Traces Of The Normans

The Normans were Vikings who landed on the north coast of France. The king of France ceded some land to them, in return for leaving the rest of France alone and protection from other Vikings. The area is now known as Normandy. The Normans adopted French language and culture, and later crossed to England and Wales and then Ireland.

The Normans are remembered for their incessant building in stone. But the best way to remember them is actually in our language. English is basically a Germanic, or northern European, language. The addition of French to it, which is from a different language group, gave English the wide "span" that is necessary for it to be the global language that it is today.

We often abbreviate words for convenience. I noticed that words of French form or origin are much more likely to get abbreviated than non-French words. This shows that English was originally a Germanic language and that the French, or French-influenced, words were added later.

Words of Germanic origin are almost never abbreviated. These are words that can be seen as similar to their counterparts in other northern European languages, such as drink, house, water and, school. This is not a strict rule because "street" is abbreviated as st. and "near" is sometimes abbreviated as nr. and both of these words are of northern European Germanic origin.

French-influenced words commonly use prefixes, such as con-, or suffixes, such as -tion. Some English words have their roots in French clearly seen, such as the word "donate" from the French "donner", meaning "to give". Almost all French words have had their pronunciations anglicized. The first exceptions that I can think of are the words "depot" and "debut".

Two words that illustrate the French way of forming words involves the prefix con-, meaning to put together, and the suffix -tion. Construction means the putting together of a structure. Stellar means something to do with stars, and so constellation means a group of stars that have been put together.
Here is a list of the words that I can think of which are commonly abbreviated. Every one is a word of French origin or form:

Abbr. for abbreviation
Amp. for ampere
Auto for automobile
Ave. for avenue
Avg. for average
Co. for company
Comps. for comparables (in real estate)
Const. for constant
Cont. for continued
Corp. for corporation
Dept. for department
Dist. for distance
Ed. for education
Esq. for esquire
Est. for established
Expo for exposition
Ext. for extension
Freq. for frequency
Gen. for generation
Govt. for government
Info for information
Ins. for insurance
Inst. for institution
Intel for intelligence
Max for maximum
Mfg. for manufacture
Min. for minimum
Neg. for negative
Org. for organization
Pos. for positive
Pres. for pressure
Prop. for propulsion or propellor
Req. for require
Spec. for specifications
St. for saint
Tel for telephone
Temp. for temperature
Var. for variable

Notice how French-sounding all of these words are, and most are the same or similar to their French counterparts. It is very likely that, if English was originally a Romance language and northern European Germanic words were added later, the pattern would be reversed and it would be those words which would be abbreviated today. 

There is Norman architecture around where I was born. This is the arch on the bridge over the Minnow River at Monmouth. My photo.

This is Chepstow Castle. Image from Google Street View. I was taken here as a young boy and maybe that is why I have always been interested in history.