This article is part of the series on: French language

Dialects Langues d'Oïl Creoles Francophonie History Oaths of Strasbourg Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts Anglo-Norman Grammar Adverbs Articles and determiners Pronouns Personal Pronouns Verbs Conjugation Verb morphology Orthography Alphabet Reforms Use of the circumflex Phonology Elision Liaison Aspirated h

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French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended from Latin) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France.

The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history", describing the ethnic, political, social, technological, etc. changes that impacted the languages, and "internal history", describing the phonological and grammatical changes undergone by the language itself.

Contents 1 External History 1.1 Roman Gaul (Gallia) 1.2 The Franks 1.3 The Normans and Terms from the Low Countries 1.4 Langue d'oïl 1.5 Modern French 1.6 Modern issues 2 Internal History 2.1 Overview 2.2 From Vulgar Latin through Proto-Western-Romance 2.3 Through Proto-Gallo-Ibero-Romance 2.4 Through Early Old French 2.5 Through Old French, c. 1100 AD 2.6 Through Late Old French, c. 1250-1300 AD 2.7 Through Middle French, c. 1500 AD 2.8 Through Early Modern French, c. 1700 AD 2.9 Through Modern French, c. 2000 AD 2.10 Nasalization 2.11 Impact of substrate/superstrate languages 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] External History

[edit] Roman Gaul (Gallia)

Before the Roman conquest of what is now France by Julius Cæsar (58–52 BC), much of France (south of the Seine) was inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples referred to by the Romans as Gauls. Southern France was also home to a number of other linguistic and ethnic groups including Iberians along the Pyrenees and western Mediterranean coast, Ligures on the eastern Mediterranean coast, Greek colonials in places such as Marseille and Antibes^[1], and Vascons and Aquitanians or Proto-Basques in much of the southwest.

The Celtic population of Gaul spoke Gaulish, which is moderately well attested, and Lepontic, with what appears to be wide dialectal variation. While the French language evolved from Vulgar Latin (i.e. spoken Latin), it was nonetheless influenced by Gaulish, more syntactically^{[citation needed]} and phonologically^{[citation needed]} than lexically. In French and adjoining folk dialects and closely-related languages, anywhere from 200 to 400 words of Gaulish origin have been retained, most of which pertain to folk life. These include land features (bief "reach, mill race", combe "hollow", lande "heath, moor", grève 'sandy shore'), plant names (berle "water parsnip", bourdaine "black alder", chêne "oak", bouleau "birch", corme "service berry", if "yew", vélar/vellar "hedge mustard"), wildlife (alouette "lark", barge "godwit", belette "weasel", loche "loach", pinson 'chaffinch', vanneau "lapwing"), and rural and farm life, most notably: mouton "sheep", tonne "barrel", crème "heavy cream", charrue "plough", char "dray, wagon", bouc "he-goat", boue "mud", caillou "pebble", cervoise "ale", marne "marl", raie "lynchet", sillon "furrow", souche "tree stump, tree base", and some common verbs (braire "to bray", changer, craindre "to fear")^[2]. Other Celtic words were not borrowed directly but brought in through Latin, especially words which had become commonplace or wholesale borrowings into Latin, as for instance béton "concrete", braies "knee-length pants", chainse "tunic", daim "roe deer", étain "tin", glaive "broad sword", manteau "coat", vassal "serf, knave". Latin quickly took hold among the urban aristocracy for mercantile, official and educational reasons, but did not prevail in the countryside until some four or five centuries later, as Latin was of little or no social value to the landed gentry and peasantry. The eventual spread of Latin can be attributed to social factors in the Late Empire such as the movement from urban-focused power to villa-centered economies and legal serfdom.

[edit] The Franks

From the 3rd century on, Western Europe was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and east, and some of these groups settled in Gaul. In the history of the French language, the most important of these groups are the Franks in northern France, the Alemanni in the modern German/French border area, the Burgundians in the Rhône valley and the Visigoths in the Aquitaine region and Spain. Their language had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their respective regions, altering both the pronunciation and the syntax. They also introduced a number of new words (see List of French words of Germanic origin). Sources disagree on how much of the vocabulary of modern French (excluding French dialects) comes from Germanic words, ranging from just 400 words (—representing loans from ancient Germanic languages: Gothic and Frankish) ^[3] to 6% of modern vocabulary (—representing all Germanic loans up to modern times: Gothic, Frankish, Old Norse/Scandinavian, Dutch, German and English) ^[4] to even higher if Germanic words coming from Latin and other Romance languages are accounted for.

Changes in lexicon/morphology:

