Old French

Old French was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from about the late 700s to the middle of the 1300s. It wasn't just one language but a group of different dialects that were similar enough to understand each other. These dialects were called the langues d'oïl, and they were different from the langues d'oc spoken in the south of France.

By the middle of the 14th century, a new form of the language called Middle French began to appear. This was the beginning of the language used during the French Renaissance in the Île-de-France region, and it eventually became Modern French. Other dialects from Old French also changed over time into languages still spoken today, like Poitevin-Saintongeais, Gallo, Norman, Picard, and Walloon.

Old French was mainly spoken in the northern part of the Kingdom of France and its surrounding areas, including parts of the Angevin Empire and the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine. But its influence spread far beyond that. Old French was also used in England and the Crusader states, where it was the language of important people and business.

Areal and dialectal divisions

Further information: Langues d'oïl and Gallo-Romance languages

Old French was spoken in the northern part of the Kingdom of France, including places like Anjou and Normandy. It was also used in England and Ireland after the Norman dialect spread there. During the Crusades, people speaking Old French lived in places like the Kingdom of Sicily, the Principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Old French had many different dialects. One was Burgundian in Burgundy. Another was Picard, spoken in areas like Picardy and Romance Flanders. There was also Old Norman in Normandy, which later influenced English after the Norman Conquest. Other dialects included Walloon in Belgium, Gallo in the Duchy of Brittany, and Lorrain in the Duchy of Lorraine.

History

Evolution and separation from Vulgar Latin

Starting around the time of the Roman playwright Plautus (254–184 b.c.), changes began happening between Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, the everyday spoken language of the Western Roman Empire. Vulgar Latin was different from Classical Latin in how words sounded and were shaped, but people could still understand both until the 7th century. After that, Classical Latin was no longer spoken daily and had to be learned as a special language.

By the late 8th century, during a time called the Carolingian Renaissance, people who spoke Romance languages still used Romance rules for speaking and reading Latin. A scholar named Alcuin, asked by Charlemagne to improve Latin writing in France, used a new way of pronouncing Latin that made it hard for ordinary people to understand. This led officials to tell priests to speak in a simpler, older style of Latin called "plain Roman speech."

Because it was unclear whether a text was Latin or Romance, people in France tried to create a new way to write the Romance language. Early examples of this are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg (842) and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (about 880).

Non-Latin influences

Gaulish

Some words from the ancient Gaulish language mixed into Vulgar Latin and affected other Romance languages. For example, the Latin word for a horse, equus, was replaced by caballus in Vulgar Latin, coming from the Gaulish word caballos. This change led to words like cheval in French and caballo in Spanish.

Gaulish also influenced how some sounds changed in Vulgar Latin. For instance, certain sound groups like /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/. This change is seen in words like caisse (from Latin capsa) and chaitif (from Latin captīvus). The Gaulish language, a type of Celtic language, lasted into the 6th century in France and helped shape the dialects that became French, adding new words, changing sounds, and affecting how words were built.

Frankish

The Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul changed because of the Old Frankish language, spoken by the Franks who moved into Gaul from the 5th century. The word français (French) comes from the Late Latin name for the Franks.

Old Frankish greatly influenced Old French. It helped make Old French different from other Romance languages. For example, it introduced new sounds and changed how some Latin words were pronounced and spelled. Words like dîme (tithe) and chaîne (chain) show these changes.

Old Frankish also brought back sounds like [h] and [w] that had disappeared from Vulgar Latin. For example, the Latin word altu became halt in Old French, and vespa became guêpe (wasp).

Earliest written Old French

The oldest documents written in a form of Romance language that later became French are the Oaths of Strasbourg (842). These are promises made by King Charles the Bald. The second-oldest document is the Eulalia sequence, which helps linguists understand how Old French sounded because it spells words consistently.

Transition to Middle French

In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects split into several distinct languages called langues d'oïl. Middle French developed from the dialect spoken in the Île-de-France region. During the Early Modern period, French became the official language of the Kingdom of France, spreading throughout the country. It was in the 17th to 18th centuries that a standardized form of French, called Classical French, became common across France.

