An ace is a playing card , die or domino with a single pip . In the standard French deck , an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades . This embellishment on the ace of spades started when King James VI of Scotland and I of England required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new stamp tax . Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers. In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.
84-612: The word "ace" ( / ˈ eɪ s / , EYSS ) comes from the Old French word as (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman coin . It originally meant the side of a die with only one pip, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in Middle English , but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has since changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'. Historically,
168-826: A Gaulish substrate, although there is some debate. One of these is considered certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque ( A.D. 1st century). There, the Greek word paropsid-es (written in Latin) appears as paraxsid-i . The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Lat capsa > *kaxsa > caisse ( ≠ Italian cassa ) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif (mod. chétif ; cf. Irish cacht 'servant'; ≠ Italian cattiv-ità , Portuguese cativo , Spanish cautivo ). This phonetic evolution
252-421: A definitive influence on the development of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g. Strasbourg Oaths , Sequence of Saint Eulalia ). It is the result of an earlier gap created between Classical Latin and its evolved forms, which slowly reduced and eventually severed the mutual intelligibility between
336-620: A feudal elite and commerce. The area of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the northern parts of the Kingdom of France (including Anjou and Normandy , which in the 12th century were ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England ), Upper Burgundy and the Duchy of Lorraine . The Norman dialect was also spread to England and Ireland , and during the Crusades , Old French
420-420: A fraindre, Fors Sarragoce qu'est en une montaigne; Li reis Marsilies la tient, ki Deu nen aimet, Mahomet sert ed Apolin reclaimet: Ne·s poet guarder que mals ne l'i ataignet! ˈt͡ʃarləs li ˈre͜is, ˈnɔstr‿empəˈræðrə ˈmaɲəs ˈsɛt ˈant͡s ˈtot͡s ˈple͜ins ˈað esˈtæθ en esˈpaɲə ˈtræs k‿en la ˈmɛr konˈkist la ˈtɛr alˈta͜iɲə t͡ʃasˈtɛl ni ˈaθ ki dəˈvant ˈly͜i rəˈma͜iɲəθ ˈmyrs nə t͡siˈtæθ n‿i ˈɛst rəˈmæs
504-472: A mountain. King Marsilie is its master, he who loves not God, He serves Mohammed and worships Apollo: [Still] he cannot prevent harm from reaching him. Langues d%27o%C3%AFl The langues d'oïl ( / d ɔɪ ( l )/ doy(l) , US also / d ɔː ˈ iː l / daw- EEL , French: [lɑ̃ɡ dɔjl] ) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in
588-1242: A new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia . Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by caballus 'nag, work horse', derived from Gaulish caballos (cf. Welsh ceffyl , Breton kefel ), yielding ModF cheval , Occitan caval ( chaval ), Catalan cavall , Spanish caballo , Portuguese cavalo , Italian cavallo , Romanian cal , and, by extension, English cavalry and chivalry (both via different forms of [Old] French: Old Norman and Francien ). An estimated 200 words of Gaulish etymology survive in Modern French, for example chêne , 'oak tree', and charrue , 'plough'. Within historical phonology and studies of language contact , various phonological changes have been posited as caused by
672-544: A platform for literary writing. Apart from French, an official language in many countries (see list ), the Oïl languages have enjoyed little status in recent times. Currently Walloon, Lorrain (under the local name of Gaumais ), and Champenois have the status of regional languages of Wallonia . The Norman languages of the Channel Islands enjoy a certain status under the governments of their Bailiwicks and within
756-473: A prominent one being the word oïl for yes . ( Oc was and still is the southern word for yes , hence the langue d'oc or Occitan languages ). The most widely spoken modern Oïl language is French ( oïl was pronounced [o.il] or [o.i] , which has become [wi] , in modern French oui ). There are three uses of the term oïl : In the singular, langue d'oïl refers to the mutually intelligible linguistic variants of lingua romana spoken since
840-655: A radical change had the effect of rendering Latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general Romance-speaking public, which prompted officials a few years later, at the Third Council of Tours , to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in rusticam romanam linguam or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'. As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise
924-670: A same language" and "French as the common langue d'oïl" appear in a text of Roger Bacon , Opus maius , who wrote in Medieval Latin but translated thus: " Indeed, idioms of a same language vary amongst people, as it occurs in the French language which varies in an idiomatic manner amongst the French, Picards , Normans and Burgundians . And terms right to the Picards horrify the Burgundians as much as their closer neighbours
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#17327687808941008-464: A single homogeneous language but to mutually intelligible linguistic varieties . In those times, spoken languages in Western Europe were not codified (except Latin and Medieval Latin), the region's population was considerably lower than today, and population centers were more isolated from each other. As a result, mutually intelligible linguistic varieties were referred to as one language. In
