Roman Gaul (Gallia)Edit

Before the Roman conquest of what is now France by Julius Caesar (58–52 BC), much of present France was inhabited by Celtic-speaking people referred to by the Romans as Gauls and Belgae. Southern France was also home to a number of other remnant linguistic and ethnic groups including Iberians along the eastern part of the Pyrenees and western Mediterranean coast, the remnant Ligures on the eastern Mediterranean coast and in the alpine areas, Greek colonials in places such as Marseille and Antibes,^[1] and Vascones and Aquitani (Proto-Basques) in much of the southwest.^[2][3] The Gaulish-speaking population is held to have continued speaking Gaulish even as considerable Romanisation of the local material culture occurred, with Gaulish and Latin coexisting for centuries under Roman rule and the last attestation of Gaulish to be deemed credible^[4] having been written in the second half of the 6th century about the destruction of a pagan shrine in Auvergne.^[5]

The Celtic population of Gaul had spoken Gaulish, which is moderately well attested and appears to have wide dialectal variation including one distinctive variety, Lepontic. The French language evolved from Vulgar Latin (a Latinised popular Italic dialect called sermo vulgaris), but it was influenced by Gaulish.^[6][7] Examples include sandhi phenomena (liaison, resyllabification, lenition), the loss of unstressed syllables and the vowel system (such as raising /u/, /o/ ? /y/, /u/, fronting stressed /a/ ? /e/, /?/ ? /ø/ or /œ/).^[8][9] Syntactic oddities attributable to Gaulish include the intensive prefix ro- ~ re- (cited in the Vienna glossary, 5th century)^[10] (cf. luire "to glimmer" vs. reluire "to shine"; related to Irish ro- and Welsh rhy- "very"), emphatic structures, prepositional periphrastic phrases to render verbal aspect and the semantic development of oui "yes", aveugle "blind".

Some sound changes are attested: /ps/ ? /xs/ and /pt/ ? /xt/ appears in a pottery inscription from la Graufesenque (1st century) in which the word paraxsidi is written for paropsides.^[11] Similarly, the development -cs- ? /xs/ ? /is/ and -ct- ? /xt/ ? /it/, the latter being common to much of Western Romance languages, also appears in inscriptions: Divicta ~ Divixta, Rectugenus ~ Rextugenus ~ Reitugenus, and is present in Welsh, e.g. *se?tan ? saith "seven", *e?tamos ? eithaf "extreme". For Romance, compare:

• Latin fraxinus "ash (tree)" ? OFr fraisne (mod. frêne), Occitan fraisse, Catalan freixe, Portuguese freixo, Romansch fraissen (vs. Italian frassino, Romanian (dial.) frapsin, Spanish fresno).
• Latin lactem "milk" ? French lait, Welsh llaeth, Portuguese leite, Catalan llet, Piemontese lait, Liguro leite (vs. Italian latte, Occitan lach, Lombardo làcc, Romansch latg, Spanish leche).

Both changes sometimes had a cumulative effect in French: Latin capsa ? *ka?sa ? caisse (vs. Italian cassa, Spanish caja) or capt?vus ? *ka?tivus ? Occitan caitiu, OFr chaitif^[12] (mod. chétif "wretched, feeble", cf. Welsh caeth "bondman, slave", vs. Italian cattivo, Spanish cautivo).

In French and the adjoining folk dialects and closely-related languages, some 200 words of Gaulish origin have been retained, most of which pertaining to folk life. They include:

• land features (bief "reach, mill race", combe "hollow", grève "sandy shore", lande "heath");
• plant names (berle "water parsnip", bouleau "birch", bourdaine "black alder", chêne "oak", corme "service berry", gerzeau "corncockle", if "yew", vélar/vellar "hedge mustard");
• wildlife (alouette "lark", barge "godwit", loche "loach", pinson "finch", vandoise "dace", vanneau "lapwing");
• rural and farm life, most notably: boue "mud", cervoise "ale", charrue "plow", glaise "loam", gord "kiddle, stake net", jachère "fallow field", javelle "sheaf, bundle, fagot", marne "marl", mouton "sheep", raie "lynchet", sillon "furrow", souche "tree stump, tree base", tarière "auger, gimlet", tonne "barrel";
• some common verbs (braire "to bray", changer "to change", craindre "to fear", jaillir "to surge, gush").;^[13] and
• loan translations: aveugle "blind", from Latin ab oculis "eyeless", calque of Gaulish exsops "blind", literally "eyeless"^[14][15] (vs. Latin caecus ? OFr cieu, It. cieco, Sp. ciego, or orbus ? Occ. òrb, Venetian orbo, Romanian orb).

Other Celtic words were not borrowed directly but brought in through Latin, some of which had become common in Latin, braies "knee-length pants", chainse "tunic", char "dray, wagon", 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 since 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 village-centred economies and legal serfdom.

