@ prakashsant7:
"the rest of the soldiers in William's army were mainly just Dutch mercenaries who got their money and went back home, or fellow Normans who went back home for their own reasons. "
There were soldiers/mercenaries from several European places (Dutch, German, French, Bretons) besides Normands.
"And the Normans themselves were mainly Vikings anyway."
150 years earlier, yes (that's like 7 generations). They were granted the dukedom of Normandy in 911 AD.
"I'm not even so sure about the language impact, sure the nobility in England spoke French for two centuries, "
The impact was huge (about 50% of the vocabulary came from old French, modern French and Latin borrowed and changed on the French model) and in modern time the English languages still borrowed many words and expressions from French (examples of "recent" French expressions in English: "à la", "en masse", "carte blanche", "nom-de-plume", "au contraire", "coup d'état", "en route", etc...).
Not only French was the official language of the English court for more than 200 yrs, but a king like Richard Lionheart (from a French dynasty, the Plantagenet (Angevins)) didn't know any english words (or maybe very few), he only could speak French.
The huge impact of the French language on the English language came from the conquest by the Duke of Normandy in 1066 but you can also add the Angevin dynasty named the Plantagenet (a French dynasty that ruled England), and the cultural dominance of France in Europe that lasted quite a while (during middle-ages but also from 17th c. to roughly early 20th c.).
In fact, the fact that many (most?) of the military terms in English are from the French language comes from the time when France was the dominant military power in Europe and was at the lead of military innovations (last half of the 17th century then the revolutionary/Napoleonic era).
BTW, the motto of the English monarchy is still in French nowadays ("Dieu et mon droit") - the Dutch monarchy too ("Je maintiendrai"), because of a different dynasty though.
"but that was common throughout a lot of places in Europe, French was so "genteel". I don't really know Russian, German or Dutch that well, but the bits I've picked up or read in lit classes, seems like for some reason they snagged a lot of French words for some reason too. Still do today to try to appear snobbish and high class I guess."
Many European languages have borrowed a lot to French because this nation had been culturally dominant in Europe several times. During a big part of the middle-ages and roughly from the 17th c. to the early 20th c.. In fact French became the language spoken in some foreign court like in Russia or Poland, at some point. French was the language of diplomacy and a lingua FRANCa (now, only Vatican (papacy) uses French as its official diplomatical language IIRC, besides the French-speaking countries) and was spoken by most cultured educated European peoples during several centuries, with lasting effects.
[ (French dynasties came to rule for a while in different places like the crusader states in the near-east (named outremer; which is logical since the first crusade was largely a French thing, even started by a French pope), in Constantinople (Latin Empire), south Italy and Sicily (originally via Normand dynasties then via Angevins, like in England), Hungary, Poland, Sweden (with the current Bernadotte dynasty), Spain, Portugal (a kingdom which was founded by a knight that was a descendant of an early Capetian French king), Brazil as Emperor, etc...) ]
For instance, the Scandinavians (that borrowed a lot to French too, like the Germans and the Dutch) are saying each other "good bye" with a French word, "adieu" (adjø (Denmark, Norway) and adjö (Sweden)).
As for the Russian language, which is yet on the other side of europe, it is full of French words.
It goes beyond Europe though:
e.g. (among other examples) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Persian
There are also French words in Japanese too, etc...
"But that's true, without the Normans and their confused claims in England on the continent"
Confused claims? The English king had promised the crown to William, the Duke of Normandy.
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