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I am no specialist at all on this question, but some affirmations on the list of phonological changes supposedly attributed to the Gaulish influence appear to me highly dubious. For example,I've been told that the fronting from [u] to [y], attributed here to Gaulism, was rather a modification that resulted by the influence of the Franks misprononciation, and this fact explains why it is not present in Spanish or Italian. Moreover, the Old French page indicates that this fronting happened essentially in Medieval time, well after Gauls adopted Vulgar Latin. It is as though the contributor that attributed the fronting to [y] to the Gauls concluded this simply on the fact that Gauls had the [y] prononciation, but it could well be possible that the sound [y] was lost in France, but was later re-introduced.
This is one example, but many of the items in this list appear dubious as well, in part because they are not present in Spanish, which also resulting of a Celtic-speaking people switching to Latin. On the Spanish language page, only (1) the frication and deletion of voiced intervocalic consonants (g, d, b) and (2) the palatalization of jod [j] to [dj] to [ž]; ego > je are mentionned as changes in vulgar Latin influenced by the Celtic-speaking origin of the Spaniard. Moreover, on the Old French page, there is also a section called From Vulgar Latin to Old French, which summarize the linguistic changes that happened, and this list does not necessarily corresponds well to the one summarized here.
It would be cool if someone could make Wikipedia more coherent on this specific issue. Marcus wilby73 21:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The 'Modern french' section is stolen almost entirely from http://www.french-language-guide.com/french/history.asp 81.158.238.224 20:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm rather surprised that the Franks had, apparently, such a small influence on French. When they moved into "Gaul," did they adopt the Vulgar Latin spoken there as more than a lingua franca? RobertM525 ( talk) 19:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Much of this page is absolute, total garbage. For example, the whole set of sound and grammatical changes supposedly due to Celtic substratum influence is just junk. It looks to me like a lot of original research done by an amateur linguist, looking at similarities between Celtic and Old French and therefore concluding that there must be a connection. In reality, proving such connections is extremely hard, and most researchers in the field are doubtful of all such claims, especially for common sound changes, which many of these are. When I have a bit more time I'm going to delete all the junk. In any case a lot of info in Old French should go here instead. Benwing ( talk) 03:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
T. F. Hoad in English Etymology writes, that farm comes from Middle English ferme, borrowed itself from French. Where does this Old English form come from ?? The Anglo-Latin firma comes from Latin. The French verb fermer is already attested in a close meaning as a figurative meaning of French fermer : to close and ferme < firmus, stable, etc. How could have such a word as feorm [?] be latinized in firma ? and firma would have given in English *firm, not ferme or farm. Nortmannus ( talk) 12:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I think Julius Caesar's name is spelled incorrectly in section 1.1. Does someone beg to differ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.252.116.121 ( talk) 23:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
In case any anonymous editors want to explain why the unknown/undocumented language of the Belgae with zero relevance for the evolution of French deserves to be mentioned in this article… this is the place to do it. In the meantime, unmotivated additions to the article will continue to be removed. CapnPrep ( talk) 00:59, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
The ordering of the /e/ > /ɛ/ change is problematic in the (awesome) table of vowel outcomes. To wit, the word-final development of "Later Old French" /ɛ/ seems to be being sensitive to what its origin was: old /æ ie ai/ go one way, /ɛ e/ another. That shouldn't happen (unless this was some big spelling pronunciation phenomenon or the like -- surely not?). So there should be some /e/ or something else in the Later Old French column, at least finally. But where? 4pq1injbok ( talk) 04:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
This article was becoming too long, and it had two preety differentiated sections, so I'm moving all the phonological changes to a new page, as it's been done in other languages. Thanks!-- Fauban 11:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
There is a [citation needed] at the end of this section. Is it possible to track the writer and ask for one? Muleiolenimi ( talk) 22:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
OMG, who is asleep at the switch??? French is N O T a Japanese Language derived from the Chinese spoken in Northern France. Ack!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1300:F7C:409B:3ACF:C9C1:FB4D ( talk) 00:41, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Afaicr, most people in France did not speak any standardized variety of French before around the middle of the nineteenth century, and millions of people speaking languages like Occitan, Provencal, Breton, Gascon, Alsatian, Catalan, Basque, or others spoke no French so people from different parts of the country could not easily communicate. The primacy of French happened over time, of course, Unless there's another article about French in France, this article should be expanded to cover this important issue about the history of French in France. The article Language policy in France talks about it briefly, and so does France in the long nineteenth century but neither have a full treatment. Either this article, or one of those, should cover this important feature of the development of French in France. Mathglot ( talk) 00:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 17:45, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 13:15, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
The loss of the neuter was beginning as early as Petronius. There are examples in the dialogues of the Cena, and there's more in the Latin of Apuleius. Fuficius Fango ( talk) 16:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I am no specialist at all on this question, but some affirmations on the list of phonological changes supposedly attributed to the Gaulish influence appear to me highly dubious. For example,I've been told that the fronting from [u] to [y], attributed here to Gaulism, was rather a modification that resulted by the influence of the Franks misprononciation, and this fact explains why it is not present in Spanish or Italian. Moreover, the Old French page indicates that this fronting happened essentially in Medieval time, well after Gauls adopted Vulgar Latin. It is as though the contributor that attributed the fronting to [y] to the Gauls concluded this simply on the fact that Gauls had the [y] prononciation, but it could well be possible that the sound [y] was lost in France, but was later re-introduced.