• the name of the language itself, français, comes from Old French franceis/francesc (cf M.L. franciscus) from the Germanic frankisc "french, frankish" from Frank ('freeman'). The Franks referred to their land as Franko(n) which became Francia in Latin in the 3rd century (at that time, an area in Gallia Belgica, somewhere in modern-day Belgium or the Netherlands).
• several terms and expressions associated with their social structure (banquet, baron/baronne, bru, échevin, félon, féodal, forban, galant, gars/garçon, maçon, maréchal, marquis, meurtrier, orgueil, riche/richesse) and military terms (agrès/gréer, attaquer, bière ["stretcher"], étendard, fief, flanc, guerre, garder, garnison, hangar, loge, marcher, rang, rattraper, trêve, troupe).
• colors derived from Frankish and other Germanic languages (blanc/blanche, bleu, blond/blonde, brun, fauve, gris).
• other examples among common words include abandonner, arranger, attacher, auberge, bande, bâtir, besogne, blesser, bois, bord, bouquet, bouter, chagrin, choix, danser, engage, effroi, épargner, étal, étayer, fauteuil, flatter, frais, frapper, gai, gant, gratter, guère, hache, halle, harasser, heron, heurter, jardin, jauger, joli, laid, lécher, lippe, liste, maint, masque, mauvais, mousse, mousseron, parc, patois, pleige, regarder, remarquer, rime, saisir, salon, savon, soupe, tampon, tomber, trop, tuyau and many words starting with a hard g (like gagner, garantie, gauche, guérir) or with an aspired h (haine, hargneux, hâte, haut) ^[5]
• endings in -ard (from Frankish hard : bâtard), -aud (from Frankish wald : crapaud, maraud, nigaud), -ais (from Frankish -isc), -an/-and (from old suffix -enc), -ois, diminutive -on, and many verbs ending in -ir (affranchir, ahurir, choisir, honnir, jaillir, lotir, nantir, rafraîchir, ragaillardir, tarir).
• prefix mé(s)- as in mésentente, mégarde, méfait, mésaventure, mécréant, mépris.
• The syntax shows the systematic presence of a subject pronoun in front of the verb, as in the Germanic languages: je vois, tu vois , il voit, while the subject pronoun is optional - function of the parameter pro-drop - in the other Romance languages (as in veo, ves, ve).
• The inversion of subject-verb to verb-subject to form the interrogative is characteristic of the Germanic languages but is not found in any of the major Romance languages, except French (cf. Vous avez un crayon. vs. Avez-vous un crayon?: "Do you have a pencil?").
• The adjective placed in front of the noun is typical of Germanic languages, it is far more frequent in French than in the other major Romance languages and occasionally compulsory ( belle femme, vieil homme , grande table , petite table ); when it is optional, it changes the meaning: " grand homme ("great man") / homme grand ("tall man") , certaine chose / chose certaine . In Walloon the order « adjective + noun » is the general rule.

[edit] The Normans and Terms from the Low Countries

In 1204 AD, the Duchy of Normandy was integrated into the Kingdom of France, and about 100 words of Scandinavian origin were introduced into the French language from Norman. Most of these words have to do with the sea and seafaring: abraquer, alque, bitte, cingler, équiper (to equip), fringale, guichet, houle, mare, marsouin, mouette, quille, ras, siller, traquer, vague, varangue, varech. Others pertain to farming and daily life: accroupir, amadouer, bidon, bigot, brayer, brette, crochet, embraser, fi, flâner, haras, harnais, houspiller, marmonner, mièvre, nabot, nique, quenotte, raccrocher, ricaner, rincer, rogue.

Likewise, words borrowed from Dutch mainly deal with trade, or are nautical in nature, but not always so: affaler, amarrer, anspect, bar (sea-bass), bastringuer, bière (beer), blouse (bump), botte, bouffer, boulevard, bouquin, cague, cahute, caillou, caqueter, choquer, diguer, drôle, dune, frelater, fret, grouiller, hareng, hère, manne, mannequin, maquiller, matelot, méringue, moquer, sénau, tribord, vacarme, as are words from Low German: bouder, vogue, yole, and English of this period: arlequin, bateau, bébé, bol, bouline, bousin, boxer, cambuse, cliver, chiffe/chiffon, drague, drain, est, équiper (to set sail), gourmand, gourmet, groom, héler, interlope, merlin, nord, ouest, pingouin, pique-nique, potasse, rade, rhum, sloop, sonde, sud, turf, yacht.

[edit] Langue d'oïl

The medieval Italian poet Dante, writing in Latin in his De vulgari eloquentia, classified the Romance languages into three groups: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say oc, others say si, others say oïl"), thereby defining oïl languages (in northern France); oc languages (in southern France) and si languages (in Italy and Iberia). Modern linguists typically divide the languages spoken in medieval France into three geographical subgroups: Langue d'oïl and Langue d'oc are the two major groups; the third group, Franco-Provençal or Arpitan, displays features in common with both groups, without belonging to either.

The Romance language group in the north of France is that of the langue d'oïl, the languages which use oïl (in modern usage, oui) for "yes". These languages, like Picard, Walloon, and Francien, were influenced by the Germanic languages spoken by the Frankish invaders; Norman was later also heavily influenced by the Norse settlers who founded the Norman state of Normandy. From the time period Clovis I on, the Franks extended their rule over northern Gaul. Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl language found around Paris (the Francien theory) or from a standard administrative language based on common characteristics found in all Oïl languages (the lingua franca theory). Oïl derives from the Latin hoc ille ("that is it").

Langue d'oc, the languages which use oc for "yes", is the language group in the south of France and northern Spain. These languages, such as Gascon and Provençal, have relatively little Frankish influence. Oc/òc derive from the Latin hoc.

Modern French has two words for "yes", oui and si; the latter is used to contradict negative statements or respond to negative questions, at least in Modern France itself. Si derives from Latin sic ("thus"), and is cognate to the word for "yes" in Spanish (sí), Portuguese (sim), Italian (sì), and Catalan (sí). In Canada, whose francophone population mainly descends from ancestors originating in northwestern France, the word si is not commonly used as a substitute for oui in written form and almost never in spoken language.

