Languages

Early History of the English legal language (in England)

Struggle between Latin, French and English

But all this is the outcome of a gradual process; we cannot say that it is the necessary result of the conquest of England by French-speaking men. Indeed for some time after the conquest the English language seems to have a fair chance of holding its own in legal affairs. In the first place, the combat between English and French, if it must begin sooner or later, can for a while be postponed or concealed, for there is a third and a powerful rival in the field. Latin becomes the written language of the law.

It was a language understood and written by the learned men of both races: it was the language of such legal documents as the Normans knew, and, though it was not the language of the English dooms or the English courts, still it was the language of the English charters or land-books. In the second place, English had long been a written language, and a written language which could be used for legal and governmental purposes, while French was as yet hardly better than a vulgar dialect of Latin:—French would become Latin if you tried to write it at its best. And so the two languages which William used for his laws, his charters and his writs were Latin and English.

Again, there were good reasons why the technical terms of the Old English law should be preserved if the king could preserve them. They were the terms that defined his royal rights. On the whole he was well satisfied with the goodly heritage which had come to him from his cousin King Edward. If only he could maintain against his followers the rights of the old English kingship, he would have done almost as much as he could hope to do. And so his rights and their rights must be registered in the Old English terms. His clerks must still write, if not of sacu and socne, still of saca et soca. Many foreign words have made their way into Domesday Book, but many Old English words which had definite legal meanings were preserved.

Latin as a legal language

During the century that follows, Latin keeps its preeminence, and when, under Henry II. and his sons, the time comes for the regular enrolment of all the king’s acts and of all the judgments of his court, Latin becomes the language of our voluminous official and judicial records. From this position it is not dislodged until the year 1731, when it gives place to English.4 It were needless to say that long before that date both French and English had been used for some very solemn, perhaps the solemnest legal purposes; but seemingly we may lay down some such rule as this, namely, that if a series of records goes back as far as the twelfth or the first half of the thirteenth century, it will until the reign of George II. be a series of Latin records. It is only in the newer classes of authoritative documents that either English or French has an opportunity of asserting its claims. French becomes the language of the privy seal, while Latin remains the language of the great seal. French expels Latin and English expels French from the parliament rolls and the statute rolls, but these rolls are new in Edward I.’s day.

In particular, Latin remains the language in which judicial proceedings are formally recorded, even though they be the proceedings of petty courts. In Charles I.’s day the fact that the Star Chamber has no proper Latin roll can be used as a proof that it is an upstart.

Struggle between French and English

But, though throughout the middle ages some Latin could be written by most men who could write at all, and the lord of a manor would still have his accounts as well as his court rolls made up in Latin, still only the learned could speak Latin readily, and it could not become the language of oral pleading or of debate. Here was a field in which French and English might strive for the mastery. There could for a long while be no doubt as to which of these two tongues would be spoken in and about the king’s court. The king spoke French, his barons French, his prelates French, and even when barons and prelates were beginning to think of themselves as Englishmen, some new wave of foreign influence would break over the court; the new French queen brings with her a new swarm of Frenchmen. And “the king’s court” was not then a term with several meanings; the language of courtiers and courtliness was of necessity the language of business, discussion, pleading. All this might well have happened, however, and yet the English language, which was in the future to be the language even of courtiers, might have retained its stock of old and its power of engendering new legal terms.

A French-speaking royal tribunal might have been merely superimposed upon an English substructure. But here what is perhaps the main theme of our legal history decides the fate of words. Slowly but surely justice done in the king’s name by men who are the king’s servants becomes the most important kind of justice, reaches into the remotest corners of the land, grasps the small affairs of small folk as well as the great affairs of earls and barons. This is no immediate and no necessary effect of the Norman Conquest. It would never have come about if the nobles who helped William to conquer England could have had their way; William himself can hardly have dared to hope for it. The destiny of our legal language was not irrevocably determined until Henry of Anjou was king.

Victory of French

If we must choose one moment of time as fatal, we ought to choose 1166 rather than 1066, the year of the assize of novel disseisin rather than the year of the battle of Hastings. Then it was that the decree went forth which gave to every man dispossessed of his freehold a remedy to be sought in a royal court, a French-speaking court. Thenceforward the ultimate triumph of French law terms was secure. In all legal matters the French element, the royal element, was the modern, the enlightened, the improving element. Please, read more on the entry about language.

Source: Sir Frederick Pollock, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (1895)

Official Languages in International Organizations

Working Languages in International Organizations

Further Reading

• A concise encyclopedia of the United Nations (including Languages, H Volger, KA Annan -2010)
• The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (TG Weiss – 2007)
• International Law: A Dictionary (including Languages, Boczek, Boleslaw Adam -2005)

Authentic, Official, Working Languages (of the United Nations)

Embracing mainstream international law, this section on authentic, official, working languages (of the united nations) explores the context, history and effect of the area of the law covered here.

Languages and Europe

There is an entry on languages in the European legal encyclopedia.

Resources

See Also

Further Reading

• Entry “Languages” in the work “A Concise Encyclopedia of the European Union from Aachen to Zollverein”, by Rodney Leach (Profile Books; London)

Resources

Further Reading

• The entry “languages, authentic, official, working (of the united nations)” in the Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (currently, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law, 2009), Oxford University Press