FranksEdit

In the 3rd century, Western Europe started to be invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and the east, and some of the groups settled in Gaul. In the history of the French language, the most important groups are the Franks in northern France, the Alemanni in the modern German/French border area (Alsace), the Burgundians in the Rhône (and the Saone) Valley and the Visigoths in the Aquitaine region and Spain. The Frankish language had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their respective regions by altering both the pronunciation (especially the vowel system phonemes: e, eu, u, short o) and the syntax. It 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 and range from just 500 words (?1%)^[16] (representing loans from ancient Germanic languages: Gothic and Frankish)^[17] to 15% of the modern vocabulary (representing all Germanic loans up to modern times: Gothic, Frankish, Old Norse/Scandinavian, Dutch, German and English)^[18] to even higher if Germanic words coming from Latin and other Romance languages are taken into account. (Note that according to the Académie française, only 5% of French words come from English.)

Changes in lexicon/morphology/syntax:

• The name of the language itself, français, comes from Old French franceis/francesc (compare Medieval Latin 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 (then an area in Gallia Belgica, somewhere in modern-day Belgium or the Netherlands). The name Gaule ("Gaul") was also taken from the Frankish *Walholant ("Land of the Romans/Gauls").
• Several terms and expressions associated with their social structure (baron/baronne, bâtard, bru, chambellan, échevin, félon, féodal, forban, gars/garçon, leude, lige, maçon, maréchal, marquis, meurtrier, sénéchal).
• Military terms (agrès/gréer, attaquer, bière ["stretcher"], dard, étendard, fief, flanc, flèche, gonfalon, guerre, garder, garnison, hangar, heaume, loge, marcher, patrouille, rang, rattraper, targe, trêve, troupe).
• Colours derived from Frankish and other Germanic languages (blanc/blanche, bleu, blond/blonde, brun, fauve, gris, guède).
• Other examples among common words are abandonner, arranger, attacher, auberge, bande, banquet, bâtir, besogne, bille, blesser, bois, bonnet, bord, bouquet, bouter, braise, broderie, brosse, chagrin, choix, chic, cliché, clinquant, coiffe, corroyer, crèche, danser, échaffaud, engage, effroi, épargner, épeler, étal, étayer, étiquette, fauteuil, flan, flatter, flotter, fourbir, frais, frapper, gai, galant, galoper, gant, gâteau, glisser, grappe, gratter, gredin, gripper, guère, guise, hache, haïr, halle, hanche, harasser, héron, heurter, jardin, jauger, joli, laid, lambeau, layette, lécher, lippe, liste, maint, maquignon, masque, massacrer, mauvais, mousse, mousseron, orgueil, parc, patois, pincer, pleige, rat, rater, regarder, remarquer, riche/richesse, rime, robe, rober, saisir, salon, savon, soupe, tampon, tomber, touaille, trépigner, trop, tuyau and many words starting with a hard g (like gagner, garantie, gauche, guérir) or with an aspired h (haine, hargneux, hâte, haut)^[19]
• Endings in -ard (from Frankish hard: canard, pochard, richard), -aud (from Frankish wald: crapaud, maraud, nigaud), -an/-and (from old suffix -anc, -enc: paysan, cormoran, Flamand, tisserand, chambellan) all very common family name affixes for French names.
• Endings in -ange (Eng. -ing, Grm. -ung; boulange/boulanger, mélange/mélanger, vidange/vidanger), diminutive -on (oisillon)
• Many verbs ending in -ir (2nd group, see French conjugation) such as affranchir, ahurir, choisir, guérir, haïr, honnir, jaillir, lotir, nantir, rafraîchir, ragaillardir, tarir, etc.
• The prefix mé(s)- (from Frankish "missa-", as in mésentente, mégarde, méfait, mésaventure, mécréant, mépris, méconnaissance, méfiance, médisance)
• The prefix for-, four- as in forbannir, forcené, forlonger, (se) fourvoyer, etc. from Frankish fir-, fur- (cf German ver-; English for-) merged with Old French fuers "outside, beyond" from Latin foris. Latin foris was not used as a prefix in Classical Latin, but appears as a prefix in Medieval Latin following the Germanic invasions.
• The prefix en-, em- (which reinforced and merged with Latin in- "in, on, into") was extended to fit new formations not previously found in Latin. Influenced or calqued from Frankish *in- and *an-, usually with an intensive or perfective sense: emballer, emblaver, endosser, enhardir, enjoliver, enrichir, envelopper:
• 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. The subject pronoun is optional, function of the parameter pro-drop, in most other Romance languages (as in Spanish 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 major Romance language, except French (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. The word order is more frequent in French than in the other major Romance languages and is occasionally compulsory (belle femme, vieil homme, grande table, petite table). When it is optional, it can change the meaning: grand homme ("great man") and le plus grand homme ("the greatest man") vs. homme grand ("tall man") and l'homme le plus grand ("the tallest man"), certaine chose vs. chose certaine. In Walloon, the order "adjective + noun" is the general rule, as in Old French and North Cotentin Norman.
• Several words are calqued or modelled on corresponding terms from Germanic languages (bienvenue, cauchemar, chagriner, compagnon, entreprendre, manoeuvre, manuscrit, on, pardonner, plupart, sainfoin, tocsin, toujours).