Old French

Old French
franceis, françois, romanz
Region northern France, parts of Belgium (Wallonia) and Switzerland, England, Ireland, Kingdom of Sicily, Principality of Antioch, Kingdom of Cyprus
Era evolved into Middle French by the 14th century
Language codes
ISO 639-2 fro
ISO 639-3 fro
Glottolog oldf1239[1]

Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; Modern French ancien français) was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these dialects came to be collectively known as the langues d'oïl, contrasting with the langue d'oc or "Occitan" language in the south of France. The mid-14th century is taken as the transitional period to Middle French, the language of the French Renaissance, specifically based on the dialect of the Île-de-France region.

The territory where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the historical Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire, which during the 12th century remained under Anglo-Norman rule), and Burgundy, Lorraine and Savoy to the east (corresponding to modern north-central France, Belgian Wallonia, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to England, Sicily and the Crusader states as the language of a feudal elite and of commerce (the term lingua franca indeed derives from the name of the French language, even though the Romance-based pidgin so identified was substantially based on Occitan and Italian).

Areal and dialectal divisions

Further information: Langues d'oïl and Gallo-Romance
Map of France in 1180, at the height of the feudal system. The possessions of the French king are in light blue, vassals to the French king in green, Angevin possessions in red. Shown in white is the Holy Roman Empire to the east, the western fringes of which, including Upper Burgundy and Lorraine, were also part of the Old French areal.

The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the northern parts of the Kingdom of France (including Anjou and Normandy, which in the 12th century were ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England), Upper Burgundy and the duchy of Lorraine. The Norman dialect was also spread to England and Ireland, and during the crusades, Old French was also spoken in the Kingdom of Sicily, and in the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Levant.

As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues d'oïl were contrasted with the langue d'oc (the emerging Occitano-Romance group, at the time also called Provençal, adjacent to the Old French areal in the south-west, and with the Gallo-Italic ("Old Italian") group to the south-east. The Franco-Provençal group developed in Upper Burgundy, sharing features with both French and Provençal; it may have begun to diverge from the langues d'oïl as early as the 9th century, and is attested as distinct variant of French from the 12th century.

Dialects or variants of Old French included:

Distribution of the modern langues d'oïl (shades of green) and of Franco-Provençal dialects (shades of blue)

Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than the Classical French based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include Angevin, Berrichon, Bourguignon-Morvandiau, Champenois, Franc-Comtois, Gallo, Lorrain, Norman, Picard, Poitevin, Saintongeais, Walloon.

History

Evolution from Vulgar Latin

Beginning with Plautus’s time (254–184 b.c.), Classical Latin’s phonological structure changed, eventually yielding Vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire. This latter form differed strongly from its classical counterpart in phonology; it was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French.[3][4][5][6][7]

Non-Latin influences

Gaulish

Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by caballus ‘nag, work horse’, derived from Gaulish caballos (cf. Welsh ceffyl, Breton kefel),[8] giving Modern French cheval, Occitan caval (chaval), Catalan cavall, Spanish caballo, Portuguese cavalo, Italian cavallo, Romanian cal, and, by extension, English cavalry. An estimated 200 words of Gaulish etymology survive in modern French, for example chêne ‘oak tree’ and charrue ‘plough’.[9]

Despite attempts to explain some phonetic changes being caused by a Gaulish substrate, only one of them is certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque (A.D. 1st century). There, the Greek word paropsid-es (written in Latin) appears as paraxsid-i.[10] The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Latin capsa > *kaxsa > caisse ( Italian cassa) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif[11] (mod. chétif; cf. Irish cacht ‘servant’; ≠ Italian cattiv-ità, Portuguese "cativo", Spanish cautivo). This phonetic evolution is parallel to the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French (Latin factum > fait, ≠ Italian fatto, Portuguese feito, Spanish hecho; or lactem* > lait, ≠ Italian latte, Portuguese leite, Spanish leche).

