Old French language

Category:Articles with short descriptionCategory:Short description is different from Wikidata
Old French
Ancien FrançaisCategory:Articles containing French-language text
FranceisCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, FrançoisCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, RomanzCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text
Pronunciation[fɾãnˈt͡sɛjs]Category:Pages with Old French (842-ca. 1400) IPA, [fɾãnˈt͡sɔjs]Category:Pages with Old French (842-ca. 1400) IPA, [ruˈmãnt͡s]Category:Pages with Old French (842-ca. 1400) IPA
RegionNorthern France, parts of Belgium (Wallonia), Scotland, England, Ireland, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principality of Antioch, County of Edessa, Kingdom of Cyprus
EraEvolved into Middle French by the mid-14th century
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-2fro
ISO 639-3fro
Glottologoldf1239
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Category:Languages with ISO 639-2 codeCategory:Language articles with unreferenced extinction date

Old French (franceisCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, françoisCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, romanzCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text; French: ancien françaisCategory:Articles containing French-language text) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th[2] and mid-14th centuries. 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'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text, contrasting with the langues d'ocCategory:Articles containing French-language text, the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania, now 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-SaintongeaisCategory:Articles containing French-language text, Gallo, Norman, Picard, Walloon, etc.), each with its linguistic features and history.

The region where Old French 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 a feudal elite and commerce.[3]

Areal and dialectal divisions

Map of France in 1180, at the height of the feudal system. The crown lands of France are in light blue, vassals to the French king in green, Angevin possessions in red. Shown in white is the Holy Roman Empire to the east, the western fringes of which, including Upper Burgundy and Lorraine, were also part of the Old French area.

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 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'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text were contrasted with the langues d'ocCategory:Articles containing French-language text, 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 the langue d'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text as early as the late 8th 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.

History

Evolution and separation from Vulgar Latin

Beginning with Plautus' time (254–184 b.c.), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what 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 the spoken language).[6]: 109–115  Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French.[7][8][9][10][11]

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 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⟩Category:Pages with plain IPA 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/Category:Pages with plain IPA (later spelled as OF 'vergier'Category:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text).[12]

Such 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 linguamCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'.[13]

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 a new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia.

Non-Latin influences

Gaulish

Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equusCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by caballusCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text 'nag, work horse', derived from Gaulish caballosCategory:Articles containing Transalpine Gaulish-language text (cf. Welsh ceffylCategory:Articles containing Welsh-language text, Breton kefelCategory:Articles containing Breton-language text),[14]: 96  yielding ModF chevalCategory:Articles containing French-language text, Occitan cavalCategory:Articles containing Occitan (post 1500)-language text (chavalCategory:Articles containing Occitan (post 1500)-language text), Catalan cavallCategory:Articles containing Catalan-language text, Spanish caballoCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text, Portuguese cavaloCategory:Articles containing Portuguese-language text, Italian cavalloCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text, Romanian calCategory:Articles containing Romanian-language text, 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 chêneCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'oak tree' and charrueCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'plough'.[15]

Within historical phonology and studies of language contact, various phonological changes have been posited as caused by 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)Category:Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2021[clarification needed] appears as paraxsid-iCategory:Articles containing Transalpine Gaulish-language text.[16] The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Lat capsaCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text > *kaxsa > caisse (≠ Italian cassaCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitifCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text[16] (mod. chétif; cf. Irish cacht 'servant'; ≠ Italian cattiv-itàCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text, Portuguese cativoCategory:Articles containing Portuguese-language text, Spanish cautivoCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text). This phonetic evolution is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French (Lat factumCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text > fait, ≠ Italian fattoCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text, Portuguese feitoCategory:Articles containing Portuguese-language text, Spanish hechoCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text; or lactem* > lait, ≠ Italian latteCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text, Portuguese leiteCategory:Articles containing Portuguese-language text, Spanish lecheCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text). 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 is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable cultural Romanization.[17] Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including ouiCategory:Articles containing French-language text,[18] the word for "yes"),[19] sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence,[20][21] and influences in conjugation and word order.[19][22][23] A computational study from 2003 suggests that early gender shifts may have been motivated by the gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish.[24]

Frankish

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 word françaisCategory:Articles containing French-language text itself is derived from the Late Latin name for the Franks.

