The Bilingual Thesaurus of Everyday Life in Medieval England contains vocabulary relating to seven domains of everyday life: Building, Domestic Activities, Farming, Food Preparation, Manufacture, Trade, Travel by Water. Terms have been collected for two languages in use in Medieval England, Anglo French (also known as Anglo-Norman) and Middle English.
This Thesaurus of Middle English and Anglo-French (also known as Anglo-Norman) words captures the influence of Anglo-French on the English used in various everyday occupational domains following the Norman Conquest. It is designed to allow users to conduct research on the presence of terms borrowed from French and/or the resistance to French in these non-elite areas of life in medieval England. Among various possible ways to explore the Bilingual Thesaurus, it allows an assessment to be made of how far particular areas of working life were subject to contact-induced linguistic change, and whether acceptance of or resistance to French lexical influence varied significantly by occupational domain.
The project was initiated by Professor Richard Ingham and Professor Louise Sylvester and was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust in 2013.