Re: Old French

>Hmm. I have a book called "L'ancien français" (Que Sais-je 1056, PUF)
>which begins with the words "Le français ici en cause est celui qu'on
>écrivait entre les _Serments de Strasbourg_ (843), le plus ancien
>document en langue français ...". The book's rather old (1966), so maybe
>opinion has changed. Though I can't see what's particularly French about
>"Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament.." .
>
Well I have "Le Moyen Français" (que sais-je? n°1086) and Histoire de la langue
farnçaise (qsj? n°167). So I quote the second one : "...en 842, avec le texte
"Les Serments de Strasbourg", s'ouvre pour nous un premier état de langue, le
plus ancien français..." (p4). But 4 lines later, explaining what the Serments
are, : "deux textes furent rédigés ... l'un en roman, l'autre en germanique".
So the same author, on the same page (!), uses "le plus ancien français" et
"roman". But the author resumes well the situation : this language could not be
understood by a modern-french speaker, but considering some regular changes ,
the remaining features, can help to capture it in a better way. So in my
opinion calling it French or not depends on what you need to do, in which
perspective. A whole genesis of the language could call it (Very) Old French, a
specialist of anciant literacy 'd better call it roman.