Frankish

The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul in Late Antiquity was modified by the Old Frankish language, spoken by the Franks who settled in Gaul from the 5th century and conquered the entire Old French-speaking area by the 530s. The name français itself is derived from the name the Franks.

The Old Frankish language had a definitive influence on the birth of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g. Strasbourg Oaths, Sequence of Saint Eulalia).[12] It is the result of an earlier gap created between Latin and the new language, which severed the intercomprehensibility between the two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the langue d′oïl and the langue d′oc (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time,[13] and these areas correspond precisely to where the first documents in Old French were written. This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it a very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The very first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent by a Germanic stress[14] and its result was diphthongization, differentiation between long and short vowels, the fall of the unaccentuated syllable and of the final vowels, e.g. Latin decimus, -a ‘tenth’ > OF disme > F dîme ‘tithe’ (> E dime; Italian decima, Portuguese décima, Spanish diezmo); VL dignitate > OF deintié (> E dainty. Italian degnità, Romanian demnitate); or VL catena > OF chaeine (> E chain. Occitan, Portuguese cadeia, Spanish cadena, Italian catena). Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: [h] and [w] (> OF g(u)-, ONF w- cf. Picard w-), e.g. VL altu > OF halt ‘high’ (influenced by OLF *hōh ; ≠ Italian, Portuguese and Spanish alto, Occitan naut) ; L vespa > F guêpe, Picard wèpe, Wallon wèsse, all ‘wasp’ (influenced by OLF *wapsa ; ≠ Occitan vèspa, Italian and Portuguese vespa, Spanish avispa) ; L viscus > F gui ‘mistletoe’ (influenced by OLF *wīhsila ‘morello’ with analogous fruits, when they are not ripe; ≠ Occitan vesc, Italian vischio) ; LL vulpiculu ‘fox kit’ (from L vulpes ‘fox’) > OF golpilz, Picard woupil ‘fox’ (influenced by OLF *wulf ‘wolf’; ≠ Occitan volpìlh, Old Italian volpiglio, Spanish vulpeja ‘vixen’). On the opposite, the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/ ~ /g/, e.g. It, Sp. guerra ‘war’). In these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an Old Low Franconian loan is framboise ‘raspberry’, from OF frambeise, from OLF *brāmbesi ‘blackberry’ (cf. Dutch braambes, braambezie; akin to German Brombeere, English dial. bramberry) blended with LL fraga or OF fraie ‘strawberry’, which explains the replacement [b] > [f] and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraie to make freise, modern fraise (≠ Wallon frève, Romanian fragă, Romansh fraja, Italian fragola, fravola ‘strawberry’).[15][16]

Pope (1934) estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources (while the proportion was larger in Old French, because the French language borrowed heavily from Latin and Italian).

Earliest written Old French

At the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language (either Romance or Germanic), since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin.

The earliest documents said to be written in French – after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) – are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842):

Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d’ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa...

(For the love of God and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Charles with my help in everything...)

The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling.

The royal House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated the development of northern French culture in and around Île-de-France, which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa (Toulouse). The Capetians' langue d'oïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution.

Transition to Middle French

Further information: Middle French

In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïl, among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region. During the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue d'oc-speaking territories in the south. It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of the Bibliothèque bleue – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects.

Literature

The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the "Renaissance of the 12th century", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century.

The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives. The Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text.

At the beginning of the 13th century, Jean Bodel, in his Chanson de Saisnes, divided medieval French narrative literature into three subject areas: the Matter of France or Matter of Charlemagne; the Matter of Rome (romances in an ancient setting); and the Matter of Britain (Arthurian romances and Breton lais). The first of these is the subject area of the chansons de geste ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed) laisses. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in around three hundred manuscripts.[17] The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland (earliest version composed in the late 11th century).

Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his Girart de Vienne set out a grouping of the chansons de geste into three cycles: the Geste du roi centering on Charlemagne, the Geste de Garin de Monglane (whose central character was William of Orange), and the Geste de Doon de Mayence or the "rebel vassal cycle", the most famous characters of which were Renaud de Montauban and Girart de Roussillon. A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath.

Jean Bodel's other two categories—the "Matter of Rome" and the "Matter of Britain"—concern the French romance or roman. Around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220.[18] From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose (many of the earlier verse romances were adapted into prose versions), although new verse romances continued to be written to the end of the 14th century.[19] The most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story.

Medieval French lyric poetry was indebted to the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence—including Toulouse, Poitiers, and the Aquitaine region—where langue d'oc was spoken (Occitan language); in their turn, the Provençal poets were greatly influenced by poetic traditions from the Hispano-Arab world. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar "to find, to invent". Lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères.

By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in the Roman de Fauvel in 1310 and 1314, a satire on abuses in the medieval church, filled with medieval motets, lais, rondeaux and other new secular forms of poetry and music (mostly anonymous, but with several pieces by Philippe de Vitry, who would coin the expression ars nova to distinguish the new musical practice from the music of the immediately preceding age). The best-known poet and composer of ars nova secular music and chansons of the incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut.

Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater (théâtre profane) – both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely. Most historians place the origin of medieval drama in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from the monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'Adam (c. 1150) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public).

A large body of fables survive in Old French; these include (mostly anonymous) literature dealing with the recurring trickster character of Reynard the Fox. Marie de France was also active in this genre, producing the Ysopet (Little Aesop) series of fables in verse. Related to the fable was the more bawdy fabliau, which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These fabliaux would be an important source for Chaucer and for the Renaissance short story (conte or nouvelle).

Phonology

Old French was constantly changing and evolving. However, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non-stop consonants and t in et, and final e was pronounced [ə]. The phonological system can be summarised as follows:[20]

Consonants

Old French consonants
Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p b t d k ɡ
Affricate ts dz
Fricative f v s z (h)
Lateral l ʎ
Trill ɲ

Notes:

Vowels

In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes, but occurred as allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. This nasal consonant was fully pronounced; thus bon was pronounced [bõn] (Modern French [bɔ̃]). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals, where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone [bõnə] (Modern French bonne [bɔn]).

Monophthongs

Old French vowels
  Front Central Back
Close oral i   y   u
nasal ĩ    
Close-mid oral e ə  
nasal õ
Open-mid ɛ   ɔ
Open oral a
nasal ã

Notes:

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Late Old French diphthongs and triphthongs
  IPA Example Meaning
falling
Oral /aw/ chevaus horse
/oj/ toit roof
/ow/ coup blow, hit
/ew/ ~ /øw/ neveu nephew
Nasal /ẽj/ plein full
/õj/ loing far
rising
Oral /je/ pié foot
/ɥi/ fruit fruit
/we/ ~ /wø/ cuer heart
Nasal /jẽ/ bien well
/ɥĩ/ juignet July
/wẽ/ cuens count (nom. sg.)
triphthongs
stress always falls on middle vowel
Oral /e̯aw/ beaus beautiful
/jew/ dieu god
/wew/ jueu Jew

Notes:

Grammar

Nouns

Old French maintained a two-case system, with a nominative case and an oblique case, for longer than did some other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian). Case distinctions, at least in the masculine gender, were marked on both the definite article and on the noun itself. Thus, the masculine noun li voisins, "the neighbour" (Latin vicínus /wiˈkiːnus/ > Proto-Romance */veˈtsinu(s)/ > OF voisins /vojˈzĩns/; Modern French le voisin) was declined as follows:

Evolution of the nominal masculine inflection from Classical Latin to Old French
Latin Old French
Singular Nominative ille vicīnus li voisins
Oblique (Accusative in Latin) illum vicīnum le voisin
Plural Nominative illī vicīnī li voisin
Oblique (Accusative in Latin) illōs vicīnōs les voisins

