III.

Evolution

In early medieval times the spoken languages north and south of the Loire River began to develop separately. By the end of the 13th century they had become two distinct languages, the langue d'oïl of the north and the langue d'oc of the south; the terms were derived from oïl and oc, the words for “yes” in each of the languages. The chief phonetic difference in the two languages was their treatment of the free unaccented vowel a of Latin. The vowel became e in the langue d'oïl but remained unchanged in Provençal, the principal dialect of the langue d'oc; thus, the Latin word mare (“sea”) became mer in the langue d'oïl and mar in Provençal. In each language several dialects developed. In addition to Provençal, the principal dialects of the langue d'oc were the Gascon, Languedocien, Auvergnat, Limousin, and Béarnais. A great deal of poetry and other literary work was written in the langue d'oc; for a time, particularly in the 12th century, it seemed that it would establish supremacy over the langue d'oïl, but after the 12th century the langue d'oc rapidly became less important. In the 19th century efforts were made by a literary school known as félibrige, the chief members of which were the poets Frédéric Mistral and Joseph Roumanille, to revive the use of modern Provençal and other dialects of the langue d'oc that are still spoken; they were not successful, however, and the language today is seldom used as a literary dialect. The langue d'oc has contributed about 500 words to modern French, including bague (“ring”), cadeau (“gift”), and velours (“velvet”) (see Occitan Language). The principal dialects of the langue d'oïl were named for the five northern provinces in which they were spoken: Île de France, Normandy (Normandie), Picardy, Poitou, and Burgundy. After the accession of Hugh Capet as king of France in 987, Paris became the seat of government, and the language spoken there began to dominate other French dialects, as the court at Paris became politically important to the provincial nobility. Modern French has developed directly from the dialect of the Île de France, which gradually superseded other French dialects during the late Middle Ages.

In the 12th and 13th centuries the langue d'oïl was popular throughout Europe. It was the court language of Naples; German princes and barons maintained French-born tutors who taught it to their children, and in England for the two centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1066, French strongly rivaled English as the spoken language of the land and almost supplanted it as the literary language. See Norman French Language and Literature. In the Middle Ages a considerable number of Arabic words were added to the language, because of the prestige among French scholars of Arabic science and because the French brought the words back from Arabic lands that they had invaded during the Crusades. Among the words of Arabic derivation in French are chiffre (“number”), cimetière (“cemetery”), girafe (“giraffe”), épinard (“spinach”), and jupe (“skirt”).

The 14th and 15th centuries, the period of the Hundred Years' War between France and England, which devastated French territory, gave popular impetus to French nationalism and to acceptance of the court dialect as a national linguistic standard. The 16th century brought a great advance in linguistic development. In accordance with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) of Francis I, king of France, French as spoken in Île de France, especially in Paris, became the official language throughout the kingdom. In the second half of the 16th century, especially during the reign (1574-89) of Henry III, a group of French poets known as the Pléiade, which included Joachim du Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard, declared that French was the proper language for prose and poetry. The group conceded that the language required improvement, which they urged be brought about by modeling French writings on masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. The principles of the Pléiade were embodied by du Bellay in La défense et illustration de la langue française (The Defense and Illustration of the French Language,1549).