Ch. 1: What Even is French?

Question 1

French

Answer 1

The official language of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and 26 other countries.

Question 2

Gaul

Answer 2

The area where French has been estimated to have originated. Most of its territory is modern-day France.

Question 3

Noric

Answer 3

Variety of Gaulish spoken in Noricum. There is not much evidence of it, as the only evidence known is in Austria and Slovenia.

Question 4

Galatian

Answer 4

Spoken in Galatia, which is today central Anatolia. It was introduced in the 3rd century BC when Celtic tribes migrated from the Balkans. It would be spoken until at least the 4th century AD, although some speculate it went extinct in the 6th century.

Question 5

Lepontic

Answer 5

an ancient Alpine Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is attested in inscriptions found in an area centered on Lugano, Switzerland, and including the Lake Como and Lake Maggiore areas of Italy

Question 6

Transalpine

Answer 6

Its written record begins in the 3rd century BC with inscriptions in Greek script, found mainly in the Rhône area of southern France, where Greek cultural influence was present via the colony of Massilia, founded circa 600 BC.

Question 7

Cisalpine

Answer 7

The Celtic Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions are frequently combined with the Lepontic inscriptions under the term Celtic language remains in northern Italy. While it is possible that the Lepontii were autochthonous to Northern Italy since the end of the 2nd millennium BC, it is known from ancient sources that the Gauls invaded the regions north of the river Po in several waves since the 5th century BC. They apparently took over the art of writing from the Lepontii, including some of the orthographic peculiarities.

Question 8

Langues d’oïl

Answer 8

the languages that were spoken in Northern France

Question 9

Frankish zone/zone francique

Answer 9

Picard, Walloon, Lorrain, Northern Norman (Anglo-Norman French, Guernésiais, Jèrriais, Auregnais, Sercquiais), Eastern Champenois

Question 10

Francien zone/zone francienne

Answer 10

Standard French + Orléanais, Tourangeau, Berrichon, Bourbonnais, Western Champenois/Eastern Francien

Question 11

Burgundian zone/zone burgonde

Answer 11

Burgundian/Bourguignon & Franc-Comtois/Frainc-Comtou

Question 12

Armorican zone/zone armoricaine

Answer 12

Angevin, Mayennais, Manceau (Sarthois, Percheron), Southern Norman - Eastern Armorican Gallo - Western Armorican

Question 13

Poitevin-Saintongeais zone/zone poitevine & zone saintongeaise

Answer 13

Poitevin & Saintongeais

Question 14

Langues d’oc/Occitan

Answer 14

the language used in southern France, and also in Monaco, the Occitan Valleys in Italy, and Val d’Aran in Spain.

Question 15

Auvergnat

Answer 15

dialect spoken in Auvergne, Puy-de-Dôme, Haute-Loire, Allier, Cantal, and communities in Limousin

Question 16

Gascon

Answer 16

dialect spoken in Gascony

Question 17

Aranese

Answer 17

sub-dialect of Gascon spoken in the Val d’Aran

Question 18

Languedocien

Answer 18

dialect spoken in the South of France

Question 19

Limousin

Answer 19

the dialect spoken in the three departments of Limousin, and parts of Charente and Dordogne

Question 20

Provençal

Answer 20

dialect spoken in Provence and parts of Drôme

Question 21

Nicard

Answer 21

sub-dialect of Provençal spoken in the County of Nice and Monaco

Question 22

Vivaro-Alpine

Answer 22

dialect spoken in southeastern France (namely near the Dauphiné area) and northwestern Italy (the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont and Liguria)

Question 23

Shuadit

Answer 23

spoken in the South of France, specifically the Jews of the area. It went extinct in 1977 after its last native speaker died.

Question 24

Franks

Answer 24

members of a Germanic people that conquered Gaul in the 6th century and controlled much of western Europe for several centuries afterward.

Question 25

Alemanni

Answer 25

a confederation of Suebian Germanic tribes located on the upper Rhine river.

Question 26

Burgundians

Answer 26

a member of a Germanic people that invaded Gaul from the east and established the kingdom of Burgundy in the 5th century.

Question 27

Visigoths

Answer 27

a member of the branch of the Goths who invaded the Roman Empire between the 3rd and 5th centuries ad and ruled much of Spain until overthrown by the Moors in 711.

Question 28

Frankish

Answer 28

the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century. It had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their regions by altering both pronunciation (especially the vowel system) and syntax.

Question 29

Oaths of Strasburg

Answer 29

a military pact made on 14 February 842 by Charles the Bald and Louis the German against their older brother Lothair I, the designated heir of Louis the Pious, the successor of Charlemagne. The Romance section of the Oaths is of special importance to historical linguistics, as it is the oldest extant document in France that was written deliberately and consistently in a form of Romance.

Question 30

Sequence/Canticle of Saint Eulalia

Answer 30

the earliest surviving piece of French hagiography and one of the earliest extant texts in the vernacular langues d’oïl (Old French). It dates from around 880. The Sequence was composed in verse around 880, soon after the rediscovery of the relics of a saint of the same name, Eulalia of Barcelona, in 878.

Question 31

Old French

Answer 31

the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries.

Question 32

Middle French

Answer 32

a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century.

Question 33

Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts

Answer 33

an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France on August 10, 1539, in the city of Villers-Cotterêts, and the oldest French legislation still used partly by French courts. It made French the language of law, replacing Latin.

Question 34

Jacques Pel(l)etier du Mans

Answer 34

tried to reform French spelling in his 1550 treatise Dialogue de l’ortografe e prononciation françoese (“Dialogue on French spelling and pronunciation”), advocating a phonetic-based spelling using new typographic signs which he would continue to use in all his published works.

Question 35

Robert Estienne

Answer 35

the author of the first French-Latin dictionary, Dictionaire francoislatin, published in 1540.

Question 36

lingua franca

Answer 36

a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers’ native languages. French held this role for the whole world from the 17th century until the mid-20th century, and it still has this role in much of west and central Africa.

Question 37

New France/Nouvelle-France

Answer 37

the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris.

Question 38

Académie Française

Answer 38

the principal French council for matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was restored as a division of the Institut de France in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is the oldest of the five académies of the institute.

Question 39

Franglais

Answer 39

a French blend that referred first to the overuse of English words by French speakers and later to diglossia or the macaronic mixture of French (français) and English (anglais).