1092-483: A stronger Celtic substrate from Breton . Gallo originated from the oïl speech of people from eastern and northern regions: Anjou ; Maine ( Mayenne and Sarthe ); and Normandy ; who were in contact with Breton speakers in Upper Brittany . See Marches of Neustria Named after the former provinces of Poitou and Saintonge For the history of phonology, orthography, syntax and morphology, see History of
1176-557: A very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent with a Germanic stress and its result was diphthongization , differentiation between long and short vowels, the fall of the unaccented syllable and of the final vowels: Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: [h] and [w] (> OF g(u)- , ONF w- cf. Picard w- ): In contrast,
1260-505: A ˈfra͜indrə ˈfɔrs saraˈgot͡sə k‿ˈɛst en ˈynə monˈtaɲə li ˈre͜is marˈsiʎəs la ˈti͜ɛnt, ki ˈdɛ͜u nən ˈa͜iməθ mahoˈmɛt ˈsɛrt eð apoˈlin rəˈkla͜iməθ nə‿s ˈpu͜ɛt gwarˈdær kə ˈmals nə l‿i aˈta͜iɲəθ Charles the king, our great emperor, Has been in Spain for seven full years: He has conquered the lofty land up to the sea. No castle remains standing before him; No wall or city is left to destroy Other than Saragossa, which lies atop
1344-490: Is called Vulgar Latin , the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire . Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in phonology and morphology as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin 'died' as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of
1428-609: Is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French ( Lat factum > fait , ≠ Italian fatto , Portuguese feito , Spanish hecho ; or lactem * > lait , ≠ Italian latte , Portuguese leite , Spanish leche ). This means that both /pt/ and /kt/ must have first merged into /kt/ in the history of Old French, after which this /kt/ shifted to /xt/. In parallel, /ps/ and /ks/ merged into /ks/ before shifting to /xs/, apparently under Gaulish influence. The Celtic Gaulish language
1512-638: Is reserved for Dame ( Queen ) in French-suited decks. Confusion is also avoided as German-suited decks lack numbered cards below "7" or "6". Despite using French-suited cards, Russians call the Ace a Deuce ( tuz ), a vestige of a period when German cards were predominant in central and eastern Europe. The aces are included in the Playing Cards : Old French Old French ( franceis , françois , romanz ; French : ancien français )
1596-542: Is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable cultural Romanization. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. A computational study from 2003 suggests that early gender shifts may have been motivated by
1680-594: The langue d'oïl as early as the 9th century and is attested as a distinct Gallo-Romance variety by the 12th century. Dialects or variants of Old French include: Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than Classical French, which is based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include Angevin , Berrichon , Bourguignon-Morvandiau , Champenois , Franc-Comtois , Gallo, Lorrain, Norman , Picard, Poitevin , Saintongeais , and Walloon. Beginning with Plautus ' time (254–184 b.c. ), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what
1764-531: The Bibliothèque bleue – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects. The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the " Renaissance of the 12th century ", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gave way to Middle French in
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#17327687808941848-509: The Roman de Fauvel in 1310 and 1314, a satire on abuses in the medieval church, filled with medieval motets , lais , rondeaux and other new secular forms of poetry and music (mostly anonymous, but with several pieces by Philippe de Vitry , who would coin the expression ars nova to distinguish the new musical practice from the music of the immediately preceding age). The best-known poet and composer of ars nova secular music and chansons of
1932-548: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . The langues d'oïl were more or less influenced by the native languages of the conquering Germanic tribes , notably the Franks . This was apparent not so much in the vocabulary (which remained overwhelmingly of Latin origin) as in the phonology and syntax; the invading Franks, Burgundians and Normans became the rulers and their accents were imposed as standard on
2016-458: The Oïl languages except French —as some extant Oïl languages are very close to modern French. Because the term dialect is sometimes considered pejorative, the trend today among French linguists is to refer to these languages as langues d'oïl rather than dialects . Five zones of partially mutually intelligible Oïl dialects have been proposed by Pierre Bec : Non-standard varieties: Gallo has
2100-513: The Swiss and German deck also evolved into using the Daus (deuce) as the highest card. The ace had disappeared during the 15th century, so the deuce took its place. The Ass (ace) and Daus (deuce) were conflated into a single card and the names are used interchangeably along with Sau (sow) as early cards of that rank depicted a pig. Some decks in southern Germany use "A" for the index because "D"
2184-525: The chansons de geste is The Song of Roland (earliest version composed in the late 11th century). Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his Girart de Vienne set out a grouping of the chansons de geste into three cycles : the Geste du roi centering on Charlemagne, the Geste de Garin de Monglane (whose central character was William of Orange ), and the Geste de Doon de Mayence or the "rebel vassal cycle",
2268-607: The langues d'oïl to the North, and the langues d'oc in the Southern half of France. Both groups are named after the word for "yes" in their recent ancestral languages. The most common modern langue d'oïl is standard French, in which the ancestral "oïl" has become "oui". Langue d'oïl (in the singular), Oïl dialects and Oïl languages (in the plural) designate the ancient northern Gallo-Romance languages as well as their modern-day descendants. They share many linguistic features,
