two vowel sounds which are pronounced as one.
             The new English diphthongs were not exactly like they were in French - they were modified by existing English vowels to create brand new diphthongs.
             The stress pattern of Old French words differed from that of Old English words, and often both stress patterns were present. Germanic languages, such as English, tends to place primary stress on the first syllable, unless that syllable is an unstressed prefix. French, on the other hand, prefers to stress the heavy syllable (one containing a coda) closest to the end of the word. Middle English loans from French often retained their native stress pattern, however, in Present-Day English, the majority of these borrowed words have conformed to the Germanic pattern.
             Irrefutably, the largest influence that the Normans had on the English language was on its vocabulary. From the time William usurped the English throne until the end of the Middle English period, our language was inundated with French vocabulary terms. In fact, of the 2,650 words in the epic English poem "Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight," at least 750 are estimated to be of French origin. Even in Present-Day English, some of our most commonly used words are of French origin; table, tax, religion, trouble and pray are all derived from French words borrowed into Middle English.
             Hardly one syntactic category was left untouched by French loan-words during Middle English, although the majority of English words borrowed from Old French tended to be nouns, verbs and adjectives. The following is a very brief sample of some now-common words which had recently joined English in the Middle English period:
             Adjectives: inequales 'inequal,' principalis 'principal,'
             Verbs: strive, please, waste, join, cover
             Prepositions: French contributed to the constructions of
             Interjections: gramercy 'thank you'
             Nouns: ancest...