In later Old French, these distinctions became moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the modern French form: l'enfant (the child) represents the old oblique; the OF nominative was li enfes. But in some cases where there were significant differences between nominative and oblique forms, the nominative form survives, or sometimes both forms survive with different meanings:

In a few cases where the only distinction between forms was the nominative -s ending, the -s was preserved in spelling to distinguish otherwise homonymous words. An example is fils "son" (< Latin nominative filius), spelled as such to distinguish it from fil "wire". In this case, a later spelling pronunciation has resulted in the modern pronunciation /fis/ (earlier /fi/).

As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals were re-analysed as feminine singulars, though; for example, Latin gaudiu(m) was more widely used in the plural form gaudia, which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin, and ultimately led to modern French la joie, "joy" (feminine singular).

Nouns were declined in the following declensions:

Class I (feminine) Class II (masculine)
Class I normal Class Ia Class II normal Class IIa
meaning "woman" "thing" "city" "neighbor" "servant" "father"
sg. nominative la fame la riens la citéz li voisins li sergenz li pere
oblique la rien la cité le voisin le sergent le pere
pl. nominative les fames les riens les citéz li voisin li sergent li pere
oblique les voisins les sergenz les peres
Class III (both)
Class IIIa Class IIIb Class IIIc Class IIId
meaning "singer" "baron" "nun" "sister" "child" "priest" "lord" "count"
sg. nominative li chantere li ber la none la suer li enfes li prestre li sire li cuens
oblique le chanteor le baron la nonain la seror l'enfant le prevoire le seigneur le conte
pl. nominative li chanteor li baron les nones les serors li enfant li prevoire li seigneur li conte
oblique les chanteors les barons les nonains les serors les enfanz les prevoires les seigneurs les contes

Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from feminine third declension nouns in Latin. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in -er and from third-declension masculine nouns; note that in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in -s, and this is preserved in Old French.

Those classes show various analogical developments, like -es from the accusative instead of (-e after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural (Latin -ae), li pere instead of *li peres (Latin illi patres) in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.

Class III nouns show a separate form in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms. IIIa nouns ended in -átor, -atórem in Latin, and preserve the stress shift; IIIb nouns likewise had a stress shift from -o to ónem. IIIc nouns are an Old French creation and have no clear Latin antecedent. IIId nouns represent various other types of third-declension Latin nouns with stress shift or irregular masculine singular (sóror, sorórem; ínfans, infántem; présbyter, presbýterem; sénior, seniórem; cómes, cómitem).

Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an 'e' to the masculine stem, apart from when the masculine stem already ends in e. For example, bergier (shepherd) becomes bergiere (Modern French berger and bergère).

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun they are qualifying. Thus a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and in the nominative case. For example, in femes riches, riche has to be in the feminine plural form.

Adjectives can be divided into three declensional classes:[23]

Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in -e. This class can be further subdivided into two subclasses based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in -s:

E.g. bon "good" (< Latin bonus, > modern French bon)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
Nominative bons bon bone bones bon
Oblique bon bons

For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in -e, like the feminine. This subclass contains descendants of Latin 2nd and 3rd declension adjectives ending in -er in the nominative singular.

E.g. aspre "harsh" (< Latin asper, > modern French âpre)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
Nominative aspre aspre aspre aspres aspre
Oblique aspres

For Class II adjectives, the feminine singular is not marked by the ending -e.

E.g. granz "big, great" (< Latin grandis, > modern French grand)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
Nominative granz grant granz/grant granz grant
Oblique grant granz grant

An important subgroup of Class II adjectives are the present participial forms in -ant.

