Re: Old French

On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 05:08 , Jeff Jones wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 18:42:23 +0200, Christophe Grandsire
> <christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>
>> En réponse à Jeff Jones <jeffsjones@...>:
>>
>>>> Please get your facts right! You're talking about the "serments de
>>>> Strasbourg" which were written in Roman and Tudesque (indeed a
>>>> Romance and a Germanic language).
>>>> Old French didn't exist by then, and nobody ever said so.
>>>                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> Please get _your_ facts straight, Christophe. I have seen in published
>>> scholarly books any number of times statements referring to the language
>>> of that period of Old French. Even if it's not the best analysis,
>>> _somebody_ still said so.
>>
>> Titles please.
>
> I wish I remembered. The books were probably from the FIU library, which
> I
> no longer have easy access to. I could try the public library to see what
> they have in the catalogue.
Let's not start a tedious thread about what is and what is not "Old French"
.
'Twould IMHO be just as boring to most and, in the end, as pointless as
debating whether what was spoken in England before the Normans invaded and
upset
things should be called 'Old English' or 'Anglo-Saxon' (i.e. English Saxon)
.
When did Saxon stop being Saxon & become English? It seems to me a matter
of
fashion; in the 19th cent. 'Anglo-saxon' was the norm, then in the 20th
cent.
'Old English' become the "proper" term.

Now to get back to French.  There are, I think, two facts that
(practically) all
would accept: (a) in the late Roman Empire the language spoken in the
Gallic
provinces (i.e. basically what is now France) was Vulgar Latin; (b) what is
spoken there now is modern French [yes, I know some region variants still
exist].   The debate is about when we stop thinking about Vulgar Latin or
the
'lingua Romanica' and we can start talking about 'French'.  It did not
happen
overnight - it happened gradually over generations without people, for the
most part, even being aware of it.   The edges are distinctly fuzzy.

to return to Jeff's wish for books, let me quote from "The French Language"
by Alfred Ewart in the Faber & Faber 'The Great Languages' series (1953
reprint of the 2nd edition):
"One can therefore establish several more or less distinct phases in the
history of the French language.  During the first centuries after the
introduction of Latin into Gaul the language developed on practically the
same
lines as in the rest of the Empire.  This period closed with the break-up
of
the Empire and is generally described as the Vulgar Latin period (to ca.
500).
The second period is marked by a gradual differentiation of the Latin of
Gaul
from that of the other parts of the Empire.  It may be called the
Gallo-Roman
period and may be said to close with the establishing of a line of cleavage
between the dialects of the North (Langue d'oïl) and of the South (Langue
d'oc).
The Old French period may be said to begin with the first French linguistic
monument, the _Strasburg Oaths_ (842), and to embrace that period of most
striking literary activity - the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.   The
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may at first glance appear to show more
affinity with Old French than with Modern French, but compared with the
standard usage of the twelfth century they offer a contrast hardly less
pronounced.   One may accept 1328, the date of the accession of the Valois,
as indicating roughly a time when a number of tendencies apparent in the
preceding century come to a head and bring about a change in usage.......
.....we may therefore conveniently take the Middle French period as
embracing
the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the Modern French
period as dating from the seventeenth century."

So Ewart is one of those authorities that classifies the Romance lang found
in the Strasbourg Oaths (Ewart spells the place-name 'Strasburg') as early
'Old French'.  But arguing whether this language is a form of Gallo-Roman
or
an early form of French is, perhaps, like arguing whether Strasb(o)urg
itself
is really aa German or a French city.  We have no doubt how to classify
Berlin
and Paris.   But there is a fuzzy border called 'Alsace' - the Alsatian
lang
is unquestionably a variety of high German, but politically it now forms
part
of France.

The Romance lang of the Strasb(o)urg Oaths is IMO in a fuzzy borderland.

Ray.

PS - May I wish Christophe & any French members of the list a very happy
14th July!