2352-534: The late 14th century in the ancient province of Pays de France —the then Paris region later called Île-de-France . This Francien , it is claimed, became the Medieval French language. Current linguistic thinking mostly discounts the Francien theory, although it is still often quoted in popular textbooks. The term francien was never used by those people supposed to have spoken the variant; but today
2436-502: The 13th century these varieties were recognized and referred to as dialects ("idioms") of a single language, the langue d'oïl . However, since the previous centuries a common literary and juridical "interdialectary" langue d'oïl had emerged, a kind of koiné . In the late 13th century this common langue d'oïl was named French ( françois in French, lingua gallica or gallicana in Medieval Latin). Both aspects of "dialects of
2520-454: The 17th century, for example cribbage . Many games, such as poker and blackjack , allow the player to choose whether the ace is used as a high or low card. This duality allows players in some other games to use it as both at once; some variants of Rummy allow players to form melds , of rank K-A-2 or similar. This is known as "going around the corner". It was not only the French deck which experienced this promotion, but some games involving
2604-585: The 9th century in northern France and southern Belgium ( Wallonia ), since the 10th century in the Channel Islands , and between the 11th and 14th centuries in England (the Anglo-Norman language ). Langue d'oïl , the term itself, has been used in the singular since the 12th century to denote this ancient linguistic grouping as a whole. With these qualifiers, langue d'oïl sometimes is used to mean
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2688-534: The Chinese game of Mǎ diào , which lacked court cards, the suit of coins was inverted so the 1 of Coins was the highest in its suit. In the Ganjifa games of Persia, India, and Arabia, only the pip cards of half the suits were reversed so the 1 ranked just below the lowest court card. This convention carried over to early European games like Ombre , Maw , and Trionfi ( Tarot ). During the 15th and 16th centuries,
2772-411: The French court who blamed him for using words of Artois . By the late 13th century the written koiné had begun to turn into a spoken and written standard language , and was named French . Since then French started to be imposed on the other Oïl dialects as well as on the territories of langue d'oc . However, the Oïl dialects and langue d'oc continued contributing to the lexis of French. In 1539
2856-451: The French language and the relevant individual Oïl language articles. Each of the Oïl languages has developed in its own way from the common ancestor, and division of the development into periods varies according to the individual histories. Modern linguistics uses the following terms: In the 9th century, romana lingua (the term used in the Oaths of Strasbourg of 842) was the first of
2940-478: The French language was imposed by the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts . It required Latin be replaced in judgements and official acts and deeds. The local Oïl languages had always been the language spoken in justice courts. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts was not intended to make French a national language, merely a chancery language for law and administration. Although there were competing literary standards among
3024-631: The French" . It is from this period though that definitions of individual Oïl languages are first found. The Picard language is first referred to by name as "langage pikart" in 1283 in the Livre Roisin . The author of the Vie du bienheureux Thomas Hélye de Biville refers to the Norman character of his writing. The Sermons poitevins of around 1250 show the Poitevin language developing as it straddled
3108-596: The Gallo-Romance that prefigures French – after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) – are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842): 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
3192-694: The Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/ ~ /g/ , e.g. Italian, Spanish guerra 'war', alongside /g/ in French guerre ). These examples show a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an OLF loan is framboise 'raspberry', from OF frambeise , from OLF *brāmbesi 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch braambes , braambezie ; akin to German Brombeere , English dial. bramberry ) blended with LL fraga or OF fraie 'strawberry', which explains
3276-565: The Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïl , among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region. During the Early Modern period , French was established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, including the langue d'oc -speaking territories in the south. It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of
3360-839: The Orders of Cluny and Cister , the many sections of the Way of St. James pilgrimage route that come from elsewhere in Europe out of the Iberian Peninsula, and the settlement in Iberia of people from the other side of the Pyrenees, arriving during and after the Reconquista . The anti-Portuguese factor of Brazilian nationalism in the 19th century led to an increased use of the French language in detriment of Portuguese, as France
3444-419: The Oïl languages faced with competition. The Third Republic sought to modernise France and established primary education where the only language recognised was French. Regional languages were discouraged, and the use of French was seen as aspirational, accelerating their decline. This was also generally the case in areas where Oïl languages were spoken. French is now the best-known of the Oïl languages. Besides
