Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 900 to 1300. It was then known as the langue d'oïl (oïl language) to distinguish it from the langue d'oc (Occitan language, also then called Provençal), whose territory bordered that of Old French to the south.

Grammar and phonology

Historical influences

Gaulish

Gaulish, one of the survivors of the continental Celtic languages in Roman times, slowly became extinct during the long centuries of Roman dominion. Only a handful of Gaulish words survive in modern French, for example chêne, ‘oak tree’ and charrue ‘plough'. Fewer than two hundred words in modern French have Gaulish etymology; Delamarre (2003, pp.389-90) lists 167. Due to the expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin began to be spoken more often, explaining the limited influence and longevity of Gaulish.

Latin

In one sense, Old French began when the Roman Empire conquered Gaul during the campaigns of Julius Caesar, which were almost complete by 51 BC. The Romans introduced Latin to southern France from around 120 BC (during the Punic Wars) when it came under Roman occupation.

Beginning with Plautus's time, the phonological structure of classical Latin underwent change, which would eventually yield vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the western Roman empire. This latter form differed strongly from its classical counterpart in phonology; and was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French. Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was replaced in common parlance by vulgar Latin caballus, derived from Gaulish caballos (Delamare 2003 p.96), giving Modern French cheval, Catalan cavall, Italian cavallo, Portuguese cavalo, Spanish caballo, Romanian cal, and (borrowed from Norman) English cavalry.

Frankish

The Old Frankish language had a large influence on the vocabulary of Old French after the conquest, by the Germanic tribe of the Franks, of the portions of Roman Gaul that are now France and Belgium during the Migration Period. The name Français is derived from the name of this tribe. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians and the Visigoths, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, including a large number of common words like haïr ‘to hate’, bateau ‘boat’, and hache ‘axe’. It has been suggested that the passé composé and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences.

Other Germanic words in Old French appeared as a result of Norman settlements in Normandy during the 10th century. The settlers spoke Old Norse; and their settlement was legitimised and made permanent in 911 under Rollo of Normandy. A few seafaring terms, notably the four points of the compass, were also borrowed via the Normans from Old English.

Earliest written Old French

While the earliest documents said to be written in French after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th cent.& 9th cent.) are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842), it is probable that the text represents an older Langue d'oïl or Gallo-Romance, a transitional stage between Vulgar Latin and early Romance:

Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d’ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa...

(For the love of God and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Charles with my help in everything...)

The Royal House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated the development of northern French culture, which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa (Toulouse). The Capetians' Langue d'oïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of the entire nation of France, however, until after the French Revolution.

Another example of an early Langue d'oïl or Gallo-Romance text is the Eulalia sequence, which is probably much closer to the spoken language of the time than the Oaths of Strasbourg (based upon language differences). It is difficult to determine precisely how these extant Old French texts were pronounced.

Phonological summary

Old French was constantly changing and evolving. However, it's sometimes useful to consider a "standard" form of the language in the state it was in around the late twelfth century (as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings). The phonological system can be summarised as follows:

Consonants

1. /h/ was only found in Germanic loanwords.

Vowels

1. /o/ had formerly existed, but closed to /u/; it would later appear again when /ɔ/ closed in certain positions.

Diphthongs and triphthongs

These have all disappeared in modern French.

• Note that nasal vowels were not pure, i.e. the following nasal consonant was still pronounced. (Eg bien = /biẽn/.)

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