The early Middle Ages also saw the influence of other linguistic groups on the dialects of France:

From the 4th to the 7th centuries, Celtic-speaking peoples from southwestern Britain (Wales, Cornwall, Devon) travelled across the English Channel, both for reasons of trade and as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England. They established themselves in Armorica. Their language was a dialect of the Brythonic languages, which has been named Breton in more recent centuries. This language gave notably bijou and menhir to French. It is part of the larger Celtic language family, though the modern dialects reflect a noticeable influence from French in their vocabulary (aven, a Breton word that French incorporated, is itself derived from the French word havre).

Attested since the time of Julius Caesar, a non Celtic people who spoke a Basque related language inhabited the Novempopulania (Aquitania Tertia) in south-western France, while the language gradually lost ground to the expanding Romance during a period spanning most of the Early Middle Ages. This Proto-Basque influenced the emerging Latin-based language spoken in the area between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, eventually resulting in the dialect of Occitan (an Oc language) called Gascon. Its influence is seen in words like boulbène, cargaison.

Scandinavian Vikings invaded France from the 9th century onwards and established themselves mostly in what would come to be called Normandie (Normandy). They took up the langue d'oïl spoken there and contributed many words to French related to maritime environment (crabe, crique, falaise), amongst other things. Another example is boulevard which is derived from the Norse word for quay or bulwark (Danish: bolværk).

With their conquest of England in 1066, the Normans brought their language. The dialect that developed there as a language of administration and literature is referred to as Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until 1362, when the use of English became dominant again. [1] Because of the Norman Conquest, the English language has borrowed a considerable amount of its vocabulary from French.

The Arab peoples also supplied many words to French around this time period, including words for luxury goods (élixir, orange), spices (camphre, safran), trade goods (alcool, bougie, coton), sciences (alchimie, hasard), and mathematics (algèbre, algorithme).

[edit] Modern French

For the period up to around 1300, some linguists refer to the oïl languages collectively as Old French (ancien français). The earliest extant text in French is the Oaths of Strasbourg from 842; Old French became a literary language with the chansons de geste that told tales of the paladins of Charlemagne and the heroes of the Crusades.

By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 King Francis I made French the official language of administration and court proceedings in France, ousting the Latin that had been used before then. With the imposition of a standardised chancery dialect and the loss of the declension system, the dialect is referred to as Middle French (moyen français). The first grammatical description of French, the Tretté de la Grammaire française by Louis Maigret, was published in 1550. Many of the 700 words ^[6] of modern French that originate from Italian were introduced in this period, including several denoting artistic concepts (scenario, piano), luxury items, and food.

Following a period of unification, regulation and purification or latinization, the French of the 17th to the 18th centuries is sometimes referred to as Classical French (français classique), although many linguists simply refer to French language from the 17th century to today as Modern French (français moderne).

The foundation of the Académie française (French Academy) in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu created an official body whose goal has been the purification and preservation of the French language. This group of 40 members is known as the Immortals, not, as some erroneously believe, because they are chosen to serve for the extent of their lives (which they are), but because of the inscription engraved on the official seal given to them by their founder Richelieu—"À l'immortalité" ("to the Immortality (of the French language)"). The foundation still exists and contributes to the policing of the language and the adaptation of foreign words and expressions. Some recent modifications include the change from software to logiciel, packet-boat to paquebot, and riding-coat to redingote. The word ordinateur for computer was however not created by the Académie, but by a linguist appointed by IBM (see fr:ordinateur).

From the 17th to the 20th centuries, France was the leading power of Europe; thanks to this, together with the influence of the Enlightenment, French was the lingua franca of educated Europe, especially with regards to the arts, literature, and diplomacy; monarchs like Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could both speak and write in French.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the French language established itself permanently in the Americas. There is an academic debate about how fluent in French were the colonists of New France. While a minority of colonists (mostly women) were from the region of Paris (approximately 20% of all colonists), most of them came from northern and western regions of France where French was not the primary language natively spoken by its inhabitants. It is not clearly known, however, how many among those colonists understood French as a second language, and how many among them – who, in overwhelming majority, natively spoke an oïl language – could understand, and be understood by, those who speak French thanks to interlinguistic similarity. In any case, a linguistic unification of all the groups coming from France happened (either in France, on the ships, or in "Canada") such that, according to many sources, the then "Canadiens" were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, well before the unification was complete in France. Today, French is the language of about 10 million people (not counting French-based creoles, which are also spoken by about 10 million people) in the Americas.

Through the Académie, public education, centuries of official control and the role of media, a unified official French language has been forged, but there remains a great deal of diversity today in terms of regional accents and words. For some critics, the "best" pronunciation of the French language is considered to be the one used in Touraine (around Tours and the Loire River valley), but such value judgments are fraught with problems, and with the ever increasing loss of lifelong attachments to a specific region and the growing importance of the national media, the future of specific "regional" accents is often difficult to predict. The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people didn't speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' - in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it wasn't usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French."^[7] Hobsbawm highlighted the role of conscription, invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public instruction laws, which allowed to mix the various groups of France into a nationalist mold which created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, while the various "patois" were progressively eradicated.