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3528-452: The Oïl languages in the mediæval period, the centralisation of the French kingdom and its influence even outside its formal borders sent most of the Oïl languages into comparative obscurity for several centuries. The development of literature in this new language encouraged writers to use French rather than their own regional languages . This led to the decline of vernacular literature . It
3612-497: The Renaissance short story ( conte or nouvelle ). Among the earliest works of rhetoric and logic to appear in Old French were the translations of Rhetorica ad Herennium and Boethius ' De topicis differentiis by John of Antioch in 1282. In northern Italy, authors developed Franco-Italian , a mixed language of Old French and Venetian or Lombard used in literary works in the 13th and 14th centuries. Old French
3696-512: The Romance languages to be recognized by its speakers as a distinct language, probably because it was the most different from Latin compared with the other Romance languages (see History of the French language ). Many of the developments that are now considered typical of Walloon appeared between the 8th and 12th centuries. Walloon "had a clearly defined identity from the beginning of the thirteenth century". In any case, linguistic texts from
3780-473: The ace had a low value and this still holds in many popular European games (in fact many European decks, including the French- and Latin-suited decks, do not use the "A" index, instead keeping the numeral "1"). The modern convention of "ace high", in which the ace is the highest card of the house, seemed to have happened in stages. Card games, before they arrived in Europe, had suits that were in reverse ranking. In
3864-496: The classical Latin sic, "thus", such as the Italian sì , Spanish and Catalan sí , Portuguese sim , and even French si (used when contradicting another's negative assertion). Sardinian is an exception in that its word for "yes", eja , is from neither origin. Similarly Romanian uses da for "yes", which is of Slavic origin. However, neither lingua romana nor langue d'oïl referred, at their respective time, to
3948-590: The development of northern French culture in and around Île-de-France , which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa ( Toulouse ); however, the Capetians ' langue d'oïl , the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France until after the French Revolution . In the Late Middle Ages,
4032-754: The first such text. At the beginning of the 13th century, Jean Bodel , in his Chanson de Saisnes , divided medieval French narrative literature into three subject areas: the Matter of France or Matter of Charlemagne ; the Matter of Rome ( romances in an ancient setting); and the Matter of Britain ( Arthurian romances and Breton lais ). The first of these is the subject area of the chansons de geste ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed ) laisses . More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in around three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of
4116-705: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul in late antiquity were modified by the Old Frankish language , spoken by the Franks who settled in Gaul from the 5th century and conquered the future Old French-speaking area by the 530s. The name français itself is derived from the name of the Franks. The Old Frankish language had
4200-539: The incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut . Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater ( théâtre profane )—both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely. Most historians place the origin of medieval drama in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from
4284-549: The influence of French literature , small-scale literature has survived in the other Oïl languages. Theatrical writing is most notable in Picard (which maintains a genre of vernacular marionette theatre), Poitevin and Saintongeais . Oral performance (story-telling) is a feature of Gallo , for example, while Norman and Walloon literature, especially from the early 19th century tend to focus on written texts and poetry (see, for example, Wace and Jèrriais literature ). As
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#17327687808944368-404: The line between oïl and oc. As a result, in modern times the term langue d'oïl also refers to that Old French which was not as yet named French but was already—before the late 13th century—used as a literary and juridical interdialectary language . The term Francien is a linguistic neologism coined in the 19th century to name the hypothetical variant of Old French allegedly spoken by
4452-639: The loss of an intervening consonant. Manuscripts generally do not distinguish hiatus from true diphthongs, but modern scholarly transcription indicates it with a diaeresis , as in Modern French: Presented below is the first laisse of The Song of Roland along with a broad transcription reflecting reconstructed pronunciation c. 1050 . Charles li reis, nostre emperedre magnes, Set anz toz pleins at estét en Espaigne. Tres qu'en la mer conquist la tere altaigne, Chastel n'i at ki devant lui remaignet. Murs ne citét n'i est remés
4536-570: 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 Karlo with my help in everything ...) The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence , which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The royal House of Capet , founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated
4620-406: The mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century. The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives . The Canticle of Saint Eulalie , written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as
4704-528: The monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'Adam ( c. 1150 ) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it
