What language was spoken in 1066?

Answer 1

If we're speaking about English, then we're talking bout Old English which was a mixture of Anglo Saxon and Old Norse. After the Normandy Invasion of 1066, which led to the Middle English period, French became the official language of the aristocracy whilst the lower classes spoke Old English.

Answer 2

In 1066, Old English and Old French were the primary languages spoken in England due to the Norman Conquest. Old English was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, while Old French was spoken by the Normans who had invaded England.

Answer 3

Old English was spoken in England in 1066.

Old English is sometimes confused with Shakespearean English (which is actually early Modern English).

Here is a sample of Old English:

þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume,
leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal in mægþa gehwære man geþeon.
Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile felahror feran on Frean wære;
hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe, swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd,
þendenwordum weold wine Scyldinga – leof landfruma lange ahte.

Here is a sample of Shakespearean English:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.