[edit] Modern issues

There is some debate in today's France about the preservation of the French language and the influence of English (see Franglais), especially with regard to international business, the sciences, and popular culture. There have been laws (see Toubon law) enacted which require that all print ads and billboards with foreign expressions include a French translation and which require quotas of French-language songs (at least 40%) on the radio. There is also pressure, in differing degrees, from some regions as well as minority political or cultural groups for a measure of recognition and support for their regional languages.

Once the most used international language in Europe, being the language of diplomacy from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, French lost most of its international significance to English in the 20th century, especially after World War II, with the rise of the U.S. as the dominant global superpower. A watershed was when the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I, was written in both French and English. A small but increasing number of large multinational firms headquartered in France are using English as their working language even in their French operations, and to gain international recognition, French scientists must now publish their work in English in journals based outside of France. These trends, understandably, have met some resistance. In March 2006, President Chirac briefly walked out of a EU summit after Ernest-Antoine Seilliere began addressing the summit in English.^[8] And in February 2007, Forum Francophone International began organizing protests against the "linguistic hegemony" of English in France and in support of the right of French workers to use French as their working language.^[9]

Nevertheless, French is still the second most-studied foreign language in the world after English, and is a lingua franca in some regions, notably in Africa. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (Southeast Asia), while the language has changed to creoles, dialects or pidgins in the French departments in the West Indies and the South Pacific (French Polynesia).^{[citation needed]} On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French-speakers has increased, especially in Africa.

In the Canadian province of Québec, the language has thrived and today is spoken by 80% of the province's population.^[10] Different laws ensure the preservation of French in administration, business and education since the seventies. Bill 101, for example, obliges every child whose parents did not attend an English school to be educated in French, thus preventing that English or non-Francophone languages supplant French in Québec as is mostly the case in North America. Efforts are also made, by the Office québécois de la langue française for instance, to make more uniform the variation of French spoken in Québec as well as to preserve the distinctiveness of Quebec French.

There has been French emigration to the United States, Australia and South America, but the descendants of these immigrants have assimilated to the point that few of them still speak French. In the United States, efforts are ongoing in Louisiana (see CODOFIL) and parts of New England (particularly Maine) to preserve the language.{source}

[edit] Internal History

[edit] Overview

A profound change in very late spoken Latin (i.e., early Common Romance, the forerunner of all the Romance languages) whose effects are clearly reflected in Old French, was the restructuring of the vowel system of classical Latin. Latin had ten distinct vowels: long and short versions of A, E, I, O, U, and three (or four) diphthongs, AE, OE, AU, and according to some, UI.^[11] What happened to Vulgar Latin is set forth in the table.

Letter	Classical Latin	Vulgar Latin	Old French
			closed	open
Short A	/a/	/a/	/a, au/	/ɛ, iə/
Long A	/a:/
AE	/ai/	/ɛ/	/ɛ/	/iə/
Short E	/e/
OE	/oi/	/e/	/e, eu/	/ei/
Long E	/e:/
Short I	/i/	/ɪ/
Short Y	/y/
Long I	/i:/	/i/	/i/	/i/
Long Y	/y:/
Short O	/o/	/ɔ/	/ɔ/	/yə/
Long O	/o:/	/o/	/o/	/ou/
Short U	/u/	/ʊ/
Long U	/u:/	/u/	/y/	/y/
AU	/aw/	/aw/	/ɔ/	/ɔ/
(see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols used);

Both the diphthongs AE and OE also fell in with /e/. AU was initially retained, and turned into /O/ after the original /O/ fell victim to further changes.

Thus, the ten vowel system of Classical Latin, which relied on phonemic vowel length was new-modelled into a system in which vowel length distinctions were suppressed and alterations of vowel quality became phonemic. Because of this change, the stress on accented syllables became much more pronounced in Vulgar Latin than in Classical Latin. This tended to cause unaccented syllables to become less distinct, while working further changes on the sounds of the accented syllables.

Old French underwent more thorough alterations of its sound system than did the other Romance languages. Vowel breaking was something that occurred generally in Proto-Western-Romance (here, Proto-Romance), although with different results in each of the daughter languages; Latin FOCU(M) (originally "hearth") becomes Italian fuoco, Romanian and Catalan foc, Spanish fuego, and French feu (all meaning "fire"). But in Old French the phenomenon went further than in any other Romance language; of the seven vowels inherited from Latin, only /i/ remained essentially unchanged. In stressed syllables:

• The sound of Latin E (short), turning to /ɛ/ in Proto-Romance, became ie in Old French: Latin MEL, "honey" > OF miel
• The sound of Latin O (short) > Proto-Romance /ɔ/ > OF uo: COR > cuor, "heart"
• Latin Ê > Proto-Romance /e/ > OF ei: HABÊRE > aveir, "to have"; this later becomes /oi/ in many words, as in avoir
• Latin Ô > Proto-Romance /o/ > OF ou: FLÔRE(M) > flour, "flower"
• Latin open syllable /a/ > OF /e/, probably through an intervening stage of /æ/; MARE > mer, "sea" This change also characterizes the Gallo-Italic dialects of Northern Italy (cf. Bolognese [mɛ:r]).

Latin AU did not share the fate of /ɔ/ or /o/; Latin AURUM > OF or, "gold": not *oeur nor *our. Latin AU must have been retained at the time these changes were affecting Proto-Romance.

