Item, pur escrivyng et enrollynge in Englyshe: From Latin and French to English in the medieval business records of the Grocers of London

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper diachronically analyses code-switching and language maintenance and shift between Latin and French, on the one hand, and English, on the other hand, in the earliest business accounts of the Grocers’ livery company during medieval London. Linguistic methods used here have been successfully applied to manuscripts of another company: the Mercers of London. The new findings, first, confirm that the earlier the account was recorded, the more present Latin and French are, whereas the later the account was kept, the more present English is; however, second, they reveal an unnoticed period of code-switching into Latin and French before English monolingualism, whose evolution stages seem to occur in reverse order.