Class III adjectives exhibit stem alternation resulting from stress shift in the Latin imparisyllabic declension, and a distinct neuter form:

E.g. mieudre "better" (< Latin melior, > modern French meilleur)
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
Nominative mieudre(s) meillor mieudre meillors mieuz
Oblique meillor meillors meillor

Verbs

Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words. Morphologically, however, Old French verbs are extremely conservative, preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in Proto-Romance. Old French has much less analogical reformation than in Modern French, and significantly less than the oldest stages of other languages (e.g. Old Spanish), despite the fact that the various phonological developments in Gallo-Romance and Proto-French led to complex alternations in the majority of commonly-used verbs.

For example, the Old French verb laver "to wash" is conjugated je lef, tu leves, il leve in the present indicative and je lef, tu les, il let in the present subjunctive, in both cases regular phonological developments from Latin indicative lavō, lavās, lavat and subjunctive lavem, lavēs, lavet. This paradigm is typical in showing the phonologically regular but morphologically irregular alternations of most paradigms:

Modern French, on the other hand, has je lave, tu laves, il lave in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/; analogical -e in the first singular (from verbs like j'entre, where the -e is regular); and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modeled on -ir/-oir/-re verbs. All of these serve to eliminate the various alternations in the Old French verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, Old French je vif, tu vis, il vit (vivre "to live") has yielded to modern je vis, tu vis, il vit, eliminating the "unpredictable" -f in the first-person singular.

The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French as compared with Old French.

The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as avret (< Latin habuerat), voldret (< Latin voluerat), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the -ra imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).

Verb alternations

In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the weight (length) of those syllables. This resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in pen "I think", the first syllable was stressed, while in penmus "we think", the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances, but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: e.g. Spanish pienso "I think" vs. pensamos "we think" (pensar "to think"), or cuento "I tell" vs. contamos "we tell" (contar "to tell").

In the development of French, no fewer than five vowels diphthongized in stressed, open syllables. Combined with other stress-dependent developments, this yielded 15 or so types of alternations in so-called strong verbs in Old French. For example, /a/ diphthongized to /ai/ before nasal stops in stressed, open syllables, but not in unstressed syllables, yielding aim "I love" (Latin a) but amons "we love" (Latin amus).

The different types are as follows:

Vowel alternations in Old French verbs
Vowel alternation Environment Example (-er conjugation) Example (other conjugation)
Stressed Unstressed Latin etymon 3rd singular
pres. ind.
Infinitive meaning Latin etymon 3rd singular
pres. ind.
Infinitive
/ Other form
meaning
/e/ /a/ free /a/ lavāre leve laver "to wash" parere >
*parīre
pert parir "to give birth"
/ãj̃/ /ã/ free /a/ + nasal amāre aime amer "to love" manēre maint manoir "to remain"
/je/ /e/ palatal + free /a/ *accapāre achieve achever "to achieve"
/i/ /e/ palatal + /a/ + palatal *concacāre conchie concheer "to expel" jacēre gist gesir "to lie (down)"
/a/ /e/ palatal + blocked /a/ *accapitāre achate acheter "to buy" cadere >
*cadēre
chiet cheoir "to fall"
/a/ /e/ intertonic /a/ + palatal? *tripaliāre travaille traveillier "to work"
/je/ /e/ free /ɛ/ levāre lieve lever "to raise" sedēre siet seoir "to sit"
/jẽ/ /ẽ/ free /ɛ/ + nasal *cremere crient creindre (var. cremir, -oir) "to fear"
/i/ /oj/ /ɛ/ + palatal pretiāre prise proisier "to value" exīre ist oissir "to go out"
/ɛ/ /e/ intertonic /ɛ, e/ + double cons. appellāre apele apeler "to call"
/oj/ /e/ free /e/ *adhaesāre >
*ad(h)ēsāre
adoise adeser "to touch"
/ẽj̃/ /ẽ/ free /e/ + nasal mināre meine mener "to lead"
/i/ /e/ palatal + free /e/
/oj/ /i/ intertonic /e/ + palatal - charroie charrier "to cart around"
/we/ /u/ free /ɔ/ *tropāre trueve trouver "to find" morī >
*morīre
muert mourir "to die"
/uj/ /oj/ /ɔ/ + palatal *appodiāre apuie apoiier "to lean"
/ew/ /u/ free /o/ dēmōrārī demeure demourer "to stay" cōnsuere >
*cōsere
queust cousdre "to sew"
/u/ /e/ intertonic blocked /o/ *corruptiāre courouce courecier "to get angry"
/i/ /ã/ intertonic blocked /o/ + nasal calumniārī chalonge chalengier "to challenge"

