Post the Norman conquest, what language did the common people continue to converse in?

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, England experienced a linguistic shift, but not for everyone. William the Conqueror and his Norman aristocracy spoke Norman French, which became the language of the royal court, government, and the upper classes. Think of it like a new management team taking over a company – they bring their own jargon. However, the vast majority of the population, the common people, continued to speak Anglo-Saxon, the language that had evolved from the Germanic tribes who settled in Britain centuries earlier. This is because language change takes time, especially when there's limited interaction between social classes. It's important to remember that "English" as we know it today didn't fully exist yet; it was still developing from Anglo-Saxon. Over time, Anglo-Saxon and Norman French blended, eventually giving rise to Middle English, the ancestor of modern English. So, while Norman French was the language of power, Anglo-Saxon remained the language of the people. Gaelic, while spoken in parts of Britain, wasn't the dominant language in England at this time.