I spend a lot of my time editing enormo legal books packed with esoteric jargon (lucky me!) and some of the longest sentences known to man (or woman). A lot of those terms are Latin (for example, habeas corpus, prima facie, ex parte, pro bono, etc). But it turns out lots of our legal terms have also been infiltrated by another language. And that language is French. Specifically, Old French, which was spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century (roughly – I mean the years are rough, not that the Old French was spoken roughly).
Old French developed from Latin and evolved into Middle French, which eventually led to the modern French language that I’ve been learning on Duolingo for years, yet still can’t say anything remotely useful in.
Let’s have a look at Old French in action.
Les mots
‘Attorney’ comes from the Old French word ‘atorne’, meaning ‘to assign’.
‘Court’ is from (say it in a French accent) ‘court’, meaning ‘enclosed yard’ or ‘sovereign’s residence’.
‘Plaintiff’ (now pretty much replaced by ‘claimant’) is from ‘plaintif’, meaning ‘complaining’ or ‘lamenting’.
‘Defendant’ is from (get the accent ready again) ‘defendant’, meaning ‘defender’.
‘Bailiff’ is from ‘baillif’, meaning ‘administrative official’ (dunno why we added another ‘f’ – maybe so it matched ‘plaintiff’?).
‘Jury’ is from ‘juré’, meaning ‘sworn’.
‘Larceny’ is from ‘larrecin’, meaning ‘theft’.
‘Trespass’ is from ‘trespas’, meaning ‘wrongdoing’.
Pourquoi?
We have the Norman Conquest of 1066 to thank for all these French words sneaking in and stealing our English words’ jobs. That’s because the Normans, who were originally Vikings but settled in what’s now Northern France and adopted French as their own language, became the ruling class in England. And that meant French became the language of the English aristocracy and, therefore, the legal system, for several centuries.
English (well, the incomprehensible Chaucer-esque Middle kind, anyway) eventually came back into fashion around the time of the Plantagenets (from the 12th to the 15th centuries). And over time, it would go on to replace French as the dominant language in all parts of society. But our Gallic cousins’ influence still remains in the legal lexicon today. Sacre bleu.
I’ve included this video by Kid Creole & the Coconuts because it was the first time I ever heard the word ‘larceny’ (‘He caught the mug who did in the forgery / And the babe in charge of larceny’), and also because it is a CHOON.