English and Galician in the Middle Ages - Publicaciones ...

Revista Estudios Ingleses 17 (2004)
Yet, most statements about the general characterisation of
this phenomenon are adequate for our purposes.
Ferguson points to the existence of three conditions for diglossia
to emerge stemming from two languages A, the dominating
and B, the dominated,
1. A vast bulk of literature is written in A
2. Literacy is just for an elite formed by speakers of A
3. A suitable period of time is necessary from the establishment
of conditions 1 and 2.
In England there is a considerable body of writing (note 14) in
Anglo-Norman which was produced by both Frenchmen and
Englishmen.
For many years French was the first language of a large number
of Englishmen, and Anglo-Norman, its English form, was a living
language. Many works were written in French, usually in the Anglo-Norman
variety, and some famous French texts would have
been lost if they had not survived in copies made in England
(Blake, 1977: 14).
Nevertheless, this literature written in A did not oust vernacular
literature completely. After a ‘dark age’ that spreads from
1066 to the last quarter of the 12 th century, some works in
English can be traced: Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne,
Ancrene Riwle, Layamont’s Brut, The Owl and the Nightin-
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