Note A — INTRODUCTION

I prefer the term ‘Anglo-Norman’ to ‘Anglo-French,’ partly because it is the established and well-understood name for the language in question, and partly for the reasons given in Paul’s Grundriss der germ. Philologie, vol. i. p. 807. It must however be remembered that the term indicates not a dialect popularly spoken and with a true organic development, but a courtly and literary form of speech, confined to the more educated class of Society, and therefore especially liable to be influenced by continental French and to receive an influx of learned words taken directly from Latin. The name implies that in spite of such influences it retained to a great extent its individuality, and that its development was generally on the lines of the Norman speech from which it arose.