In Modern French the verbs in the -er class have been systematically leveled. Generally the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (e.g. modern aimer/nous aimons). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like acheter/j'achète and jeter/je jette, where unstressed /ǝ/ alternates with stressed /ɛ/, and in (largely learned) verbs like adhérer/j'adhère, where unstressed /e/ alternates with stressed /ɛ/. Many of the non-er verbs have become obsolete and many of the remaining verbs have been leveled. A few alternations remain, however, in what are now known as irregular verbs, such as je tiens, nous tenons or je meurs, nous mourons.

Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer stressed stem alternating with a shorter unstressed stem. This was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when stressed:

The alternation of je desjun, disner is particularly complicated; it appears that disjējūnāre > Western Romance /desjejuˈnare > /desjejˈnare/ (preliminary intertonic loss) > /desiˈnare/ (triphthong reduction) > /disiˈnare/ (metaphony) > /disˈner/ (further intertonic loss and other proto-French developments). Note that both of the stems have become full verbs in modern French, déjeuner "to have lunch" and dîner "to dine". Furthermore, déjeuner does not derive directly from je desjun (< *disj(ēj)ūnō with total loss of unstressed -ēj-). Instead, it comes from Old French desjeüner, based on the alternative form je desjeün (< *disjē(j)ūnō with loss only of -j-, likely influenced by jeûner "to fast" < Old French jeüner < je jeün "I fast" < jē(j)ūnō, where jē- is an initial rather than intertonic syllable and hence the vowel -ē- cannot disappear).

Example of a regular -er verb

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Future Present Imperfect Present

Present

je dur durai duroie durerai dur durasse dureroie
tu dures duras durois dureras durs durasses durerois dure
il dure dura duroit durera durt durast dureroit
nous durons durames duriiens/-ïons durerons durons durissons/-issiens dureriions/-ïons durons
vous durez durastes duriiez dureroiz/-ez durez durissoiz/-issez/-issiez dureriiez/-ïez durez
ils durent durerent duroient dureront durent durassent dureroient

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoir

Example of a regular -ir verb

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Future Present Imperfect Present

Present

je fenis feni fenissoie fenirai fenisse fenisse feniroie
tu fenis fenis fenissoies feniras fenisses fenisses fenirois fenis
il fenist feni(t) fenissoit fenira fenisse(t) fenist feniroit
nous fenissons fenimes fenissiiens fenirons fenissons feniss-ons/-iens feniriiens fenissons
vous fenissez fenistes fenissiiez fenir-oiz/-ez fenissez feniss-oiz/-ez/-iez feniriiez fenissez
ils fenissent fenirent fenissoient feniront fenissent fenissent feniroient

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoir

Example of a regular -re verb

 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Future Present Imperfect Present

Present

je cor corui coroie corrai core corusse corroie
tu cors corus coroies corras cores corusses corroies cor
il cort coru(t) coroit corra core(t) corust corroit
nous corons corumes coriiens corrons corons coruss-ons/-iens corriiens corons
vous corez corustes coriiez corr-oiz/-ez corez coruss-oiz/-ez/-iez corriiez corez
ils corent corurent coroient corront corent corussent corroient

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: estre

Examples of the auxiliary verbs

avoir (to have)
 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Future Present Imperfect Present

