Editing Oaths of Strasbourg (section)

== Linguistic features ==
Several scholars consider the Romance portion of the Oaths to have been translated from an unattested Latin original,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Machonis |first=Peter A. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/160130774|title=Histoire de la langue : du latin à l'ancien français|date=1990|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=0-8191-7874-8|pages=115|oclc=160130774}}</ref> while others maintain its originality.<ref>Cerquiglini (2007), {{p.|98}}</ref>

According to Hall, the text does not contain any particular features that would mark it as belonging to the future [[Langues d'oïl|Oïl]] or [[Oc language family|Oc]] groups, with the possible exception of the form ''tanit'' 'keep' < *tɛ́ni̯at, which is characteristic of [[Lorraine]]. Hall describes the language of the text as "nearly undifferentiated conservative Pre-French".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hall|first=Robert A.|date=1953|title=The Oaths of Strassburg: Phonemics and Classification|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/410027|journal=Language|volume=29|issue=3|pages=317–321|doi=10.2307/410027|jstor=410027|issn=0097-8507}}</ref>

The difficulty of discerning a particular dialect in the text<ref>{{Cite book|last=Allières |first=Jacques |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/758872392|title=La formation de la langue française|date=2010|publisher=P.U.F|pages=11|oclc=758872392}}</ref> may be due to a deliberate effort by the author to write in a sort of regional [[Koiné language|koiné]].<ref>Machonis (1990), p. 119</ref><ref>Cerquiglini (2007), pp. 44, 56</ref> Cerquiglini further observes that "No Old French text, not even any of the oldest ones, shows dialectal features consistent with only one particular region."<ref>Cerquiglini (2007), p. 66</ref>

Nevertheless, various other scholars have suggested that the Oaths were written in an early form of [[Picard language|Picard]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Paris, Gaston|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/754313496|title=Les serments prêtés à Strasbourg en 842|date=1879|publisher=De Boccard|oclc=754313496}}</ref> [[Franco-Provençal language|Lyonnais]],<ref>Suchier, Hermann, « Zur Lautlehre der Strassburger Eide », ''Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Sprache und Literatur'', n. s., 1, 1874</ref> [[Lorrain language|Lorraine]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tabachovitz, A|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1140826196|title=Etude sur la langue de la version française des Serments de Strasbourg|date=1932|oclc=1140826196}}</ref> or [[Poitevin dialect|Poitevin]].<ref>Arrigo Castellani, « L'ancien poitevin et le problème linguistique des Serments de Strasbourg » dans ''Cultura néolatina'' 29, pp. 201-234.</ref>