History of the French language

The prehistory of the French language begins with the colonisation of Gaul by the Romans. The Celts who inhabited Gaul when the Romans came were Indo-Europeans, related to the Greeks, Romans and Germanic peoples in both culture and language.

They appear to have lived originally in central or eastern Europe, but began to move westwards around 500 B.C and settled in Gaul some two hundred years later, displacing the other peoples whom they found there, notably the Iberians, who were driven towards the south-east. By this time there were also important Greek settlements on the Mediterranean coast at such places as Marseilles, Nice and Antibes, which have preserved their Greek names. In the second century B.C these Greek settlers, harassed by the Gauls, asked for Roman campaign in Gaul, a campaign which, spread over thirty years from 154 to 125 B.C,. led to the conquest of what the Romans then called the Provincia or province, a name which survives today as Provence. At first the Roman colony extend from the Alps to the Rhone, to the eastern Pyrenees, taking in what is today Roussillon. In 57 B.C., Julius Caesar undertook the conquest of the rest of Gaul, a process which was virtually complete by 52 B.C., for the Gauls, essentially a loose confederation of tribes, lacked political unity.

In the newly conquered territory, Gauls of any rank who had anything to do with administration and supply soon found that they had an incentive to learn Latin. Moreover, the only kind of education available was the Roman one: indeed, the Gauls could not write at all until they learned the art from the Romans, and this explains why those few monuments of the Gaulish tongue which have come down to us are mostly written in the Roman alphabet. Even so, Romanisation and Latinisation were a very gradual process. The bestowal of Roman citizenship on all free-born inhabitants of the Empire by Caracalla in A.D. 212 probably made no very great difference to the linguistic situation in Gaul, and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that in the second or third century A.D., in areas remote from Roman supply routes, Latin would be seldom heard and even more seldom understood, and Gaulish the normal language used. For this very reason, perhaps, Gaulish eventually lost much of its former prestige, and came to be looked down on as the speech of rustic underlings. Even so, it seems to have lingered on in places until as late as the fifth century; while in the Rhone delta Greek was used as well as Latin in Christian worship until as late as the sixth century.

In Gallo-Roman France, a split occurred between north and south, assisted by incursions of Germanic-speaking Franks--whence the name "France"--into the north. Here, too, further dialectalization occurred throughout the Middle Ages, resulting in a multitude of speech forms such as Francien, Picard, Norman, Lorrain, and Walloon. Southern French, or Provençal, split into Languedocien, Auvergnat, and many other dialects. The dialect of Paris gradually became the national language, however, because of the political prestige of the capital and today is accepted as the model for the French language.

In a nutshell:

1. Gallo-Romance (5th-8th centuries). The Vulgar Latin in Gaul has developped specific features that made it distinct from the Latin spoken in the other regions of the Roman empire. The Reichenau Glosses are a good example of its phonetics and vocabulary.
2. Old French (9th-13th centuries). The dialects of Northern Gaul developed into separate language (Langue d'oil) with a grammar of its own. The first written materials in it date from the Strasbourg Oaths of 842. The Old French literature flourished since the 10th century. French in this period was already taught in the neighboring countries (especially in Germany). In 11th-13th centuries it was the dominant language of the English administration. It was, also, the language of the crusaders in the Levantine countries.
3. Middle French (14th-15th centuries). This period was marked by changes both in the pronunciation and in the grammar. A common literary language, based on the dialect of Île de France (the region of Paris), was promoted by the writers. French was replacing Latin in the texts of the public administration in France.
4. Early Modern French (16th century). The aim of the writers of this period, as is the case of the poets of La Pléiade, was to elevate the French language to the level of Latin as a medium for literary expression, In 1539 a royal decree proclaimed French official language of the public administration. Since that period the government was always involved in the development and the standardization of the language.
5. Classical Modern French (17th-18th century). In this period were fixed the main grammar convention of the modern French. By then it was used as an international language throughout Europe and even in the administrative correspondence of countries as Germany. With the colonial expansion of France French spread to America (Canada, Louisiana, the Caribbean islands etc.).
6. Contemporary Modern French (since 19th century). The contemporary pronunciation of the standard language was fixed in that period, namely between 1789 and 1918. French was established as an official language in the French and Belgian colonial possessions in Africa.

Nowadays the French language (FRANÇAIS) is the only official language of France. 51,000,000 first language speakers in France; 6,000,000 in Canada; 1,100,000 in USA; 40,000 in Israel; 72,000,000 in all countries, mother tongue; 124,000,000 in all countries including second language speakers.