Changes affecting the consonants were also quite pervasive in Old French. Old French shared with the rest of the Vulgar Latin world the loss of final -M. Since this sound was basic to the Latin noun case system, its loss levelled the distinctions upon which the synthetic Latin syntax relied, and forced the Romance languages to adapt a more analytic syntax based on word order. Old French also dropped many internal consonants when they followed the strongly stressed syllable; Latin PETRA(M) > Proto-Romance */peðra/ > OF pierre; cf. Spanish piedra ("stone").

During the Old French period, Latin /u/ became /y/, the lip-rounded sound that is written 'u' in Modern French.

In some contexts, /oi/ became /e/, still written oi in Modern French. During the early Old French period this sound was pronounced as the writing suggests, as /oi/. This sound developed variously in different varieties of Oïl language - most of the surviving languages maintain a pronunciation as /we/ - but literary French adopted a dialectal phonology /wa/. The doublet of français and François in modern French orthography demonstrates this mix of dialectal features.

At some point during the Old French period, vowels with a following nasal consonant began to be nasalized. While the process of losing the final nasal consonant took place after the Old French period, the nasal vowels that characterise modern French appeared during the period in question.

Old French, along with Portuguese, exhibits the most thorough phonetic changes from Latin, as opposed to relatively conservative Romance languages like Occitan and Catalan, Spanish, Italian or Romanian. As the example of pierre from PETRA(M) shows, many interior consonants were lost.

[edit] From Vulgar Latin through Proto-Western-Romance

• Introduction of prothethic short /i/ before words beginning with /s/ + consonant, becoming closed /e/ with the Romance vowel change (e.g. Spanish 'espina', Fr. 'épine' "thorn, spine" < SPĪNA).
• Reduction of ten-vowel system of Vulgar Latin to seven vowels; diphthongs 'ae' and 'oe' reduced to /ɛ/ and /e/; maintenance of /au/ diphthong.
• Loss of final /-m/ (except in monosyllables, e.g. modern rien < rem).
• Loss of /h/.
• /ns/ > /s/.
• /rs/ > /ss/ in some words (e.g. dorsum > Modern French dos), but not others (e.g. ursus > Modern French ours).
• Final /-er/ > /-re/, /-or/ > /-ro/ (cf. Spanish cuatro, sobre < quattuor, super).
• Vulgar Latin unstressed vowel loss: Loss of intertonic (i.e. unstressed and in an interior syllable) vowels between /k/, /g/ and /r/, /l/.
• Reduction of /e/ and /i/ in hiatus to /j/, followed by palatalization. Palatalization of /k/ and /g/ before front vowels.
  • /kj/ is apparently doubled to /kkj/ prior to palatalization.
  • /d'/ and /g'/ (from /dj/, /gj/, and /g/ before a front vowel) become /j/.

[edit] Through Proto-Gallo-Ibero-Romance

• /k'/ and /t'/ merge, becoming /ts'/ (still treated as a single sound).
• /kt/ > /jt/.
• /ks/ > /js/.
• First diphthongization (only in some dialects): diphthongization of /ɛ/, /ɔ/ to /ie/, /uo/ (later, /uo/ > /ue/) in stressed, open syllables. This also happens in closed syllables before a palatal, often later absorbed: PEIOR >> /pejro/ > /piejro/ >> 'pire' "worst"; NOCTE > /nojte/ > /nuojte/ >> /nujt/ 'nuit'; but TERTIU > /terts'o/ >> 'tierz'.
• First lenition (did not happen in a small area around the Pyrenees): chain shift involving intervocalic consonants: voiced stops and unvoiced fricatives become voiced fricatives (/ð/, /v/, /j/); unvoiced stops become voiced stops. NOTE: /ts'/ (from /k(e,i)/, /tj/) is pronounced as a single sound and voiced to /dz'/, but /tts'/ (from /kk(e,i)/, /kj/) is geminate and thus not voiced. Consonants before /r/ are lenited, also, and /pl/ > /bl/. Final /t/ and /d/ when following a vowel are lenited.
• /jn/, /nj/, /jl/, /gl/ (from Vulgar Latin /gn/, /ng'/, /gl/, /kl/, respectively) become /ɲ/ and /ʎ/, respectively.
• First unstressed vowel loss: Loss of intertonic (i.e. unstressed and in an interior syllable) vowels, except /a/ when pretonic. (Note: This occurred at the same time as the first lenition, and individual words inconsistently show one change before the other. Hence MANICA > 'manche' but GRANICA > 'grange'. CARRICARE becomes either 'charchier' or 'chargier' in OF.)

[edit] Through Early Old French

In approximate order:

• Spread and dissolution of palatalization:
  • A protected /j/ (not preceded by a vowel), stemming from an initial /j/ or from a /dj/, /gj/, or /g(e,i)/ when preceded by a consonant, becomes /dʒ/.
  • A /j/ followed by another consonant tends to palatalize that consonant; these consonants may have been brought together by intertonic loss. (E.g. MEDIETATE > /mejetate/ > /mejt'ate/ > 'moitié'. PEIOR > /pejro/ > /piejr'e/ > 'pire', but IMPEIORARE > /empejrare/ > /empejr'are > /empejriɛr/ > OF 'empoirier' "to worsen".)
  • Palatalized sounds lose their palatal quality and eject a /j/ into the end of the preceding syllable, when open; also into the beginning of the following syllable when it is stressed, open, and front (i.e. /a/ or /e/). Hence *CUGITARE > /kujetare/ > /kujdare/ > /kujd'are/ >> /kujdiɛr/ OF 'cuidier' "to think". MANSIONATA > /maz'onada/ > /maz'nada/ > /majz'njɛðə/ > OF 'maisniée' "household".
    • /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ (including those from later sources, see below) eject a following /j/ normally, but do not eject any preceding /j/.
    • Double /ss'/ < /ssj/ and from various other combinations also ejects a preceding /j/.
    • Single /dz/ ejects such a /j/, but not double /tts/, evidently since it is a double sound and causes the previous syllable to close; see comment above, under lenition.
    • Actual palatal /l'/ and /n'/ (as opposed to the merely patalized varieties of the other sounds) retain their palatal nature and don't emit preceding /j/. Or rather, palatal /l'/ does not eject a preceding /j/ (or else, it is always absorbed, even when depalatalized); palatal /n'/ emits a preceding /j/ when depalatalized, even if the preceding syllable is closed, e.g. JUNGIT > *YŌNYET > /dʒoɲt/ > /dʒojnt/ 'joint'.
    • Palatal /r'/ ejects a preceding /j/ as normal, but the /j/ metathesizes when a /a/ precedes, hence OPERARIU > /obrar'o/ > /obrjaro/ (not */obrajro/) >> 'ouvrier' "worker".
• Second diphthongization: diphthongization of /e/, /o/, /a/ to /ei/, /ou/, /ae/ in stressed, open syllables, not followed by a palatal sound (not in all Gallo-Romance). (Later on, /ei/ > /oi/, /ou/ > /eu/, /ae/ > /e/; see below.)
• Second unstressed vowel loss: Loss of all vowels except /a/ in unstressed, final syllables; addition of a final, supporting /e/ when necessary, to avoid words with impermissible final clusters.
• Second lenition: Same changes as in first lenition, applied again (not in all Gallo-Romance). NOTE: Losses of unstressed vowels may have blocked this change from happening.
• Palatalization of /ka/ > /tʃa/, /ga/ > /dʒa/.
• Further vocalic changes (part 1):
• /ae/ > /ɛ/ (but > /jɛ/ after a palatal, and > /aj/ before nasals when not after a palatal).
• /au/ > /ɔ/.
• Further consonant changes:
  • Geminate stops become single stops.
  • Final stops and fricatives become devoiced.
  • /dz/ > /z/, when not final.
  • A /t/ is inserted between palatal /ɲ/, /ʎ/ and following /s/ (DOLES > 'duels' "you hurt" but COLLIGIS > *COLYES > 'cuelz, cueuz' "you gather"; JUNGIS > *YŌNYES > 'joinz' "you join"; FILIUS > 'filz' "son").
  • Palatal /ɲ/, /ʎ/ are depalatalized to /n, l/ when final or following a consonant.
    • In first-person verb forms, they may remain palatal when final due to the influence of the palatalized subjunctives.
    • /ɲ/ > /jn/ when depalatalizing, but /ʎ/ > /l/, without a yod. (*VECLUS > /vɛl'o/ > /viɛl'o/ > 'viel' "old" but CUNEUM > /kon'o/ > 'coin'. BALNEUM > /banyo/ > 'bain' but MONTANEA > /montanya/ > 'montagne'.)
• Further vocalic changes (part 2):
• /jej/ > /i/, /woj/ > /uj/. (PLACERE > /plajdzjejr/ > 'plaisir'; NOCTE > /nuojt/ > 'nuit'.)
• Diphthongs are consistently rendered as falling diphthongs, i.e. the major stress is on the first element, including for /ie/, /ue/, /ui/, etc. in contrast with the normal Spanish pronunciation.

[edit] Through Old French, c. 1100 AD

• /f/, /p/, /k/ lost before final /s/, /t/. (DEBET > Strasbourg Oaths 'dift' /deift/ > OF 'doit'.)
• /ei/ > /oi/ (blocked by nasalization; see below).
• /wo/ > /we/ (blocked by nasalization; see below).
• /a/ develops allophone [ɑ] before /s/. Later, this develops into a separate phoneme; see below.
• Loss of /θ/ and /ð/. When this results in a hiatus of /a/ with a following vowel, the /a/ becomes a schwa /ə/.
• Loss of /s/ before voiced consonant (passing first through /h/), with lengthening of preceding vowel. Produces a new set of long vowel phonemes. Described more completely in the following section.
• /u/ > /y/.

[edit] Through Late Old French, c. 1250-1300 AD

NOTE: Changes here affect oral and nasal vowels alike, unless otherwise indicated.