The Old Frankish language had 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).[25] 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 the two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the langue d'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text and the langue d'oc (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time,[26] 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 a very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accentCategory:Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2024[clarification needed] with a Germanic stress[27] 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]Category:Pages with plain IPA and [w]Category:Pages with plain IPA (> OF g(u)-, ONF w- cf. Picard w-):

In contrast, the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/Category:Pages with plain IPA ~ /g/Category:Pages with plain IPA, e.g. Italian, Spanish guerraCategory:Articles containing undetermined-language text 'war', alongside /g/Category:Pages with plain IPA in French guerreCategory:Articles containing French-language text). 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 frambeiseCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, from OLF *brāmbesiCategory:Articles containing Old Frankish-language text 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch braambes, braambezie; akin to German BrombeereCategory:Articles containing German-language text, English dial. bramberry) blended with LL fraga or OF fraieCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'strawberry', which explains the replacement [b]Category:Pages with plain IPA > [f]Category:Pages with plain IPA and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraieCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text to make freise, modern fraiseCategory:Articles containing French-language text (≠ Walloon frèveCategory:Articles containing Walloon-language text, Occitan fragaCategory:Articles containing Occitan (post 1500)-language text, Romanian fragăCategory:Articles containing Romanian-language text, Italian fragolaCategory:Articles containing Italian-language text, fravola 'strawberry').[28][i]

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.[29]

Earliest written Old French

The earliest documents said to be written in 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 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 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'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France until after the French Revolution.

Transition to Middle French

In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text, 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'ocCategory:Articles containing French-language text–speaking territories in the south. It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of the Bibliothèque bleue – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects.

Literature

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 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 the first such text. Further, some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics in Old French, composed by the earliest composers known by name.

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 gesteCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text ("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 gesteCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text have survived in around three hundred manuscripts.[30] The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de gesteCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 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 gesteCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 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", 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.[31] From around 1200 on, 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.[32]

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 began in the late 11th century, arising from the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence—including Toulouse and the Aquitaine region, and flourished until the end of the 13th century. These first lyric poets composed and performed in Old Provençal (Old Occitan) and were called troubadorsCategory:Articles containing Old Provençal (to 1500)-language text from the verb trobarCategory:Articles containing Old Provençal (to 1500)-language text "to compose, to discuss, to invent". The French word troubadourCategory:Articles containing French-language text is borrowed from this Occitan word. Inspired by the Provençal poets, lyric poetry spread to their Northern French counterparts, who instead spoke langues d'oïlCategory:Articles containing French-language text and were known as trouvèresCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text. It is thought that the Provençal troubadours were originally influenced by music and poetry from the Hispano-Arab world.Category:All articles with unsourced statementsCategory:Articles with unsourced statements from January 2025[citation needed]

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 (and musical) tendencies are apparent in 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 the incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut.

Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater (théâtre profaneCategory:Articles containing French-language text)—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 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 clerics) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'AdamCategory:Articles containing French-language text (c. 1150) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it 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 fabliauCategory:Articles containing French-language text, which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These fabliauxCategory:Articles containing French-language text would be an important source for Chaucer and for the Renaissance short story (conteCategory:Articles containing French-language text or nouvelleCategory:Articles containing French-language text).

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.

Phonology

Old French 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 was pronounced [ə]. The phonological system can be summarised as follows:[33]

Consonants

Old French consonants
Type Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p b t d k ɡ
Affricate t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative f v s z h
Lateral l ʎ
Trill r

Notes:

Vowels

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; bonCategory:Articles containing French-language text was pronounced [bõn]Category:Pages with plain IPA (ModF [bɔ̃]Category:Pages with plain IPA). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone [bõnə]Category:Pages with plain IPA (ModF bonneCategory:Articles containing French-language text [bɔn]Category:Pages with plain IPA).

Monophthongs

Old French vowels
Type FrontCentralBack
Close oral i   y u
nasal ĩ   ỹ 
Close-mid oral eə 
nasal ẽõ
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open oral a
nasal ã

Notes:

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Late Old French diphthongs and triphthongs
Type IPAExampleMeaning
falling
Oral /aw/Category:Pages with plain IPAchevaushorse
/ɔj/Category:Pages with plain IPAtoitroof
/ɔw/Category:Pages with plain IPAcoupblow, hit
/ew/Category:Pages with plain IPA ~ /øw/Category:Pages with plain IPAcieusheavens
/iw/Category:Pages with plain IPA ~ /iɥ/Category:Pages with plain IPAtiuletile
Nasal /ẽj/Category:Pages with plain IPApleinfull
/õj/Category:Pages with plain IPAloingfar
rising
Oral /je/Category:Pages with plain IPApiéfoot
/ɥi/Category:Pages with plain IPAfruitfruit
/we/Category:Pages with plain IPA ~ /wø/Category:Pages with plain IPAcuerheart
Nasal /jẽ/Category:Pages with plain IPAbienwell
/ɥĩ/Category:Pages with plain IPAjuinJune
/wẽ/Category:Pages with plain IPAcuenscount (nom. sg.)
triphthongs
stress always falls on middle vowel
Oral /e̯aw/Category:Pages with plain IPAbeausbeautiful
/jew/Category:Pages with plain IPADieuGod
/wew/Category:Pages with plain IPA ~ /wøw/Category:Pages with plain IPAjueuJew

