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19-546: Old Gallo-Romance was one of the two languages in which the Oaths of Strasbourg were written in 842 AD. The Gallo-Romance group includes: Other language families often included in Gallo-Romance: In the view of some linguists ( Pierre Bec , Andreas Schorta , Heinrich Schmid , Geoffrey Hull ), Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic form a single linguistic unity named "Rhaeto-Cisalpine" or "Padanian", which includes also

38-698: Is a Romance language spoken from around 600 to 900 AD. It evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken by the Gallo-Romans during the time of Clovis I 's successors belonging to the Merovingian dynasty . Old Gallo-Romance literature consists of a few texts, with them including the Oaths of Strasbourg (also written in Old High Frankish). Texts that precede the Oaths of Strasbourg include

57-705: The Kassel and Reichenau glosses. The following text is Louis the German 's oath in the Oaths of Strasbourg (843), which was sworn in Romance. Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun saluament, d'ist di en auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra saluar dift, in o quid il mi altresi fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit. English translation: For

76-556: The Venetian and Istriot languages, whose Italianate features are deemed to be superficial and secondary in nature. How far the Gallo-Romance languages spread varies a great deal depending on which languages are included in the group. Those included in its narrowest definition (the langues d'oïl and Arpitan) were historically spoken in the northern half of France , including parts of Flanders , Alsace and part of Lorraine ;

95-762: The Wallonia region of Belgium ; the Channel Islands ; parts of Switzerland; and Northern Italy. Today, a single Gallo-Romance language (French) dominates much of the geographic region (including the formerly-non-Romance areas of France) and has also spread overseas. At its broadest, the area also encompasses Southern France; Catalonia , the Valencian Community , and the Balearic islands in eastern Spain ; Andorra ; and much of Northern Italy . The Gallo-Romance languages are generally considered

114-489: The Gallo-Italian languages rivalling each other for the most extreme phonological changes compared with more conservative languages. For example, French sain, saint, sein, ceint, seing meaning "healthy, holy, breast, (he) girds, signature" (Latin sānum , sanctum , sinum , cingit , signum ) are all pronounced /sɛ̃/ . In other ways, however, the Gallo-Romance languages are conservative. The older stages of many of

133-796: The basic sound system can be summarised as follows: Notes: Old Occitan is a non-standardised language regarding its spelling, meaning that different graphemic signs can represent one sound and vice versa. For example: Some notable characteristics of Old Occitan: Bela Domna·l vostre cors gens E·lh vostre bel olh m'an conquis, E·l doutz esgartz e lo clars vis, E·l vostre bels essenhamens, Que, can be m'en pren esmansa, De beutat no·us trob egansa: La genser etz c'om posc'e·l mon chauzir, O no·i vei clar dels olhs ab que·us remir. O pretty lady, all your grace and eyes of beauty conquered me, sweet glance and brightness of your face and all your nature has to tell so if I make an appraisal I find no one like in beauty: most pleasing to be found in all

152-759: The case system the best, and languages at the periphery (near languages that had long before lost the case system except for pronouns) lost it early. For example, the case system was preserved in Old Occitan until around the 13th century but had already been lost in Old Catalan although there were very few other differences between them. The Occitan group is known for an innovatory /ɡ/ ending on many subjunctive and preterite verbs and an unusual development of [ð] (Latin intervocalic -d-), which, in many varieties, merged with [dz] (from intervocalic palatalised -c- and -ty-). The following tables show two examples of

171-508: The development of vernacular writing in a given area was forced by the almost total inability of Romance speakers to understand Classical Latin, which was still the vehicle of writing and culture. Gallo-Romance languages are usually characterised by the loss of all unstressed final vowels other than /-a/ (most significantly, final /-o/ and /-e/ were lost). However, when the loss of a final vowel would result in an impossible final cluster (e.g. /tr/ ), an epenthetic vowel appears in place of

190-634: The earliest records of Occitan are the Tomida femina , the Boecis and the Cançó de Santa Fe . Old Occitan, the language used by the troubadours , was the first Romance language with a literary corpus and had an enormous influence on the development of lyric poetry in other European languages. The interpunct was a feature of its orthography and survives today in Catalan and Gascon . The official language of

209-409: The extensive phonological changes that French has undergone. (Compare modern Italian saputo , vita , which are even more conservative than the reconstructed Western Romance forms.) These are the notable characteristics of the Gallo-Romance languages: Gallo-Italian languages have a number of features in common with the other Italian languages: Old Gallo-Romance language Old Gallo-Romance

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228-464: The languages are famous for preserving a two-case system, consisting of nominative and oblique cases, which was fully marked on nouns, adjectives and determiners; was inherited almost directly from the Latin nominative and accusative cases; and preserved a number of different declensional classes and irregular forms. In the opposite of the normal pattern, the languages closest to the oïl epicentre preserve

247-566: The lost vowel, usually /e/ . Generally, the same changes also occurred in final syllables closed by a consonant. Franco-Provençal , however, generally preserves the original final vowel after a syllable-final cluster, such as quattuor "four" > quatro (compare French quatre ). Furthermore, loss of /e/ in a final syllable was early enough in Primitive Old French that the Classical Latin third-person singular /t/

266-508: The love of God and Christiandom and our joint salvation, from this day onward, to the best of my knowledge and abilities granted by God, I shall protect my brother Charles by any means possible, as one ought to protect one's brother, insofar as he does the same for me, and I shall never willingly enter into a pact with Lothair against the interests of my brother Charles Old Occitan Old Occitan ( Modern Occitan : occitan ancian , Catalan : occità antic ), also called Old Provençal ,

285-516: The most innovative (least conservative) among the Romance languages. Northern France, the medieval area of the langue d'oïl from which modern French developed, was the epicentre. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed the earliest, appear in their most extreme manifestation in the langue d'oïl and gradually spread out from there along riverways and roads. The earliest vernacular Romance writing occurred in Northern France, as

304-569: The sovereign principality of the Viscounty of Béarn was the local vernacular Bearnès dialect of Old Occitan. It was the spoken language of law courts and of business and it was the written language of customary law. Although vernacular languages were increasingly preferred to Latin in western Europe in the late Middle Ages, the status of Occitan in Béarn was unusual because its use was required by law: "lawyers will draft their petitions and pleas in

323-445: The vernacular language of the present country, both in speech and in writing". Old Catalan and Old Occitan diverged between the 11th and the 14th centuries. Catalan never underwent the shift from /u/ to /y/ or the shift from /o/ to /u/ (except in unstressed syllables in some dialects) and so had diverged phonologically before those changes affected Old Occitan. Old Occitan changed and evolved somewhat during its history, but

342-459: Was often preserved: venit "he comes" > /ˈvɛːnet/ (Romance vowel changes) > /ˈvjɛnet/ (diphthongization) > /ˈvjɛned/ (lenition) > /ˈvjɛnd/ (Gallo-Romance final vowel loss) > /ˈvjɛnt/ (final devoicing). Elsewhere, final vowel loss occurred later, or unprotected /t/ was lost earlier (perhaps under Italian influence). Other than southern Occitano-Romance, the Gallo-Romance languages are quite innovative, with French and some of

361-664: Was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages , as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is sometimes included in Old Occitan, sometimes in Modern Occitan. As the term occitanus appeared around the year 1300, Old Occitan is referred to as "Romance" (Occitan: romans ) or "Provençal" (Occitan: proensals ) in medieval texts. Among

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