Literature

Main article: Medieval French literature

The time around the year 1100 in France and associated territories led to what some call the "Renaissance of the 12th century". This brought many new creative works in many different types of stories. Old French changed into Middle French by the middle of the 14th century, which helped start early French Renaissance literature in the 15th century.

The oldest surviving French books date back to the 800s, but very few from before the 1000s remain. The first French stories were about saints' lives. The Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the late 800s, is thought to be the first of these. Some of the earliest music also had words in Old French.

By the year 1200, a writer named Jean Bodel split French stories into three groups: stories about Charlemagne and his heroes, stories set in ancient times, and stories from Britain like Arthurian romances. One famous group of stories is called chansons de geste, which are long poems about brave heroes. The oldest and most famous of these is The Song of Roland, written in the late 1000s.

Later, French stories began to include more poems and songs. These were inspired by poets in the south of France and Provence. These poets were called troubadours. Their ideas spread to poets in the north, who were called trouvères.

The 13th century also saw the growth of new kinds of plays and stories, including tales with clever animals and funny, sometimes rude stories called fabliau.

Phonology

See also: Phonological history of French

Old French was always changing. By the late 1200s, it had a standard form seen in many poems. Back then, writing was more about sounds than later years. All letters at the end of words were said, except some special cases. The sounds of Old French can be described like this:

Consonants

Notes:

• All strong sounds at the end of words were quieted in writing.
• Some sounds changed from groups of letters to single sounds later on.
  • The sound /ts/ had three ways to write it: c before e or i, ç before other vowels, or z at the end of a word.
  • The sound /dz/ was written as z, like in doze meaning "twelve".
  • Some scholars think these sounds changed earlier, but kept different sounds from original ones.
• The sound /ʎ/ changed to /j/ in modern French.
• The sound /ɲ/ appeared in the middle and end of words, but later disappeared at the end.
• The sound /h/ was only in words from German and later disappeared, affecting how words connect.
• The sound /d/ between vowels became softer early on and later disappeared.

Vowels

In Old French, nasal vowels were not separate sounds but changed based on nearby letters. The nasal letter was fully said, like in bon sounding [bõn]. Nasal vowels appeared even when Modern French has regular vowels.

Monophthongs

Notes:

• The sound /o/ changed to /u/, but later returned in some cases.
• The sound /õ/ may have changed to /ũ/ in some dialects.

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Notes:

• Early Old French used ⟨ai⟩ for /aj/ and ⟨ei⟩ for /ej/, which later changed.
• Some diphthongs may have been said differently earlier.
• The sounds ⟨ue⟩ and ⟨eu⟩ changed over time.
• Early Old French had extra sounds that later merged.
• The sound ⟨iu⟩ was rare and changed by Middle French.

Hiatus

Old French had many places where two vowels were next to each other because a letter in between disappeared. Books do not always show the difference, but scholars use a special mark to show it:

• Lat audīre > OF oïr /uˈir/ meaning "hear"
• VL *vidūta > OF veüe /vəˈy.ə/ meaning "seen"
• Lat rēgīnam > OF reïne, /rəˈinə/ meaning "queen"
• Lat pāgēnsem > OF païs /paˈis/ meaning "country"
• Lat augustum > OF aoust /aˈu(s)t/ meaning "August"
• Lat patellam > OF paelle /paˈɛlə/ meaning "pan"
• LL quaternum > OF quaïer /kwaˈjer/ meaning "booklet"
• LL aetāticum > OF aage, eage /aˈad͡ʒə/ ~ /əˈad͡ʒə/ meaning "age"

Sample text

Below is the first part of The Song of Roland with a guess at how it sounded around 1050.

Grammar

Old French had a different way of changing words compared to modern French. It used a system with two forms for nouns: one for when the noun is the subject (nominative case) and one for when it is not (oblique case). This system was more complex than in languages like Spanish or Italian.

Over time, the differences between these forms mostly disappeared. The oblique case form became the standard form in modern French. For example, the old French word for "child" was li enfes in the nominative case and l'enfant in the oblique case. Today, we only use l'enfant.

Some old French words kept differences between their forms, leading to different words in modern French. For example, the old French words for "lord" included li sire and le sieur, which evolved into different words in modern French.