Present

je ai eus avoie aurai ai eusse auroie
tu ais (later as) eus avois auras ais eusses aurois ave
il ai (later a) eut avoit aura ai eusst auroit
nous avons eumes aviens/-ïons aurons aions eussons/-issiens auravons/-ïons avons
vous avez eustes aviez auroiz/-ez aiez eussoiz/-issez/-issiez auravez/-ïez avez
ils ont eurent avoient auront ont eussent auroient

Non-finite forms:

Auxiliary verb: avoir

estre (to be)
 
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Imperative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Future Present Imperfect Present

Present

je suis fui (i)ere ; esteie > estoie (i)er; serai; estrai seie > soie fusse sereie > seroie; estreie > estroie
tu es, ies fus (i)eres ; esteies > estoies (i)ers; seras; estras seies > soies fusses sereies > seroies; estreies > estroies seies > soies
il est fu(t) (i)ere(t), (i)ert ; esteit > estoit (i)ert; sera(t); estra(t) seit > soit fust sereit > seroit; estreit > estroit
nous somes, esmes fumes eriiens, erions ; estiiens, estions (i)ermes; serons; estrons seiiens, seions > soiiens, soions fuss-ons/-iens seriiens, serions; estriiens, estrions seiiens > soiiens, seions > soions
vous estes fustes eriiez ; estiiez --; sere(i)z; estre(i)z seiiez > soiiez fuss-eiz/-ez/-iez seriiez; estriiez seiiez > soiiez
ils sont furent (i)erent ; esteient > estoient (i)erent; seront; estront seient > soient fussent sereient > seroient; estreient > estroient

Non-finite forms:

auxiliary verb: avoir

Other parts of speech

Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. One notable exception being the adverb tot (same as modern French tout; all, every).

See also

For a list of words relating to Old French, see the Old French category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Old French". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Lusignan, Serge. La langue des rois au Moyen Âge: Le français en France et en Angleterre. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004.
  3. "Brill Online Dictionaries". Iedo.brillonline.nl. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  4. "Romance languages - Encyclopedia Britannica". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  5. "Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture - Google Boeken". Books.google.com. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  6. "Definition of Italic in Oxford Dictionaries (British & World English)". Oxforddictionaries.com. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  7. "Definition of Romance in Oxford Dictionaries (British & World English)". Oxforddictionaries.com. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  8. Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Paris: Errance, 2003, 96.
  9. Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167
  10. Pierre-Yves Lambert, La Langue gauloise (Paris: Errance, 1994), 46-7. ISBN 978-2-87772-224-7
  11. Lambert 46-47
  12. Bernard Cerquiglini, La naissance du français, Presses Universitaires de France, 2nd edn., chap. 3, 1993, p. 53.
  13. Cerquiglini 53
  14. Cerquiglini 26.
  15. "Etymology of ''frambuesa'' (Spanish)". Buscon.rae.es. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  16. Portuguese framboesa ‘raspberry’ and Spanish frambuesa are French loans.
  17. La Chanson de Roland. Edited and Translated into Modern French by Ian Short. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1990. p. 12. ISBN 978-2-253-05341-5
  18. (French) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle," Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 16.
  19. (French) Antoine Adam, Georges Lerminier, and Édouard Morot-Sir, eds. Littérature française. "Tome 1: Des origines à la fin du XVIIIe siècle," Paris: Larousse, 1967, p. 36-37.
  20. The chart is based on phonologies given in Laborderie, Noëlle, Précis de Phonétique Historique, Nathan 1994; and in Rickard, Peter, A History of the French Language, 2nd edition, Routledge 1989, pp. 47-8.
  21. Berthon, H. E.; Starkey, V. G. (1908). Tables synoptiques de phonologie de l'ancien français. Oxford Clarendon Press.
  22. Zink (1999), p. 132
  23. Moignet (1988, p. 26–31), Zink (1992, p. 39–48), de La Chaussée (1977, p. 39–44)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Old French language.
Old French test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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