Notes:

Hiatus

In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of hiatus between adjacent vowels because of 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:

Sample text

Presented below is the first laisse of The Song of Roland along with a broad transcription reflecting reconstructed pronunciation c. 1050.[36]

Text Transcription Translation

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 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![37]

ˈt͡ʃarləs li ˈre͜is, ˈnɔstr‿empəˈræðrə ˈmaɲəsCategory:Pages with plain IPA
ˈsɛt ˈant͡s ˈtot͡s ˈple͜ins ˈað esˈtæθ en esˈpaɲəCategory:Pages with plain IPA
ˈtræs k‿en la ˈmɛr konˈkist la ˈtɛr alˈta͜iɲəCategory:Pages with plain IPA
t͡ʃasˈtɛl ni ˈaθ ki dəˈvant ˈly͜i rəˈma͜iɲəθCategory:Pages with plain IPA
ˈmyrs nə t͡siˈtæθ n‿i ˈɛst rəˈmæs a ˈfra͜indrəCategory:Pages with plain IPA
ˈfɔrs saraˈgot͡sə k‿ˈɛst en ˈynə monˈtaɲəCategory:Pages with plain IPA
li ˈre͜is marˈsiʎəs la ˈti͜ɛnt, ki ˈdɛ͜u nən ˈa͜iməθCategory:Pages with plain IPA
mahoˈmɛt ˈsɛrt eð apoˈlin rəˈkla͜iməθCategory:Pages with plain IPA
nə‿s ˈpu͜ɛt gwarˈdær kə ˈmals nə l‿i aˈta͜iɲəθCategory:Pages with plain IPA

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 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!

Grammar

Nouns

Old French maintained a two-case system, with a nominative case and an oblique case, for longer than some other Romance languages as Spanish and Italian did. Case distinctions, at least in the masculine gender, were marked on both the definite article and the noun itself. Thus, the masculine noun li veisinsCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'the neighbour'[ii] was declined as follows:

Evolution of the nominal masculine inflection from Classical Latin to Old French
NumberLatinEarly Proto-GROld French
Singularnominative ille vīcīnusCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text*[li βeˈdzʲinos]Category:Pages with plain IPAli veisinsCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text
oblique
(Latin accusative)		 illum vīcīnumCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text*[lo βeˈdzʲino]Category:Pages with plain IPAle veisinCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text
Pluralnominative illī vīcīnīCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text*[li βeˈdzʲini]Category:Pages with plain IPAli veisinCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text
oblique
(Latin accusative)		 illōs vīcīnōsCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text*[los βeˈdzʲinos]Category:Pages with plain IPAles veisinsCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

In later Old French, the distinctions had become moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the Modern French form: l'enfantCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'the child' represents the old oblique (Latin accusative īnfantem); the OF nominative was li enfesCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (Lat īnfāns). There are some cases with significant differences between nominative and oblique forms (derived from Latin nouns with a stress shift between the nominative and other cases) in which either it is the nominative form that survives or both forms survive with different meanings:

In a few cases in which the only distinction between forms was the nominative -s ending, the -s was preserved. An example is fils 'son' (< Latin nominative fīlius). It is irregular that the -s in the word is still pronounced today; but this has to do with later developments — namely the Middle French and Early Modern French system of pausal pronunciations.

As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and most old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals, which ended in -a, were reanalysed as feminine singulars: Lat gaudiumCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text was more widely used in the plural form gaudiaCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin and ultimately led to ModF la joieCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'joy' (feminine singular).

