[laurencerowe]

While English is a Germanic language a huge number of words come from Old French since that was the language of the ruling elite following the Norman conquest of 1066 and continued to be used in administration for a couple of centuries.

Amusingly the Franks after whom French is named were also Germanic but they adopted the Vulgar Latin derived Old French then spoken in Northern France and which the Norse who invaded Northern France adopted before invading England.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/324w60/how_...