 | This articleis missing information about the phonology of Middle French. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(April 2020) |
| Middle French | |
|---|---|
| françois, franceis | |
| Region | France |
| Era | Evolved intoModern French by the early 17th century |
Early forms | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | frm |
| ISO 639-3 | frm |
| Glottolog | midd1316 |
Middle French (French:moyen français) is a historical division of theFrench language that covers the period from the mid-14th to the early 17th centuries.[3][4] It is a period of transition during which:
It is the first version of French that is largelyintelligible to Modern French, contrary toOld French.[citation needed]
The most important change found in Middle French is the complete disappearance of the noundeclension system, which had been underway for centuries. There was no longer a distinction betweennominative andoblique forms ofnouns, andplurals became indicated by simply ans. The transformations necessitated an increased reliance onword order in the sentence, which becomes more or less thesyntax of Modern but with a continued reliance on the verb in the second position of a sentence, or "verb-second structure", until the 16th century.[5]
Among the elites, Latin was still the language of education, administration, and bureaucracy. That changed in 1539, with theOrdinance of Villers-Cotterêts, in whichFrancis I madeFrench the sole language for legal acts. Regional differences were still extreme throughout theKingdom of France: in the south of France,Occitan languages dominated; in east-central France,Franco-Provençal languages were predominant; and in the north of France, Oïl languages other thanFrancien continued to be spoken.
The fascination with classical texts led to numerous borrowings from Latin andGreek. Numerousneologisms based on Latin roots were introduced, and some scholars modified the spelling of French words to bring them into conformity with their Latin roots, sometimes erroneously. That often produced a radical difference between a word's spelling and pronunciation.[6] Nevertheless, Middle French spelling was overall fairly close to the pronunciation; unlike Modern French, word-final consonants were still pronounced though they were optionally lost when they preceded another consonant that started the next word.
Between the 1490s and the 1550s, theFrench wars in Italy and the presence ofItalians in the French court brought the French into contact withItalianhumanism. Many words dealing with the military (alarme,cavalier,espion,infanterie,camp,canon,soldat) and artistic (especially architectural:arcade,architrave,balcon,corridor; also literary:sonnet) practices were borrowed from Italian.[7] Those tendencies would continue throughClassical French.
There were also some borrowings fromSpanish (casque) andGerman (reître) and from the Americas (cacao,hamac,maïs).[8]
The influence of theAnglo-Norman language onEnglish had left words of French andNorman origin in England. Some words of Romance origin now found their way back into French asdoublets through war and trade.
Also, the meaning and usage of many words from Old French transformed.
Spelling and punctuation were extremely variable. The introduction of printing in 1470 highlighted the need forreform in spelling. One proposed reform came fromJacques Peletier du Mans, who developed a phonetic spelling system and introduced new typographic signs (1550), but his attempt at spelling reform was not followed.
The period saw the publication of the first French grammars and of the French-Latin dictionary ofRobert Estienne (1539).
At the beginning of the 17th century, French would see the continued unification of French, the suppression of certain forms, and the prescription of rules, leading to Classical French.
| Latin | Proto-Romance | Old French | Middle French | Modern French | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9th century | 12th century | 15th century | 18th century | 21st century | ||
| PEDEM 'foot' | */ˈpɛde/ | /pjeð/ | /pjeθ/ pied | /pje/ | /pje/ | /pje/ pied |
| MĀTŪRUM 'mature' | */maˈturu/ | /maˈðyr/ | /məˈyr/ meür | /my(r)/ | /myr/ | /myʁ/ mûr |
| SCŪTUM 'shield' | */(ɪ)sˈkutu/ | /esˈkyð/ | /esˈky/ escu | /eˈky/ | /eˈky/ | /eˈky/ écu |
| SAETAM 'silk' | */ˈseta/ | /ˈsejðə/ | /ˈsej.ə/ seie | /ˈsoj.ə/ | /ˈswɛ.ə/ | /swa/ soie |
| FĒMINAM 'woman' | */ˈfemɪna/ | /ˈfemnə/ | /ˈfemːə/ femme | /ˈfãmə/ | /ˈfam(ə)/ | /fam/ femme |
| HOMINEM 'man' | */ˈɔmɪne/ | /ˈɔmnə/ | /ˈɔmːə/ homme | /ˈɔ̃mə/ | /ˈɔm(ə)/ | /ɔm/ homme |
| BELLUS 'beautiful' | */ˈbɛlːʊs/ | /bɛɫs/ | /be̯aws/ beaus | /be̯o/ | /bjo/ | /bo/ beau |
| HABĒRE 'to have' | */aˈβere/ | /aˈvejr/ | /aˈvɔjr/ avoir | /aˈvwɛ(r)/ | /aˈvwɛr/ | /aˈvwaʁ/ avoir |
| IŪDICĀTUM 'judged' | */judiˈkatu/ | /dʒyˈdʒjeð/ | /ʒyˈʒje/ jugié | /ʒyˈʒe/ | /ʒyˈʒe/ | /ʒyˈʒe/ jugé |
| COLLŌCĀRE 'to place' | */kolːoˈkare/ | /koɫˈtʃjer/ | /kuˈtʃjer/ couchier | /kuˈʃje(r)/ | /kuˈʃe/ | /kuˈʃe/ coucher |
Middle French is the language found in the writings ofCharles, Duke of Orléans,François Villon,Clément Marot,François Rabelais,Michel de Montaigne,Pierre de Ronsard, and the poets ofLa Pléiade.
The affirmation and glorification of French finds its greatest manifestation inLa Défense et illustration de la langue française (The Defense and Illustration of the French Language) (1549) by the poetJoachim du Bellay, which maintained that French, like theTuscan ofPetrarch andDante Alighieri, was a worthy language for literary expression and promulgated a program of linguistic production and purification, including the imitation of Latin genres.