Nouns were declined in the following declensions:

Number Class I (feminine) Class II (masculine)
Class I normal Class Ia Class II normal Class IIa
meaning "woman""thing""city""neighbor""servant""father"
sg. nominative la famela riensla citezli veisinsli sergenzli pere
oblique la rienla citéle veisinle sergentle pere
pl. nominative les famesles riensles citezli veisinli sergentli pere
oblique les veisinsles sergenzles peres
Numbers Class III (both)
Class IIIa Class IIIb Class IIIc Class IIId
meaning "singer""baron""nun""sister""child""priest""lord""count"
sg. nominative li chantereli berla nonela suerli enfesli prestreli sireli cuens
oblique le chanteorle baronla nonainla serorl'enfantle prevoirele sieurle conte
pl. nominative li chanteorli baronles nonesles serorsli enfantli prevoireli sieurli conte
oblique les chanteorsles baronsles nonainsles enfanzles prevoiresles sieursles contes

Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from Latin feminine nouns in the third declension. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in -er and from third-declension masculine nouns; in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in -s, which is preserved in Old French.

The classes show various analogical developments: Class I nominative plural -es from the accusative instead of -∅ (-e after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural (Lat -ae, although there is evidence to suggest this analogy had already occurred in VL), li pere instead of *li peres (Lat illi patresCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text) in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.

Class III nouns show a separate stem in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms:

  • IIIa nouns are agent nouns that ended in -ātor, -ātōrem in Latin and preserve the stress shift.
  • IIIb nouns also had a stress shift, from -ō to -ōnem although several IIIb nouns actually continue Frankish weak nouns with a similar inflection: Frankish *barō ~ *baran becomes OF ber ~ baron.
  • IIIc nouns are an Old French creation and have no clear Latin antecedent.
  • IIId nouns represent various other third-declension Latin nouns with stress shift or a change of consonant (soror, sorōrem; īnfāns, īnfāntem; presbyter, presbyterem; seiior, seiiōrem; comes, comitem).

Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an -e to the masculine stem unless the masculine stem already ends in -e. For example, bergierCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'shepherd' becomes bergiereCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (ModF bergerCategory:Articles containing French-language text and bergèreCategory:Articles containing French-language text).

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun that they are qualifying. Thus, a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and nominative. For example, in femes richesCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, richeCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text has to be in the feminine plural form.

Adjectives can be divided into three declensional classes:[39]

Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in -e. They can be further subdivided into two subclasses, based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in -s:

bonCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'good' (< Lat bonusCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, > ModF bonCategory:Articles containing French-language text)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
CaseSingularPluralSingularPluralSingular
Nominative bonsbon bonebones bon
Oblique bonbons—

For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in -e, like the feminine. There are descendants of Latin second- and third-declension adjectives ending in -er in the nominative singular:

aspreCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'harsh' (< Lat asperCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, > ModF âpreCategory:Articles containing French-language text)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
CaseSingularPluralSingularPluralSingular
Nominative aspre aspre aspreaspres aspre
Oblique aspres—

For Class II adjectives, the feminine singular is not marked by the ending -e:

granzCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'big, great' (< Lat grandisCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, > ModF grandCategory:Articles containing French-language text)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
CaseSingularPluralSingularPluralSingular
Nominative granzgrant granz/grantgranz grant
Oblique grantgranzgrant—

An important subgroup of Class II adjectives is the present participial forms in -ant.

Class III adjectives have a stem alternation, resulting from stress shift in the Latin third declension and a distinct neuter form:

mieudreCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'better' (< Lat meliorCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, > ModF meilleurCategory:Articles containing French-language text)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
CaseSingularPluralSingularPluralSingular
Nominative mieudre(s)meillor mieudremeillors mieuz
Oblique meillormeillorsmeillor—

In later Old French, Classes II and III tended to be moved across to Class I, which was complete by Middle French. Modern French thus has only a single adjective declension, unlike most other Romance languages, which have two or more.

Verbs

Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words; however, morphologically, Old French verbs are extremely conservative in preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in Proto-Romance. Old French has much less analogical reformation than Modern French has and significantly less than the oldest stages of other languages (such as Old Spanish) despite that the various phonological developments in Gallo-Romance and Proto-French led to complex alternations in the majority of commonly-used verbs.

For example, the OF verb laverCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'to wash' (Lat lavāre) is conjugated je lefCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, tu levesCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, il leveCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text in the present indicative and je lefCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, tu lesCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, il letCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text in the present subjunctive, in both cases regular phonological developments from Latin indicative lavō, lavās, lavat and subjunctive lavem, lavēs, lavet. The following paradigm is typical in showing the phonologically regular but morphologically irregular alternations of most paradigms:

Modern French, on the other hand, has je laveCategory:Articles containing French-language text, tu lavesCategory:Articles containing French-language text, il laveCategory:Articles containing French-language text in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/, analogical -e in the first singular (from verbs like j'entreCategory:Articles containing French-language text, with a regular -e ) and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modelled on -ir/-oir/-re verbs. All serve to eliminate the various alternations in the OF verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, OF je vifCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, tu visCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, il vitCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (vivre 'to live') has yielded to modern je visCategory:Articles containing French-language text, tu visCategory:Articles containing French-language text, il vitCategory:Articles containing French-language text, eliminating the unpredictable -f in the first-person singular.

