It is estimated that up to 85% of AngloSaxon
words were lost as a result of the Viking and
particularly the Norman invasions, and at one
point the very existence of the English language
looked to be in dire peril. In 1154, even the
venerable “AngloSaxon
Chronicle”, which for
centuries had recorded the history of the English
people, recorded its last entry. But, despite the
shakeup
the Normans had given English, it
showed its resilience once again, and, two
hundred years after the Norman Conquest, it
was English not French that emerged as the
language of England.