This is one example, but many of the items in this list appear dubious as well, in part because they are not present in Spanish, which also resulting of a Celtic-speaking people switching to Latin. On the Spanish language page, only (1) the frication and deletion of voiced intervocalic consonants (g, d, b) and (2) the palatalization of jod [j] to [dj] to [ž]; ego > je are mentionned as changes in vulgar Latin influenced by the Celtic-speaking origin of the Spaniard. Moreover, on the Old French page, there is also a section called From Vulgar Latin to Old French, which summarize the linguistic changes that happened, and this list does not necessarily corresponds well to the one summarized here.
It would be cool if someone could make Wikipedia more coherent on this specific issue. Marcus wilby73 21:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The 'Modern french' section is stolen almost entirely from http://www.french-language-guide.com/french/history.asp 81.158.238.224 20:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm rather surprised that the Franks had, apparently, such a small influence on French. When they moved into "Gaul," did they adopt the Vulgar Latin spoken there as more than a lingua franca? RobertM525 ( talk) 19:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Much of this page is absolute, total garbage. For example, the whole set of sound and grammatical changes supposedly due to Celtic substratum influence is just junk. It looks to me like a lot of original research done by an amateur linguist, looking at similarities between Celtic and Old French and therefore concluding that there must be a connection. In reality, proving such connections is extremely hard, and most researchers in the field are doubtful of all such claims, especially for common sound changes, which many of these are. When I have a bit more time I'm going to delete all the junk. In any case a lot of info in Old French should go here instead. Benwing ( talk) 03:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
T. F. Hoad in English Etymology writes, that farm comes from Middle English ferme, borrowed itself from French. Where does this Old English form come from ?? The Anglo-Latin firma comes from Latin. The French verb fermer is already attested in a close meaning as a figurative meaning of French fermer : to close and ferme < firmus, stable, etc. How could have such a word as feorm [?] be latinized in firma ? and firma would have given in English *firm, not ferme or farm. Nortmannus ( talk) 12:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I think Julius Caesar's name is spelled incorrectly in section 1.1. Does someone beg to differ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.252.116.121 ( talk) 23:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
In case any anonymous editors want to explain why the unknown/undocumented language of the Belgae with zero relevance for the evolution of French deserves to be mentioned in this article… this is the place to do it. In the meantime, unmotivated additions to the article will continue to be removed. CapnPrep ( talk) 00:59, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
The ordering of the /e/ > /ɛ/ change is problematic in the (awesome) table of vowel outcomes. To wit, the word-final development of "Later Old French" /ɛ/ seems to be being sensitive to what its origin was: old /æ ie ai/ go one way, /ɛ e/ another. That shouldn't happen (unless this was some big spelling pronunciation phenomenon or the like -- surely not?). So there should be some /e/ or something else in the Later Old French column, at least finally. But where? 4pq1injbok ( talk) 04:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
This article was becoming too long, and it had two preety differentiated sections, so I'm moving all the phonological changes to a new page, as it's been done in other languages. Thanks!-- Fauban 11:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
There is a [citation needed] at the end of this section. Is it possible to track the writer and ask for one? Muleiolenimi ( talk) 22:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
OMG, who is asleep at the switch??? French is N O T a Japanese Language derived from the Chinese spoken in Northern France. Ack!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:1300:F7C:409B:3ACF:C9C1:FB4D ( talk) 00:41, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Afaicr, most people in France did not speak any standardized variety of French before around the middle of the nineteenth century, and millions of people speaking languages like Occitan, Provencal, Breton, Gascon, Alsatian, Catalan, Basque, or others spoke no French so people from different parts of the country could not easily communicate. The primacy of French happened over time, of course, Unless there's another article about French in France, this article should be expanded to cover this important issue about the history of French in France. The article Language policy in France talks about it briefly, and so does France in the long nineteenth century but neither have a full treatment. Either this article, or one of those, should cover this important feature of the development of French in France. Mathglot ( talk) 00:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 17:45, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 13:15, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
The loss of the neuter was beginning as early as Petronius. There are examples in the dialogues of the Cena, and there's more in the Latin of Apuleius. Fuficius Fango ( talk) 16:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)