Conversation:

I read somewhere that in English we generally use a Saxon derived word for an animal but the Norman derived word for the meat of the animal. This was due to the Normans being wealthy land owners and the Saxons being poorer farmers, handling the animals. An example is the word "cow". It's derived from the Saxon word "kuh". The meat of the animal is "beef", derived from the French word "boeuf".

Frisia (where the black & white cows came from)in northen Germany still has its own dialect and uses many words more similar to English than modern German.