The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French, as compared with Old French.

The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as avretCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (< Lat habueratCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text), voldretCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (< Lat volueratCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the -ra imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).

Verb alternations

In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the weight (length) of the syllables. That resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in pensō 'I think', the first syllable was stressed, but in pensāmus 'we think', the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: Spanish piensoCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'I think' vs. pensamosCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'we think' (pensarCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'to think'), or cuentoCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'I tell' vs. contamosCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'we tell' (contarCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text 'to tell').

In the development of French, at least five vowels diphthongized in stressed, open syllables. Combined with other stress-dependent developments, that yielded 15 or so types of alternations in so-called strong verbs in Old French. For example, /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA diphthongized to /ai/Category:Pages with plain IPA before nasal stops in stressed, open syllables but not in unstressed syllables, yielding aimCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'I love' (Lat amō) but amonsCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text 'we love' (Lat amāmus).

The different types are as follows:

Vowel alternations in Old French verbs
Vowel alternationEnvironmentExample (-er conjugation)Example (other conjugation)
StressedUnstressedLatin etymon3rd singular
pres. ind.		InfinitivemeaningLatin etymon3rd singular
pres. ind.		Infinitive
/ Other form		meaning
/e/Category:Pages with plain IPA/a/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /a/Category:Pages with plain IPAlavārelevelaver"to wash"parere >
*parīre		pertparir"to give birth"
/ãj̃/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ã/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA + nasalamāreaimeamer"to love"manēremaintmaneir, manoir"to remain"
/je/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPApalatal + free /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA*accapāreachieveachever"to achieve"
/i/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPApalatal + /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA + palatal*concacāreconchieconcheer"to expel"iacēregistgesir"to lie (down)"
/a/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPApalatal + blocked /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA*accapitāreachateacheter"to buy"cadere >
*cadēre		chietcheoir"to fall"
/a/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPAintertonic /a/Category:Pages with plain IPA + palatal?*tripaliāretravailletraveillier"to torment, make suffer"
/je/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPAlevārelievelever"to raise"sedēresietseeir, seoir"to sit; suit, be fitting"
/jẽ/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ẽ/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPA + nasaltremere >
*cremere		crientcreindre (var. cremir, -oir)"to fear"
/i/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ej/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPA + palatalpretiāreprisepreiser"to value"exīreisteissir"to exit, go out"
/ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPAintertonic /ɛ, e/Category:Pages with plain IPA + double cons.appellāreapeleapeler"to call"
/oj/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /e/Category:Pages with plain IPAadhaerāre >
*adēsāre		adoiseadeser"to touch"
/ẽj̃/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ẽ/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /e/Category:Pages with plain IPA + nasalmināremeinemener"to lead"
/i/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPApalatal + free /e/Category:Pages with plain IPA
/oj/Category:Pages with plain IPA/i/Category:Pages with plain IPAintertonic /e/Category:Pages with plain IPA + palatal–charroiecharrier"to cart around"
/we/Category:Pages with plain IPA/u/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /ɔ/Category:Pages with plain IPA*tropāretruevetruver"to invent, discover"morī >
*morīre		muertmourir"to die"
/uj/Category:Pages with plain IPA/oj/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ɔ/Category:Pages with plain IPA + palatal*appodiāreapuieapoiier"to lean"
/ew/Category:Pages with plain IPA/u/Category:Pages with plain IPAfree /o/Category:Pages with plain IPAdēmōrārīdemeuredemo(u)rer"to stay"cōnsuere >
*cōsere		queustco(u)sdre"to sew"
/u/Category:Pages with plain IPA/e/Category:Pages with plain IPAintertonic blocked /o/Category:Pages with plain IPA*corruptiārecouroucecourecier"to get angry"
/ũ/Category:Pages with plain IPA/ã/Category:Pages with plain IPAintertonic blocked /o/Category:Pages with plain IPA + nasalcalumniārīchalongechalengier"to challenge"

