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Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; French: ancien français) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2] and the mid-14th century. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a group of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse.
- French language
French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended...
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Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl...
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French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French.
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Roman Gaul
Before the Roman conquest of what is now France by Julius Caesar (58–52 BC), much of present France was inhabited by Celtic-speaking people referred to by the Romans as Gauls and Belgae. Southern France was also home to a number of other remnant linguistic and ethnic groups including Iberians along the eastern part of the Pyrenees and western Mediterranean coast, the remnant Ligures on the eastern Mediterranean coast and in the alpine areas, Greek colonials in places such as Marseille and Ant...
Franks
In the 3rd century, Western Europe started to be invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and the east, and some of the groups settled in Gaul. In the history of the French language, the most important groups are the Franks in northern France, the Alemanni in the modern German/French border area (Alsace), the Burgundians in the Rhône (and the Saone) Valley and the Visigoths in the Aquitaine region and Spain. The Frankish language had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their respecti...
Normans and terms from the Low Countries
In 1204 AD, the Duchy of Normandy was integrated into the Crown lands of France, and many words were introduced into French from Norman of which about 150 words of Scandinavian origin are still in use. Most of the words are about the sea and seafaring: abraquer, alque, bagage, bitte, cingler, équiper (to equip), flotte, fringale, girouette, guichet, hauban, houle, hune, mare, marsouin, mouette, quille, raz, siller, touer, traquer, turbot, vague, varangue, varech. Others pertain to farming and...
French has radically transformative sound changes, especially compared to other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian:
French is noticeably different from most other Romance languages. Some of the changes have been attributed to substrate influence, which is from Gaulish (Celtic), or superstrateinfluence, which is from Frankish (Germanic). In practice, it is difficult to say with confidence which sound and grammar changes were caused by substrate and superstrate in...
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300. It was then known as the langue d'oïl.
Old French is one of the earliest attested Romance languages and offers a fascinating field for research in historical linguistics: not only are many of its changes attested in texts, but its linguistic ancestor, Latin, is richly documented as well.
Old French language | Britannica. Learn about this topic in these articles: development of French language. In French language: Characteristics.
Jun 25, 2022 · But if you can’t get enough of Ludvig’s Oath, Laval University has translated it into all stages of French, from Classical Latin, to Vulgar Latin, Gallo-Roman, Old French, Middle French and Modern French. Olivier Robichaud returns to talk about how the Old French language came into being.