• /o/ > /u/.
• /l/ before consonant becomes /w/.
• /ue/ and /eu/ > /œ/.
• Rising diphthongs develop when first element of diphthong is /u/, /y/ or /i/, causing the stress to shift to the second element in these cases (hence /yi/ [yj] > [ɥi]).
• /oi/ > /we/. This in turn develops to /ɛ/ in some words, e.g. français; note doublet François. Much later, perhaps in the 1600s, remaining /we/ sounds > /wa/ except in "court" pronunciation. (The /wa/ pronunciation was then stigmatized as "vulgar" until the French Revolution but remaining more or less in use in Québec.) However, nasalized /wẽ/ was unaffected; hence ModF 'coin' "corner" /kwɛ̃/ not **/kwɑ̃/.
• /ai/ merges into /ɛ/; after this, 'ai' is a common spelling of /ɛ/, regardless of origin. ('è' is a later development.)
• /e/ merges into /ɛ/ in closed syllables.
• /ts/ > /s/, /tʃ/ > /ʃ/, /dʒ/ > /ʒ/.
• Loss of /s/ before any consonant, with lengthening of preceding vowel. This may have begun as early as 900 AD or so, when /s/ before a consonant became /h/. Later on the /h/ vanished with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. From borrowings into English, it appeared that this latter stage had already occurred in Old French when the following consonant was voiced but not when it was unvoiced. By the end of Old French, the latter stage was complete and a whole new set of phonemically lengthened vowels developed. These were still marked in writing with an 's', but starting around 1700 were marked instead with circumflex over the vowel (perhaps because actual pronounced /s/ had been reintroduced into that position in certain words, e.g. due to borrowing of learned words from Latin.)
• Development of two low vowels /a/ and /ɑ/. The latter was initially an allophone of /a/ that occurred before /s/ and /z/, and become phonemic when /ts/ merged with /s/. (e.g. Mod. Fr. 'chasse' /ʃas/ "(he) hunts" < */cattsa/ < CAPTIAT vs. 'châsse' /ʃɑs/ "reliquary, (eyeglass) frame" < */cassa/ < CAPSA "strong box".) Later losses of /s/ produced further minimal pairs, e.g. 'pâte' /pɑt/ "paste" < VL *PASTA vs. 'patte' /pat/ "paw" < VL *PATTA; or 'bas' /bɑ/ "low" < /bas/ < BASSUM vs. 'bat' /ba/ "(he) beats" < /bat/ < VL *BATTET < BATTUET.)

[edit] Through Middle French, c. 1500 AD

NOTE: Changes here affect oral and nasal vowels alike, unless otherwise indicated.

• /au/ > /o/.
• /ei/ > /ɛ/.
• Loss of final consonants before a word beginning with a consonant. This produces a three-way pronunciation for many words (alone, followed by a vowel, followed by a consonant), which is maintained to this day in the words 'six' "six" and 'dix' "ten" (and until recently 'neuf' "nine"), e.g. 'dix' /dis/ "ten" but 'dix amis' /diz ami/ "ten friends" and 'dix femmes' /di fam/ "ten women".
• (Around this time, subject pronouns become mandatory.)

(fill in further)

[edit] Through Early Modern French, c. 1700 AD

• Loss of most phonemically lengthened vowels.
• Loss of final consonants in a word standing alone. This produces a two-way pronunciation for many words (in close connection with a following word that begins with a vowel vs. in all other cases), often maintained to the present day, e.g. 'nous voyons' /nu vwajɔ̃/ "we see" vs. 'nous avons' /nuz avɔ̃/ "we have". This phenomenon is known as liaison.
• 'oi' /we/ > /wa/ (See above - Through late Old French) or /ɛ/ (e.g. étoit > était - 19th c.).

(fill in further)

[edit] Through Modern French, c. 2000 AD

• /r/ becomes uvular sound: trill /ʀ/ or fricative /ʁ/, (replacing the rolled 'r' formerly often used by the clergy).
• Loss of final /ə/. Loss of /ə/ elsewhere unless a sequence of three consonants would be produced (such constraints operate over multiword sequences of words that are syntactically connected).
• Gradual loss of liaison.

(fill in further)

[edit] Nasalization

Progressive nasalization of vowels before /n/ or /m/ occurred over several hundred years, beginning with the low vowels, possibly as early as c. 900 AD, and finished with the high vowels, possibly as late as c. 1300 AD. Numerous changes occurred afterwards, continuing up through the present day.

The following steps occurred during the Old French period:

• Nasalization of /a/, /e/, /o/ before /n/ or /m/ (originally, in all circumstances, including when a vowel followed).
• Nasalization occurs before, and blocks, the changes /ei/ > /oi/ and /ou/ > /eu/. However, the sequence /ői/ occurs because /oi/ has more than one origin, e.g. 'coin' "corner" < CŬNEUM. The sequences /iẽn/ or /iẽm/, and /uẽn/ or /uẽm/, also occur, but the last two occur in only one word each, in each case alternating with a non-diphthongized variant: 'om' or 'uem' (ModF 'on'), and 'bon' or 'buen' (ModF 'bon'). The version without the diphthong apparently arose in unstressed environments and is the only one that survived.
• Lowering of /ẽ/ and /ɛ̃/ to /ã/; but unaffected in the sequences /jẽ/ and /ẽj/ (e.g. 'bien', 'plein'). The merging of /ẽ/ and /ã/ probably occurred during 1000's or early 1100s, and did not affect Old Norman or Anglo-Norman.
• Nasalization of /i/, /u/, /y/ before /n/ or /m/.

The following steps occurred during the Middle French period:

• Lowering of /ű/ > /õ/ > /ɔ̃/. (Note that most /ű/ come from original /õ/, as original /u/ became /y/.)
• Denasalization of vowels before /n/ or /m/ followed by a vowel or semi-vowel. (Note that examples like 'femme' /fam/ "woman" < OF /fãmə/ < FĒMINA and 'donne' /dɔn/ "(he) gives" < OF /dũnə/ < DŌNAT, with lowering and lack of diphthongization before a nasal even when a vowel followed, prove that nasalization originally operated in all environments.)
• Deletion of /n/ or /m/ after remaining nasal vowels (i.e. when not protected by a following vowel or semi-vowel). Hence 'dent' /dɑ̃/ "tooth" < */dãt/ < OFr 'dent' /dãnt/ < EOFr */dɛ̃nt/ < DĔNTEM.

