The pervasiveness of words of French origin that have been borrowed into English is comparable to that of borrowings from Latin.
Old French had a "gw" sound, which mainly occurred in borrowings from old Germanic languages such as Frankish and Burgundian. In Parisian and other Langue d'oïl dialects, the "w" was elided, leaving "g". Conversely, in northern dialects such as Picard and Norman, the "g" was elided, leaving "w".
After the Norman Conquest, it was the Norman variety of French that took root in England. This has led to many borrowings from French starting with "w" rather than "g" or "gu". However, in several cases, the central French version has subsequently been borrowed as well, leading to doublets such as "wile" and "guile"; for more details see below.