[4][5] The term "Anglo-Norman" harks back to the time when the language was regarded as being primarily the regional dialect of the Norman settlers.

Today the generic term "Anglo-French" is used instead to reflect not only the broader origin of the settlers who came with William the Conqueror, but also the continued influence of Parisian French from the Plantagenet period onwards.

[6][7] According to some linguists, the name Insular French might be more suitable, because "Anglo-Norman" is constantly associated with the notion of a mixed language based on English and Norman.

Anglo-Norman had little lasting influence on English grammar, as opposed to vocabulary, although it is still evident in official and legal terms where the ordinary sequence of noun and adjective is reversed, as seen in phrases such as Blood Royal, attorney general, heir apparent, court martial, envoy extraordinary and body politic.

[10] The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom still features in French the mottos of both the British Monarch, Dieu et mon droit ("God and my right"), and the Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense ("Shamed be he who thinks evil of it").

Dieu et mon droit was first used by Richard I (who spoke Anglo-Norman, but cannot be proved to have been able to speak English) in 1198 and adopted as the royal motto of England in the time of Henry VI.

Over time, the use of Anglo-French expanded into the fields of law, administration, commerce, and science, in all of which a rich documentary legacy survives, indicative of the vitality and importance of the language.

The variety of French spoken in the islands is related to the modern Norman language, and distinct from the Anglo-Norman of medieval England.

In medieval England, Latin also remained in use by the Church, the royal government, and much local administration in parallel with Middle English, as it had been before 1066.

[citation needed] In the first centuries after the Norman Conquest of England, the French-speaking elite themselves mainly relied on Latin for record-keeping rather than using their own language (while French was used in a lesser degree), while English continued to have a written tradition and was used in the mass until the year 1154, when the Angevins came into power.

From around this point onwards, considerable variation begins to be apparent in Anglo-Norman, which ranges from the very local (and most anglicised) to a level of language which approximates to and is sometimes indistinguishable from varieties of continental French.

Though the great mass of ordinary people spoke forms of English, French spread as a second language due to its prestige, encouraged by its long-standing use in the school system as a medium of instruction through which Latin was taught.

[22] Anglo-Norman continued to evolve significantly during the Middle Ages by reflecting some of the changes undergone by the northern dialects of mainland French.

For example, early Anglo-Norman legal documents used the phrase "del roy" (of the king), whereas by about 1330 it had become "du roi" as in modern French.

English therefore, for example, has fashion from Norman féchoun as opposed to Modern French façon (both developing from Latin factio, factiōnem).

In contrast, the palatalization of velar consonants before /a/ that affected the development of French did not occur in Norman dialects north of the Joret line.

There were also vowel differences: Compare Anglo-Norman profound with Parisian French profond, soun sound with son, round with rond.

The word veil retains the /ei/ (as does modern Norman in vaile and laîsi) that in French has been replaced by /wa/ voile, loisir.

Since many words established in Anglo-Norman from French via the intermediary of Norman were not subject to the processes of sound change that continued in parts of the continent, English sometimes preserves earlier pronunciations.

Conversely, the pronunciation of the word sugar resembles Norman chucre even if the spelling is closer to French sucre.

The case of the word mug demonstrates that in instances, Anglo-Norman may have reinforced certain Scandinavian elements already present in English.

[15] In general, the Norman and French borrowings concerned the fields of culture, aristocratic life, politics and religion, and war whereas the English words were used to describe everyday experience.

Several Norman words were borrowed into Irish, including household terms: garsún (from Norman garçun, "boy"); cóta (cote, "cloak"); hata (hatte, "hat"); gairdín (gardin, "garden"); and terms relating to justice (Irish giúistís, bardas (corporation), cúirt (court)).

Only a handful of Hiberno-Norman-French texts survive, most notably The Song of Dermot and the Earl, a chanson de geste (early 13th century), and the Statutes of Kilkenny from 1366.