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 century, intermarriages with English nobility became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English nationalism, the status of French diminished. French was the mother tongue of every English king from William the Conqueror (1066-1087) until Henry IV (1399–1413). Henry IV was the first to take the oath in English, and his son, Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English. By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite. Until the end of the 13th