The conquering Normans were themselves
descended from Vikings who had settled in northern
France about 200 years before (the very word
Norman comes originally from Norseman). However,
they had completely abandoned their Old Norse
language and wholeheartedly adopted French (which
is a socalled
Romance language, derived originally
from the Latin, not Germanic, branch of IndoEuropean),
to the extent that not a single Norse word
survived in Normandy.