Good News, the Moslims saved England!

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Originally Posted by Slyspy

@ Watchman: The estate managers, whatever their title, would not be nobility. In many cases they would likely have been the same guys are before the invasion. So yes, the proles would have to learn Spanish. Or maybe revert back to Latin in the case of those working for the Church.

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Nah. Rather the middle-management guys would learn both languages, simply to do their jobs. Who the Heck would spend the time and effort educating the damn farmers anyway ?

It usually made very little difference to the commoners whether the upper classes conversed among each other in French, Danish, Navaho or Mandarin Chinese. Especially by that time, when a major bigwig might well own land literally all over Europe and maybe beyond too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Nah. Rather the middle-management guys would learn both languages, simply to do their jobs. Who the Heck would spend the time and effort educating the damn farmers anyway ?

It usually made very little difference to the commoners whether the upper classes conversed among each other in French, Danish, Navaho or Mandarin Chinese. Especially by that time, when a major bigwig might well own land literally all over Europe and maybe beyond too.

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This probably won't affect anyone's opinion, but that was what we were taught in AP British Lit. English remained somewhat Anglo-Saxon because the Normans never forced the commoners to learn English and the nobles ended up learning English to some degree to be able to converse with/order around their underlings. This is apparently why almost all English words related in some way to the upper classes or authority have French origins and 70% of our everyday words (the, that, his, him, house and so on) come from the Anglo-Saxon/Germanic.

My teacher is REALLY interested in etymology.