Page "Old French" Paragraph 6

In fact, the Old Frankish language has had a determining influence on the birth of Old French, that explains partly why the first documents in Old French are older than the documents in other Romance languages ( e. g .: Strasbourg Oaths ).

It is the result of an earlier gap created between Latin and the new language, that were no more intercomprehensible.

The Old Low Frankish influence is probably responsible for the difference between the langue d ′ oïl and the langue d ′ oc ( Occitan ) too, because different parts of Northern France were really bilingual Latin / Germanic, and that corresponds exactly to the places 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 and its result was diphthongization, difference between long vowels and short one, the fall of the unaccentuated syllable and of the final vowels, e. g .: Latin decima > F dîme (> E dime.

Italian decima, Spanish diezmo ); VL dignitate > OF deintié (> E dainty.

Occitan dinhitat ; Italian dignità ; Spanish dignidad ); or VL catena > OF chaiene (> E chain.

Occitan cadena ; Italian catena ; Spanish cadena ).

Otherwise two new phonemes that did not exist anymore in Vulgar Latin were added: and (> OF g ( u )-, ONF w-cf.

picard w -), e. g .: VL altu > OF halt ‘ high ’ ( influenced by OLF * hauh ; ≠ Italian, Spanish alto / Occitan naut ) ; VL vespa > F guêpe ( ONF wespe, picard wespe ) ‘ wasp ’ ( influenced by OLF * waspa ; ≠ Occitan vèspa ; Italian vespa ; Spanish avispa ) ; L viscus > F gui ‘ mistle toe ’ ( influenced by OLF * wihsila ‘ morello ’ with analogous fruits, when they are not ripe ; ≠ Occitan vesc ; Italian vischio ) ; LL vulpiculu ‘ little fox ’ ( from L vulpes ‘ fox ’) > OF gupil ( influenced by OLF * wulf ‘ wolf ’ ; ≠ Italian volpe ).

On the opposite, the Italian and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain and, e. g .: It, Sp.

guerra ‘ war ’).

In these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilinguism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words.

We can add another opposite example, where the Latin word influenced the Germanic one: framboise ‘ raspberry ’ from OLF * brambasi ( cf.

OHG brāmberi > Brombeere ‘ mulberry ’ ; E bramble berry ; * basi ‘ berry ’ cf.

Got.

-basi, Dutch bes ‘ berry ’) mixed up with LL fraga or OF fraie ‘ strawberry ’, that explains the shift for and in turn the final-se of framboise changed fraie into fraise (≠ Occitan fragosta ‘ raspberry ’, Italian fragola, ‘ strawberry ’.

Portuguese framboesa ‘ raspberry ’ and Spanish frambuesa are from French ).