Editing French language (section)

=== Middle French ===
{{Main|Middle French}}
Within Old French many dialects emerged but the [[Francien language|Francien]] dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries).<ref name=":02" /> Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect.<ref name=":02" /> Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. [[Robert Estienne]] published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Victor |first=Joseph M. |title=Charles de Bovelles, 1479–1553: An Intellectual Biography |publisher=Librairie Droz |year=1978 |page=28}}</ref> Politically, the first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the [[Aosta Valley]] in 1536, while the [[Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts]] (1539) named French the language of law in the [[Kingdom of France]].