The following steps occurred during the Modern French period:

• /ĩ/ > /ẽ/ > /ɛ̃/ > [æ̃]. This also affects diphthongs such as /ĩẽ/ > /jẽ/ > /jɛ̃/, e.g. 'bien' /bjɛ̃/ "well" < BĔNE; /ỹĩ/ > /ɥĩ/ > /ɥɛ̃/, e.g. 'juin' /ʒɥɛ̃/ "June" < JŪNIUM; /õĩ/ > /wẽ/ > /wɛ̃/, e.g. 'coin' /kwɛ̃/ "corner" < CŬNEUM. Note also /ãĩ/ > /ɛ̃/, e.g. 'pain' /pɛ̃/ "bread" < PANE; /ẽĩ/ > /ɛ̃/, e.g. 'plein' /plɛ̃/ "full (m.s.)" < PLĒNUM.
• /ã/ > /ɑ̃/.
• /ỹ/ > /œ̃/. In the 20th century, this sound has extremely low functional load and has tended to merge with /ɛ̃/.

This leaves only four nasal vowels /ɛ̃/, /ɑ̃/, /ɔ̃/ and /œ̃/, and increasingly only the three sounds /ɛ̃/, /ɑ̃/, /ɔ̃/.

[edit] Impact of substrate/superstrate languages

French is noticeably different from most other Romance languages. Some of the changes have been attributed to substrate influence—i.e. to carry-over effects from Gaulish (Celtic) or superstrate—influence from Frankish (Germanic). In practice, it is difficult to say with confidence which sound and grammar changes were due to substrate and superstrate influences, since many of the changes in French have parallels in other Romance languages, or are changes commonly undergone by many languages in the process of development. However, the following are likely candidates.

In phonology:

• The reintroduction of the consonant /h/ at the beginning of a word is due to Frankish influence, and mostly occurs in words borrowed from Germanic. This sound no longer exists in Standard Modern French (—it survives in some dialects); however a Germanic h usually disallows liaison: les halles /lɛ'al/, les haies /lɛ'ɛ/, les haltes /lɛ'alt/, whereas a Latin h allows liaison: les herbes /lɛzɛrb/, les hôtels /lɛzotɛl/.
• The reintroduction of /w/ in Norman French may similarly be due to Germanic influence. All Romance languages have borrowed Germanic words containing /w/, but most languages—including the ancestor of Modern French—converted this to /gw/, which usually developed subsequently into /g/. English borrowed words both from Norman French (1066 - c. 1200 AD) and Standard French (c. 1200 - 1400 AD), which sometimes results in doublets such as warranty and guarantee.
• The occurrence of an extremely strong stress accent, leading to loss of unstressed vowels and extensive modification of stressed vowels, is likely due to Frankish influence and secondarily to Celtic influence, as both languages had a strong initial stress. (e.g. tela -> TEla -> toile)^[12] This feature also no longer exists in Modern French. However, its influence remains in the uniform final word stress in Modern French—due to the strong stress, all vowels following the stress were ultimately lost.
• The development of front-rounded vowels /y/, /ø/, and /œ/ may be due to Germanic influence, as few Romance languages outside of French have such vowels.
• The lenition of intervocalic consonants (see above) may be due to Celtic influence: A similar change happened in Celtic languages at about the same time, and the demarcation between Romance dialects with and without this change (the La Spezia-Rimini Line) corresponds closely to the limit of Celtic settlement in ancient Rome.

In other areas:

• The development of verb-second syntax in Old French (where the verb must come in second position in a sentence, regardless of whether the subject precedes or follows) is likely due to Germanic influence.
• The impersonal pronoun on "one, you, they" - (from Old French (h)om, a reduced form of homme "man") is a calque of the Germanic impersonal pronoun man "one, you, they", reduced form of mann "man" (cf Old English man "one, you, they", reduced form of mann "man"; German man "one, you, they" vs. Mann "man").
• The vigesimal system of counting by increments of 20 (e.g. soixante-dix "70" lit. "sixty-ten"; quatre-vingts "80" lit. "four-twenties"; quatre-vingt-dix "90" lit. "four-twenty-ten") finds its immediate origin in northern France, in Normandy. From Normandy, its use quickly spread south after the formation of the French Republic, replacing the typical Romance forms still used in Belgian and Swiss French. Therefore, the modern vigesimal system stems most likely from Nordic influence, being introduced by the Vikings and the Normans (cf Danish tresindstyve, literally 2 times 30, or 60; English four score and seven for 87). Pre-Roman Celtic languages in Gaul also made use of a vigesimal system, but this system largely vanished early in French linguistic history or became severely marginalised in its range. The Nordic system may possibly derive ultimately from the Celtic. Old French also had treis vingts, cinq vingts. (cf. Welsh ugain "20", deugain "40", pedwar ugain "80" lit. "four-twenties").

[edit] See also

• Old French
• Reforms of French orthography
• Vulgar Latin
• History of the Spanish language
• History of the Portuguese language
• History of the Italian language
• History of the English language
• Language policy in France

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Histoire de la langue française (in French)
• The Breton Wikipedia page on the French language gives examples from various stages in the development of French.

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