Linguists divide theRomance languages of France, and especially ofMedieval France, into two main geographical subgroups: thelangues d'oïl to the north, and thelangues d'oc in the southern half of France. Both groups are named after the word foryes in their recent ancestral languages. The most common modernlangue d'oïl is standard French, in which the ancestraloïl has becomeoui.
Langue d'oïl (in the singular),Oïl dialects andOïl languages (in the plural) designate the ancient northern Gallo-Romance languages as well as their modern-day descendants. They share many linguistic features, a prominent one being the wordoïl foryes. (Oc was and still is the southern word foryes, hence thelangue d'oc orOccitan languages). The most widely spoken modern Oïl language isFrench (oïl was pronounced[o.il] or[o.i], which has become[wi], in modern Frenchoui).[7]
In the singular,langue d'oïl refers to the mutually intelligible linguistic variants oflingua romana spoken since the 8th century in northern France and southern Belgium (Wallonia), since the 10th century in theChannel Islands, and between the 11th and 14th centuries inEngland (theAnglo-Norman language).Langue d'oïl, the term itself, has been used in the singular since the 12th century to denote this ancient linguistic grouping as a whole. With these qualifiers,langue d'oïl sometimes is used to mean the same asOld French (seeHistory below).[8]
Oïl languages are those modern-day descendants that evolved separately from the varieties of the ancientlangue d'oïl. Consequently,langues d'oïl today may apply either: to all the modern-day languages of this familyexcept the French language; or to this familyincluding French. "Oïl dialects" or "French dialects" are also used to refer to theOïl languages except French—as some extant Oïl languages are very close to modern French. Because the termdialect is sometimes considered pejorative, the trend today among French linguists is to refer to these languages aslangues d'oïl rather thandialects.[citation needed]
For the history of phonology, orthography, syntax and morphology, seeHistory of the French language and the relevant individual Oïl language articles.
Each of the Oïl languages has developed in its own way from the common ancestor, and division of the development into periods varies according to the individual histories. Modern linguistics uses the following terms:
In the 9th century,romana lingua (the term used in theOaths of Strasbourg of 842) was the first of the Romance languages to be recognized by its speakers as a distinct language, probably because it was the most different fromLatin compared with the other Romance languages (seeHistory of the French language).
Many of the developments that are now considered typical ofWalloon appeared between the 8th and 12th centuries. Walloon "had a clearly defined identity from the beginning of the thirteenth century". In any case, linguistic texts from the time do not mention the language, even though they mention others in the Oïl family, such as Picard and Lorrain. During the 15th century, scribes in the region called the language "Roman" when they needed to distinguish it. It is not until the beginning of the 16th century that we find the first occurrence of the word "Walloon" in the same linguistic sense that we use it today.
By late- or post-Roman timesVulgar Latin within France had developed two distinctive terms for signifying assent (yes):hoc ille ("this (is) it") andhoc ("this"), which becameoïl andoc, respectively. Subsequent development changed "oïl" into "oui", as in modern French. The termlangue d'oïl itself was first used in the 12th century, referring to the Old French linguistic grouping noted above. In the 14th century, the Italian poetDante mentioned theyes distinctions in hisDe vulgari eloquentia. He wrote inMedieval Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say 'oc', others say 'sì', others say 'oïl'")—thereby distinguishing at least three classes of Romance languages:oc languages (in southern France);si languages (inItaly andIberia) andoïl languages (in northern France).[citation needed]
Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the classical Latinsic'thus', such as theItaliansì,Spanish andCatalansí,Portuguesesim, and evenFrenchsi (used when contradicting another's negative assertion).Sardinian is an exception in that its word for "yes",eja, is from neither origin.[10] SimilarlyRomanian usesda for "yes", which is assumed to be of Slavic origin,[11] but may be from Latinita vero, "truly so".
However, neitherlingua romana norlangue d'oïl referred, at their respective time, to a single homogeneous language but tomutually intelligible linguistic varieties. In those times, spoken languages in Western Europe were not codified (except Latin and Medieval Latin), the region's population was considerably lower than today, and population centers were more isolated from each other. As a result, mutually intelligible linguistic varieties were referred to as one language.[citation needed]
French (Old French/Standardized Oïl) or lingua Gallicana
In the 13th century these varieties were recognized and referred to asdialects ("idioms") of a single language, thelangue d'oïl. However, since the previous centuries a common literary and juridical "interdialectary" langue d'oïl had emerged, a kind ofkoiné. In the late 13th century this common langue d'oïl was namedFrench (françois in French,lingua gallica orgallicana in Medieval Latin). Both aspects of"dialects of a same language" and"French as the common langue d'oïl" appear in a text ofRoger Bacon,Opus maius, who wrote in Medieval Latin but translated thus: "Indeed, idioms of a same language vary amongst people, as it occurs in the French language which varies in an idiomatic manner amongst the French,Picards,Normans andBurgundians. And terms right to the Picards horrify the Burgundians as much as their closer neighbours the French".[citation needed]
It is from this period though that definitions of individual Oïl languages are first found. The Picard language is first referred to by name as"langage pikart" in 1283 in theLivre Roisin. The author of theVie du bienheureux Thomas Hélye de Biville refers to the Norman character of his writing. TheSermons poitevins of around 1250 show the Poitevin language developing as it straddled the line between oïl and oc.
As a result, in modern times the termlangue d'oïl also refers to thatOld French which was not as yet namedFrench but was already—before the late 13th century—used as a literary and juridicalinterdialectary language.