In Modern French, the verbs in the -er class have been systematically levelled. Generally, the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (such as modern aimer/nous aimonsCategory:Articles containing French-language text). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like acheter/j'achèteCategory:Articles containing French-language text and jeter/je jetteCategory:Articles containing French-language text, with unstressed /ə/Category:Pages with plain IPA alternating with stressed /ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPA and in (largely-learned) verbs like adhérer/j'adhèreCategory:Articles containing French-language text, with unstressed /e/Category:Pages with plain IPA alternating with stressed /ɛ/Category:Pages with plain IPA. Many of the non-er verbs have become obsolete, and many of the remaining verbs have been levelled; however, a few alternations remain in what are now known as irregular verbs, such as je tiensCategory:Articles containing French-language text, nous tenonsCategory:Articles containing French-language text; je doisCategory:Articles containing French-language text, nous devonsCategory:Articles containing French-language text; and je meursCategory:Articles containing French-language text, nous mouronsCategory:Articles containing French-language text.

Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer, stressed stem alternating with a shorter, unstressed stem. That was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when they were stressed:

The alternation of je desjun, disner is particularly complicated; it appears that:

inf 1sg.ind.pres
Latin disiēiūnāre /disjeːjuːˈnaːre/Category:Pages with plain IPA disiēiūnō /disjeːˈjuːnoː/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Western Romance Triphthong reduction disīūnāre /disiːuːˈnaːre/Category:Pages with plain IPA disīūnō /disiːˈuːnoː/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Loss of phonemic length disjunare /disjuˈnare/Category:Pages with plain IPA disjuno /disˈjuno/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Syncopation disinare /disiˈnaːre/Category:Pages with plain IPA –
Change in quality and metaphony disinare /disiˈnare/Category:Pages with plain IPA desjuno /desˈjuno/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Gallo-Romance Lenition dizinare /diziˈnare/Category:Pages with plain IPA –
Further syncopation diznare /dizˈnare/Category:Pages with plain IPA –
Old French Further syncopation disnar /dizˈnar/Category:Pages with plain IPA desjun /desˈjun/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Diphthongization (→ fronting) disner /disˈnɛr/Category:Pages with plain IPA –
Fortition – desjun /desˈdʒun/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Devoicing disner /disˈnɛr/Category:Pages with plain IPA –
Allophonic nasalization – desjun /desˈdʒũn/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Fronting – desjun /desˈdʒỹn/Category:Pages with plain IPA
Compensatory lengthening disner /diːˈnɛr/Category:Pages with plain IPA desjun /deːˈdʒỹn/Category:Pages with plain IPA

Both stems have become full verbs in Modern French: déjeunerCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'to have lunch' and dînerCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'to dine'. Furthermore, déjeunerCategory:Articles containing French-language text does not derive directly from je desjunCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (< *disi(ēi)ūnōCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, with total loss of unstressed -ēi-). Instead, it comes from OF desjeünerCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, based on the alternative form je desjeünCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (< *disiē(i)ūnōCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, with loss of only -i-, likely influenced by jeûnerCategory:Articles containing French-language text 'to fast' < OF jeünerCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text < je jeünCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text /d͡ʒe.ˈyn/Category:Pages with plain IPA 'I fast' < iē(i)ūnōCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text: iē- is an initial rather than intertonic so the vowel -ē- does not disappear).

Example of regular -er verb: durer (to last)

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
PresentSimple pastImperfectFuturePresentImperfectPresentPresent
jedurduraiduroiedureraidurdurassedureroie—
tuduresdurasduroisdurerasdursdurassesdureroisdure
ildureduraduroitdureradurtdurastdureroit—
nosduronsduramesduriiens/-ïonsdureronsduronsdurissons/-issiensdureriions/-ïonsdurons
vosdurezdurastesduriiezdureroiz/-ezdurezdurissoiz/-issez/-issiezdureriiez/-ïezdurez
ilsdurentdurerentduroientdurerontdurentdurassentdureroient—

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

Example of regular -ir verb: fenirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (to end)

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
PresentSimple pastImperfectFuturePresentImperfectPresentPresent
jefenisfenifenissoiefeniraifenissefenissefeniroie—
tufenisfenisfenissoiesfenirasfenissesfenissesfeniroisfenis
ilfenistfeni(t)fenissoitfenirafenisse(t)fenistfeniroit—
nosfenissonsfenimesfenissiiensfenironsfenissonsfenissons/-iensfeniriiensfenissons
vosfenissezfenistesfenissiiezfeniroiz/-ezfenissezfenissoiz/-ez/-iezfeniriiezfenissez
ilsfenissentfenirentfenissoientfenirontfenissentfenissentfeniroient—

