十分钟了解英语历史：诺曼人入侵

The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter Two, The Norman Conquest or Excuse My English.

1066. True to his name, William the Conqueror invades England, bringing new concepts from across the channel, like the French language, the Doomsday Book and the duty-free Galois's multipack.French was "de rigueur" for all official business, with words like "judge", "jury", "evidence" and "justice" coming in and giving John Grisham's career a kick-start. Latin was still used "ad nauseam" in church, but the common man spoke English, able to communicate only by speaking more slowly and loudly until the others understood him. Words like "cow", "sheep" and "swine" come from the English-speaking farmers. While the "a la carte" versions "beef", "mutton" and "pork" come from the French-speaking toffs, beginning a long-running trend of restaurants having completely indecipherable menus.

All in all, the English absorbed about 10,000 new words from the Normans, though they still couldn't grasp the rules of cheek kissing. The "bon-ami" all ended when the English nation took their new warlike lingo of "armies", "navies" and "soldiers" and began the Hundred Years' War against France. It actually lasted 116 years but by that point, no one could count any higher in French and English took over as the language of power.