4788-555: The most famous characters of which were Renaud de Montauban and Girart de Roussillon . A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle , dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodel 's other two categories—the "Matter of Rome" and the "Matter of Britain"—concern the French romance or roman . Around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on,
4872-524: The most marked, through the status Provençal in particular achieved in southwestern Europe around the troubadour apex in the Middle Ages, when Galician-Portuguese lyric was developed. Aside the direct influence of Provençal literature, the presence of languages from modern-day France in the Galician-Portuguese area was also strong due to the rule of the House of Burgundy , the establishment of
4956-651: The northern half of France , southern Belgium , and the Channel Islands . They belong to the larger category of Gallo-Romance languages , which also include the historical languages of east-central France and western Switzerland , southern France , portions of northern Italy , the Val d'Aran in Spain , and under certain acceptations those of Catalonia . Linguists divide the Romance languages of France , and especially of Medieval France , into two main geographical subgroups:
5040-499: The ranking of all suits were becoming progressive. A few games from this period like Triomphe , has the ace between the ten and the jack. The earliest known game in which the ace is the highest card of its suit is Trappola . In ace–ten games like brusquembille , pinochle and sixty-six , the ace dragged the 10 along with it to the top so the ranking became A-10-K. Some games promoted the deuces and treys too like Put , Truc , and Tressette . "King high" games were still being made in
5124-629: The regional and lesser-used language framework of the British-Irish Council . The Anglo-Norman language , a variant of Norman once the official language of England, today holds mostly a place of ceremonial honour in the United Kingdom (now referred to as Law French ). The French government recognises the Oïl languages as languages of France , but the Constitutional Council of France barred ratification of
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#17327687808945208-441: The regions. The mining poets of Picardy may be compared with the tradition of rhyming Weaver Poets of Ulster Scots in a comparable industrial milieu. There are some regional magazines, such as Ch'lanchron (Picard), Le Viquet (Norman), Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine [1] (Jèrriais), and El Bourdon (Walloon), which are published either wholly in the respective Oïl language or bilingually with French. These provide
5292-504: The replacement [b] > [f] and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraie to make freise , modern fraise (≠ Wallon frève , Occitan fraga , Romanian fragă , Italian fragola , fravola 'strawberry'). Mildred Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of Modern French derives from Germanic sources. This proportion was larger in Old French, because Middle French borrowed heavily from Latin and Italian. The earliest documents said to be written in
5376-598: The rest of the population. This accounts in large part for the relative distinctiveness of French compared to other Romance languages. The English language was heavily influenced by contact with Norman following the Norman Conquest and much of the adopted vocabulary shows typically Norman features. Portuguese was heavily influenced by more than a millennium of perennial contact with several dialects of both Oïl and Occitan language groups, in lexicon (up to 15–20% in some estimates, at least 5000 word roots), phonology and orthography. The influence of Occitan was, nevertheless,
5460-495: The same as Old French (see History below). In the plural, Oïl dialects refer to the varieties of the ancient langue d'oïl . Oïl languages are those modern-day descendants that evolved separately from the varieties of the ancient langue d'oïl . Consequently, langues d'oïl today may apply either: to all the modern-day languages of this family except the French language; or to this family including French. " Oïl dialects" or "French dialects" are also used to refer to
5544-426: The south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French , the language of the French Renaissance in the Île-de-France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French . Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms ( Poitevin-Saintongeais , Gallo , Norman , Picard , Walloon , etc.), each with its linguistic features and history. The region where Old French
5628-418: The spoken language). Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages , including Old French. By the late 8th century, when the Carolingian Renaissance began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance orthoepy rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon Alcuin , was tasked by Charlemagne with improving
5712-404: The standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ ' orchard ' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as OF 'vergier' ). Such
5796-410: The tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose (many of the earlier verse romances were adapted into prose versions), although new verse romances continued to be written to the end of the 14th century. The most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose , which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. Medieval French lyric poetry
5880-404: The term could be used to designate that specific 10th-and-11th centuries variant of langue d'oïl spoken in the Paris region; both variants contributed to the koine, as both were called French at that time. For political reasons it was in Paris and Île-de-France that this koiné developed from a written language into a spoken language. Already in the 12th century Conon de Béthune reported about