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

Example of regular -re verb: correCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (to run)

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
PresentSimple pastImperfectFuturePresentImperfectPresentPresent
jecorcoruicoroiecorraicorecorussecorroie—
tucorscoruscoroiescorrascorescorussescorroiescor
ilcortcoru(t)coroitcorracore(t)corustcorroit—
noscoronscorumescoriienscorronscoronscorussons/-ienscorriienscorons
voscorezcorustescoriiezcorroiz/-ezcorezcorussoiz/-ez/-iezcorriiezcorez
ilscorentcorurentcoroientcorrontcorentcorussentcorroient—

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: estreCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

Examples of auxiliary verbs

avoirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (to have)
 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
PresentSimple pastImperfectFuturePresentImperfectPresentPresent
jeaieüi, oiavoieauraiaieüsseauroie—
tuais
(later as)		eüsavoisaurasaiseüssesauroisave
ilai
(later a)		eü(t), otavoitauraaieüstauroit—
nosavonseümesaviiens/-ïonsauronsaionseüssons/-issiensauravons/-ïonsavons
vosavezeüstesaviiezauroiz/-ezaiezeüssoiz/-issez/-issiezauravez/-ïezavez
ilsonteürentavoientaurontonteüssentauroient—

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

estreCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text (to be)
 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
PresentSimple pastImperfectFuturePresentImperfectPresentPresent
jesuisfui(i)ere
esteie > estoie		(i)er
serai
estrai		seie > soiefussesereie > seroie
estreie > estroie		—
tu(i)esfus(i)eres
esteies > estoies		(i)ers
seras
estras		seies > soiesfussessereies > seroies
estreies > estroies		seies > soies
ilestfu(t)(i)ere(t), (i)ert
esteit > estoit		(i)ert
sera(t)
estra(t)		seit > soitfustsereit > seroit
estreit > estroit		—
nossomes, esmesfumeseriiens, erions
estiiens, estions		(i)ermes
serons
estrons		seiiens, seions > soiiens, soionsfussons/-iensseriiens, serions
estriiens, estrions		seiiens > soiiens, seions > soions
vosestesfusteseriiez
estiiez		—
sere(i)z
estre(i)z		seiiez > soiiezfusseiz/-ez/-iezseriiez
estriiez		seiiez > soiiez
ilssontfurent(i)erent
esteient > estoient		(i)erent
seront
estront		seient > soientfussentsereient > seroient
estreient > estroient		—

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoirCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text

Other parts of speech

Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. Pronouns are usually declinable.

