Language
The motto is French for literally "God and my right" (a fuller version of the motto is also quoted as "God and my right shall me defend"). The word droit was formerly spelt droict (from the Latin directum, dirigere, to head, to point in the right way); the c was later dropped in accordance with modern French orthography. A better translation referring to the divine right of kings would be "My divine right", this being an example of hendiadys.
For the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of England to have a French rather than English motto was not unusual, given that Norman French was the primary language of the English Royal Court and ruling class following the rule of William the Conqueror of Normandy and later the Plantagenets. Another Old French phrase also appears in the full achievement of the Royal Arms. The motto of the Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense ("Spurned be the one who evil thinks"), appears on a representation of a garter behind the shield. Modern French spelling has changed honi to honni, but the motto has not been updated.
Read more about this topic: Dieu Et Mon Droit
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)