The termFrancien is a linguisticneologism coined in the 19th century to name the hypothetical variant of Old French allegedly spoken by thelate 14th century in the ancient province ofPays de France—the thenParis region later calledÎle-de-France. ThisFrancien, it is claimed, became the Medieval French language. Current linguistic thinking mostly discounts theFrancien theory, although it is still often quoted in popular textbooks. The termfrancien was never used by those people supposed to have spoken the variant; but today the term could be used to designate that specific10th-and-11th centuries variant of langue d'oïl spoken in the Paris region; both variants contributed to the koine, as both were calledFrench at that time.
Rise of French (Standardized Oïl) versus other Oïl languages
For political reasons it was in Paris and Île-de-France that this koiné developed from a written language into a spoken language. Already in the 12th centuryConon de Béthune reported about the French court who blamed him for using words ofArtois.
By the late 13th century the written koiné had begun to turn into aspoken and written standard language, and was namedFrench. Since then French started to be imposed on the other Oïl dialects as well as on the territories oflangue d'oc.
However, the Oïl dialects andlangue d'oc continued contributing to the lexis of French.
In 1539 the French language was imposed by theOrdinance of Villers-Cotterêts. It required Latin be replaced in judgements and official acts and deeds. The local Oïl languages had always been the language spoken in justice courts. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts was not intended to make French a national language, merely a chancery language for law and administration. Although there were competing literary standards among the Oïl languages in the mediæval period, the centralisation of theFrench kingdom and its influence even outside its formal borders sent most of the Oïl languages into comparative obscurity for several centuries. The development of literature in this new language encouraged writers to use French rather than their ownregional languages. This led to the decline ofvernacular literature.
It was theFrench Revolution which imposed French on the people as the official language in all the territory. As the influence of French (and in the Channel Islands, English) spread among sectors of provincial populations, cultural movements arose to study and standardise the vernacular languages. From the 18th century and into the 20th century, societies were founded (such as the "Société liégoise de Littérature wallonne" in 1856), dictionaries (such asGeorge Métivier'sDictionnaire franco-normand of 1870) were published, groups were formed and literary movements developed to support and promote the Oïl languages faced with competition. The Third Republic sought to modernise France and established primary education where the only language recognised was French. Regional languages were discouraged, and the use of French was seen as aspirational, accelerating their decline.[12] This was also generally the case in areas where Oïl languages were spoken. French is now the best-known of the Oïl languages.
The Oïl languages have literary traditions, as for example seen in this 19th-century collection of Jèrriais short stories
Besides the influence ofFrench literature, small-scale literature has survived in the other Oïl languages. Theatrical writing is most notable inPicard (which maintains a genre of vernacularmarionette theatre),Poitevin andSaintongeais. Oral performance (story-telling) is a feature ofGallo, for example, whileNorman andWalloon literature, especially from the early 19th century tend to focus on written texts and poetry (see, for example,Wace andJèrriais literature).
As the vernacular Oïl languages were displaced from towns, they have generally survived to a greater extent in rural areas - hence a preponderance of literature relating to rural and peasant themes. The particular circumstances of the self-governing Channel Islands developed a lively strain of political comment, and the early industrialisation in Picardy led to survival of Picard in the mines and workshops of the regions. The mining poets of Picardy may be compared with the tradition of rhymingWeaver Poets ofUlster Scots in a comparable industrial milieu.
There are some regional magazines, such asCh'lanchron (Picard),Le Viquet (Norman),Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine[1] (Jèrriais), andEl Bourdon (Walloon), which are published either wholly in the respective Oïl language or bilingually with French. These provide a platform for literary writing.
Bilingual street sign formarket square in French andWalloon
Apart from French, an official language in many countries (seelist), the Oïl languages have enjoyed little status in recent times.
Currently Walloon,Lorrain (under the local name ofGaumais), andChampenois have the status of regional languages ofWallonia.
The Norman languages of the Channel Islands enjoy a certain status under the governments of theirBailiwicks and within the regional and lesser-used language framework of theBritish-Irish Council. TheAnglo-Norman language, a variant of Norman once the official language of England, today holds mostly a place of ceremonial honour in the United Kingdom (now referred to asLaw French).
Thelangues d'oïl were more or less influenced by the native languages of the conqueringGermanic tribes, notably theFranks. This was apparent not so much in the vocabulary (which remained overwhelmingly of Latin origin) as in the phonology and syntax; the invading Franks, Burgundians and Normans became the rulers and their accents were imposed as standard on the rest of the population. This accounts in large part for the relative distinctiveness of French compared to other Romance languages.
TheEnglish language was heavily influenced by contact with Norman following theNorman Conquest and much of the adopted vocabulary shows typically Norman features.
Portuguese was heavily influenced by more than a millennium of perennial contact with several dialects of both Oïl andOccitan language groups, in lexicon (up to 15–20% in some estimates, at least 5000 word roots), phonology and orthography.[14][15][16] The influence of Occitan was, nevertheless, the most marked, through the status Provençal in particular achieved in southwestern Europe around thetroubadour apex in the Middle Ages, whenGalician-Portuguese lyric was developed. Aside the direct influence of Provençal literature, the presence of languages from modern-day France in the Galician-Portuguese area was also strong due to the rule of theHouse of Burgundy, the establishment of the Orders ofCluny andCister, the manysections of theWay of St. James pilgrimage route that come from elsewhere in Europe out of the Iberian Peninsula, and the settlement in Iberia of people from the other side of the Pyrenees, arriving during and after theReconquista.[17][18]
Theanti-Portuguese factor ofBrazilian nationalism in the 19th century led to an increased use of the French language in detriment of Portuguese, as France was seen at the time as a model of civilization and progress.[19] The learning of French has historically been important and strong among the Lusophone elites, and for a great span of time it was also the foreign language of choice among the middle class of both Portugal and Brazil, only surpassed in theglobalisedpostmodernity by English.[20][21][22][23]