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ↑ Portuguese framboesaCategory:Articles containing Portuguese-language text 'raspberry' and Spanish frambuesaCategory:Articles containing Spanish-language text are French loans.
  2. ↑ Phonetic evolution approximately as follows: CL ⟨vicinus⟩ [wiːˈkiːnus]Category:Pages with plain IPA > VL [βeˈcinʊs]Category:Pages with plain IPA[38] > early Proto-GR *[βeˈdzʲinos]Category:Pages with plain IPA > OF ⟨veisins⟩ [vejˈzĩns]Category:Pages with plain IPA. The ModF counterpart is ⟨voisin⟩ [vwaˈzɛ̃]Category:Pages with plain IPA.
  3. ↑ The OF nominative sendreCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, inherited from Latin seniorCategory:Articles containing Latin-language text, appears only in the Oaths of Strasbourg, spelled sendraCategory:Articles containing Old French (842-ca. 1400)-language text, before it became obsolete.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Oil". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2022-10-08. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  2. ↑ Battye, Adrian; Hintze, Marie-Anne; Rowlett, Paul (2000). The French Language Today (2nd ed.). Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-136-90328-1. [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it was deemed no longer make to think of the varieties spoken in Gaul as Latin. Although a precise date can't be given, there is a general consensus (see Wright 1982, 1991, Lodge 1993) that an awareness of a vernacular, distinct from Latin, emerged at the end of the eighth century.]
  3. ↑ Kinoshita 2006, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Milis (1978)
  5. ↑ Lusignan, Serge (2004). La langue des rois au Moyen Âge: Le français en France et en Angleterre [The language of kings in the Middle Ages: French in France and England] (in French). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Category:CS1 French-language sources (fr)
  6. ↑ Jozsef, Herman (1997). "The end of the history of Latin". Vulgar Latin. Translated by Wright, Roger. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-02000-8.
  7. ↑ "Brill Online Dictionaries". Iedo.brillonline.nl. Archived from the original on 2013-06-17. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  8. ↑ "Romance languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  9. ↑ Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture – Google Boeken. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781884964985. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  10. ↑ "Definition of Italic". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on February 23, 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  11. ↑ "Definition of Romance". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on April 26, 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  12. ↑ Wright (1982), pp. 104–7
  13. ↑ Wright (1982), pp. 118–20
  14. ↑ Xavier, Delamarre (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise [Dictionary of the Gallic language] (in French). Paris: Errance.Category:CS1 French-language sources (fr)
  15. ↑ Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167
  16. 1 2 Lambert, Pierre-Yves (1994). La Langue gauloise [The Gallic language]. Paris: Errance. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-2-87772-224-7.
  17. ↑ Laurence Hélix (2011). Histoire de la langue française. Ellipses Edition Marketing S.A. p. 7. ISBN 978-2-7298-6470-5. Le déclin du Gaulois et sa disparition ne s'expliquent pas seulement par des pratiques culturelles spécifiques: Lorsque les Romains conduits par César envahirent la Gaule, au 1er siecle avant J.-C., celle-ci romanisa de manière progressive et profonde. Pendant près de 500 ans, la fameuse période gallo-romaine, le gaulois et le latin parlé coexistèrent; au VIe siècle encore; le temoignage de Grégoire de Tours atteste la survivance de la langue gauloise.
  18. ↑ Peter Schrijver, Studies in the History of Celtic Pronouns and Particles, Maynooth, 1997, 15.
  19. 1 2 Savignac, Jean-Paul (2004). Dictionnaire Français-Gaulois. Paris: La Différence. p. 26.
  20. ↑ Henri Guiter, "Sur le substrat gaulois dans la Romania", in Munus amicitae. Studia linguistica in honorem Witoldi Manczak septuagenarii, eds., Anna Bochnakowa & Stanislan Widlak, Krakow, 1995.
  21. ↑ Eugeen Roegiest, Vers les sources des langues romanes: Un itinéraire linguistique à travers la Romania (Leuven, Belgium: Acco, 2006), 83.
  22. ↑ Matasovic, Ranko (2007). "Insular Celtic as a Language Area". Papers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies. The Celtic Languages in Contact: 106.
  23. ↑ Adams, J. N. (2007). "Chapter V – Regionalisms in provincial texts: Gaul". The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC – AD 600. Cambridge. pp. 279–289. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511482977. ISBN 9780511482977.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Category:CS1 maint: location missing publisher
  24. ↑ Polinsky, Maria; Van Everbroeck, Ezra (2003). "Development of Gender Classifications: Modeling the Historical Change from Latin to French". Language. 79 (2): 356–390. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.134.9933. doi:10.1353/lan.2003.0131. JSTOR 4489422. S2CID 6797972.
  25. ↑ Bernard Cerquiglini, La naissance du français, Presses Universitaires de France, 2nd edn., chap. 3, 1993, p. 53.
  26. ↑ Cerquiglini 53
  27. ↑ Cerquiglini 26.
  28. ↑ "Etymology of frambuesa (Spanish)". Buscon.rae.es. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  29. ↑ Pope, Mildred Katherine (1934). From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and Morphology. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719001765. Retrieved 15 March 2023. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Category:CS1 errors: ISBN date
  30. ↑ La Chanson de Roland. Edited and Translated into Modern French by Ian Short. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1990. p. 12. ISBN 978-2-253-05341-5
  31. ↑ (in French)Category:Articles with French-language sources (fr) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle", Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 16.
  32. ↑ (in French)Category:Articles with French-language sources (fr) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle", Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 36–37.
  33. ↑ Rickard 1989: 47–8, Laborderie 1994: § 2.2
  34. ↑ Berthon, H. E.; Starkey, V. G. (1908). Tables synoptiques de phonologie de l'ancien français. Oxford Clarendon Press.
  35. ↑ Zink (1999), p. 132
  36. ↑ Per Hall (1946), converted from Americanist notation to IPA and with corrected word order at the beginning of line four.
  37. ↑ Hall, Robert A. (1946). "Old French Phonemes and Orthography". Studies in Philology. 43 (4): 575–585. ISSN 0039-3738. JSTOR 4172774.
  38. ↑ Pope 1934: § 294
  39. ↑ Moignet (1988, p. 26–31), Zink (1992, p. 39–48), de La Chaussée (1977, p. 39–44)

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Category:Old French#%20 Category:French language Category:Languages attested from the 8th century Category:Medieval languages#French,%201