dialects by Viking settlement. The same word had been established in Normandy by the Normans (Norsemen) and was then brought over after the Conquest and established firstly in southern English dialects. It is, therefore, argued that the word "mug" in English shows some of the complicated Germanic heritage of Anglo-Norman. Many expressions used in English today have their origin in Anglo-Norman (such as the expression "before-hand" derives from Anglo-Norman "avaunt-main"), as do many modern words with interesting etymologies. "Mortgage", for example, literally meant "death-wage" in Anglo-Norman. "Curfew" (fr. "couvre-feu") meant "cover-fire", referring to the time in the evening when