Editing French language (section)

=== Old French ===
{{Main|Old French}}The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=HarvardKey – Login |url=https://www.pin1.harvard.edu/cas/login;jsessionid=BB951275000142B63AD17A43564E70A5?service=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pin1.harvard.edu%2Fpin%2Fauthenticate%2FHUL_ACC_MGMT_SVC%3Bjsessionid%3DBB951275000142B63AD17A43564E70A5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813193930/https://www.pin1.harvard.edu/cas/login;jsessionid=BB951275000142B63AD17A43564E70A5?service=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pin1.harvard.edu%2Fpin%2Fauthenticate%2FHUL_ACC_MGMT_SVC%3Bjsessionid%3DBB951275000142B63AD17A43564E70A5 |archive-date=13 August 2021 |access-date=16 May 2019 |website=pin1.harvard.edu}}</ref> A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke {{lang|fr|[[langue d'oïl]]}} while the population in the south spoke {{lang|fr|[[langue d'oc]]}}.<ref name=":02" /> Langue d'oïl grew into what is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the late 8th<ref name="French first attested">{{cite book |last1=Battye |first1=Adrian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RnUGCAAAQBAJ&dq=History+of+French+language&pg=PP1 |title=The French Language Today |last2=Hintze |first2=Marie-Anne |last3=Rowlett |first3=Paul |date=2000 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-90328-1 |edition=2nd |pages=12}} [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.]</ref> and mid-14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because [[Old French#Nouns|it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects]].<ref name="Lahousse_2012">{{Cite journal |last1=Lahousse |first1=Karen |last2=Lamiroy |first2=Béatrice |year=2012 |title=Word order in French, Spanish and Italian:A grammaticalization account |url=https://lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/329255 |url-status=live |journal=Folia Linguistica |language=en |volume=46 |issue=2 |doi=10.1515/flin.2012.014 |issn=1614-7308 |s2cid=146854174 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427075923/https://lirias.kuleuven.be/handle/123456789/329255 |archive-date=27 April 2021 |access-date=7 January 2021}}</ref> The period is marked by a heavy [[superstrate]] influence from the Germanic [[Frankish language]], which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of [[V2 word order]],<ref>Rowlett, P. 2007. The Syntax of French. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page 4</ref> a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary<ref>Pope, Mildred K. (1934). From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman Phonology and Morphology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.</ref>) including the impersonal singular pronoun ''on'' (a calque of Germanic ''man''), and the name of the language itself.

Up until its later stages, [[Old French]], alongside [[Old Occitan]], maintained a relic of the old nominal [[case system]] of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated [[diphthong]]s such as ''-eau'' which would later be leveled to monophthongs.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in the [[Oaths of Strasbourg]] and the ''[[Sequence of Saint Eulalia]]'', while [[Medieval French literature|Old French literature]] began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the ''Vie de Saint Alexis''), or wars and royal courts, notably including the ''[[Chanson de Roland]]'', [[Matter of Britain|epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court]], as well as [[Geste de Garin de Monglane|a cycle focused]] on [[William of Gellone|William of Orange]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

During the period of the [[Crusades]] French became so dominant in the [[Mediterranean Sea]] that it became a ''[[lingua franca]]'' ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the [[Arabs]] during the Crusades, who referred to them{{who?|date=March 2025}} as ''Franj'', numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as ''amiral'' (admiral), ''alcool'' (alcohol), ''coton'' (cotton) and ''sirop'' (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as ''algébre'' (algebra), ''alchimie'' (alchemy) and ''zéro'' (zero).<ref name="google.fr">{{Cite book |last1=Nadeau |first1=Jean-Benoit |author-link=Jean-Benoît Nadeau |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JYDOrzMpgGcC&pg=PT34 |title=The Story of French |last2=Barlow |first2=Julie |author-link2=Julie Barlow |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4299-3240-0 |pages=34ff |access-date=4 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240518175328/https://books.google.com/books?id=JYDOrzMpgGcC&pg=PT34#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=18 May 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>