Concept
Old French
Overview
Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; French: ancien français [ɑ̃sjɛ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛ]) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th 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'oïl, contrasting with the langues d'oc, the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania, now Southern 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 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The Fireship is old France, the old French Form of Life; her creed a Generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings there, like spirits tormented in that flame. But, on the whole, are they not _gone_, O Reader?
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
Opens on Old French; names Old French.
Quicumque solam mente praecipiti petit Summumque credit gloriam, Late patentes aetheris cernat plagas Artumque terrarum situm. Breuem replere non ualentis ambitum 5 Pudebit aucti nominis. Quid o superbi colla mortali iugo Frustra leuare gestiunt? Licet remotos fama per populos means Diffusa linguas explicet 10 Et magna titulis fulgeat claris domus, Mors spernit altam gloriam, Inuoluit humile pariter et celsum caput…
Boethius, The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy
The author is tied to Old French in the knowledge graph.
Had I had an opportunity of examining the Cambridge MS. carefully throughout before the work was so far advanced, I should certainly have selected it in preference to the text now given to the reader. Though not so ancient as the British Museum MS., it is far more correct in its grammatical inflexions, and is no doubt a copy of an older and very accurate text.
Boethius, Chaucer's Translation of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiae"
States what Old French is; the author is tied to Old French in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Old French
Related ideas
- French language
- First Crusade
- French Revolution
- Anglo-Norman language
- Grammatical gender
- Great Britain
- Language contact
- Alcuin
- Hagiography
- Boethius
- Normandy
- Phonology
- Portuguese language
- Rhetoric
- Spanish language
- Kingdom of France
- Renaissance of the 12th century
- Belgium
- Welsh language
- Crusades
- Logic
- Breton language
- Provence
- Western Roman Empire
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Language.