5964-703: The time do not mention the language, even though they mention others in the Oïl family, such as Picard and Lorrain. During the 15th century, scribes in the region called the language "Roman" when they needed to distinguish it. It is not until the beginning of the 16th century that we find the first occurrence of the word "Walloon" in the same linguistic sense that we use it today. By late- or post-Roman times Vulgar Latin within France had developed two distinctive terms for signifying assent ( yes ): hoc ille ("this (is) it") and hoc ("this"), which became oïl and oc , respectively. Subsequent development changed "oïl" into "oui", as in modern French. The term langue d'oïl itself
6048-434: The two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the langue d'oïl and the langue d'oc (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time, and these areas correspond precisely to where the first documents in Old French were written. This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it
6132-412: The verb trobar "to find, to invent"). By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in
6216-464: The vernacular Oïl languages were displaced from towns, they have generally survived to a greater extent in rural areas - hence a preponderance of literature relating to rural and peasant themes. The particular circumstances of the self-governing Channel Islands developed a lively strain of political comment, and the early industrialisation in Picardy led to survival of Picard in the mines and workshops of
6300-772: Was also spoken in the Kingdom of Sicily , and in the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Levant . As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues d'oïl were contrasted with the langues d'oc , at the time also called "Provençal", adjacent to the Old French area in the southwest, and with the Gallo-Italic group to the southeast. The Franco-Provençal group developed in Upper Burgundy, sharing features with both French and Provençal; it may have begun to diverge from
6384-414: Was constantly changing and evolving; however, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non- stop consonants and t in et , and final e
6468-701: Was first used in the 12th century, referring to the Old French linguistic grouping noted above. In the 14th century, the Italian poet Dante mentioned the yes distinctions in his De vulgari eloquentia . He wrote in Medieval Latin : " nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil " ("some say 'oc', others say 'sì', others say 'oïl'")—thereby distinguishing at least three classes of Romance languages: oc languages (in southern France); si languages (in Italy and Iberia ) and oïl languages (in northern France). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from
6552-680: Was indebted to the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence —including Toulouse and the Aquitaine region—where langue d'oc was spoken ( Occitan language ); in their turn, the Provençal poets were greatly influenced by poetic traditions from the Hispano-Arab world . Lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères – etymologically the same word as the troubadours of Provençal or langue d'oc (from
6636-590: Was pronounced [ ə ] . The phonological system can be summarised as follows: Notes: In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes but only allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant was fully pronounced; bon was pronounced [bõn] ( ModF [bɔ̃] ). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone [bõnə] ( ModF bonne [bɔn] ). Notes: Notes: In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of hiatus between adjacent vowels because of
6720-639: Was seen at the time as a model of civilization and progress. The learning of French has historically been important and strong among the Lusophone elites, and for a great span of time it was also the foreign language of choice among the middle class of both Portugal and Brazil, only surpassed in the globalised postmodernity by English. The French spoken in Belgium shows some influence from Walloon. The development of French in North America
6804-518: Was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire ), and the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine to the east (corresponding to modern north-eastern France and Belgian Wallonia ), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to England and the Crusader states as the language of
6888-608: Was the French Revolution which imposed French on the people as the official language in all the territory. As the influence of French (and in the Channel Islands, English) spread among sectors of provincial populations, cultural movements arose to study and standardise the vernacular languages. From the 18th century and into the 20th century, societies were founded (such as the "Société liégoise de Littérature wallonne" in 1856), dictionaries (such as George Métivier 's Dictionnaire franco-normand of 1870) were published, groups were formed and literary movements developed to support and promote
6972-423: Was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th and the mid-14th century. Rather than a unified language , Old French was a group of Romance dialects , mutually intelligible yet diverse . These dialects came to be collectively known as the langues d'oïl , contrasting with the langues d'oc , the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania , now
7056-617: Was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public). A large body of fables survive in Old French; these include (mostly anonymous) literature dealing with the recurring trickster character of Reynard the Fox . Marie de France was also active in this genre, producing the Ysopet (Little Aesop ) series of fables in verse. Related to the fable was the more bawdy fabliau , which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These fabliaux would be an important source for Chaucer and for
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