Gallo is a regional language of eastern Brittany . It is one of the langues d'oïl , a Romance sub-family that includes French . Today it is spoken only by a minority of the population, as the standard form of French now predominates in this area.
88-548: Guenrouet ( French pronunciation: [ɡɛ̃ʁwɛt] ; also spelled Guenrouët ; Gallo : Genroèt or Ghinrouètt , Breton : Gwenred ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France . This Loire-Atlantique geographical article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Gallo language Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria , an area now corresponding to
176-490: A Celtic language descended from Old Irish. Gallo is typically not mutually intelligible with French, primarily due to its differing phonology and vocabulary. This is in spite of what Paul Sébillot wrote in 1878: "[Gallo] is a dialect of French (...): it contains a considerable quantity of old words, a very small amount of words borrowed from Breton, and is, except for several local expressions (...) very easy to understand." The study of language has evolved considerably since
264-570: A French keyboard (ó, ú and r̃). The Vantyé spelling system was developed again by the Bertègn Galèzz association in the early 1980s, and is notable for its attempt to be closer to Breton . The letters k and w are not native to French, which prefers q and o plus a vowel to represent [k] and [w], respectively. Breton, however, uses k and w regularly, so the Vantyé system does as well. For example, ke ("that') and wézyaw ("bird"), compared to
352-546: A baseline and adjusting it to fit Gallo’s unique phonetic features, such as using lh to indicate palatalization and ë to represent schwa. Since then, other systems have emerged, such as ELG, MOGA, ABCD, and BAP. The ELG system (short for " écrire le gallo ", French for “write the Gallo [language]”), the oldest system, was proposed in 1978 by Alan-Joseph Raude and completely eschews French orthography. Raude based his writing system on medieval texts written in Gallo, therefore creating
440-738: A direct consequence of the Revolution. During this time, the Jacobins viewed regional languages as a way in which the structural inequalities of France were perpetuated. Accordingly, they sought to eradicate the regional languages to free their speakers of unconstitutional inequalities. Under the Third Republic , public education became universal and mandatory in France, and was conducted exclusively in French; students who spoke other languages were punished. Well into
528-439: A group which also includes, among others, Catalan , Italian , Spanish , Portuguese and Romanian . Gallo has not just borrowed words from Breton, but also aspects of grammar; the use of the preposition pour as an auxiliary verb is said to be of Celtic origin. The relationship between the two is comparable to that of the two languages of Scotland: Scots , an Anglic language closely related to English, and Scottish Gaelic ,
616-540: A large number of phonemes varying from word to word and region to region. The many pronunciations of mai , from the Latin mé , illustrate this diversity: [maj], [ma], [me], [mɛ], etc. The pronunciation of Latin [o]/[u] in closed stressed syllables is more authentic in Gallo than in other langues d’oïl. Gùla , for example, is pronounced [gul] in Gallo, but [gœl] in French. Some terms, however, are influenced by neighboring langues d'oïl, and astour [astuʁ] ("now", from Latin hóra )
704-453: A play La fille de la Brunelas (1901). In the 1920's, Jeanne Malivel wrote Les Sept Frères , a story which was inspired by her grand-mother and was written in Gallo. This, in part, inspired the creation of the artistic movement Seiz Breur . It was in the 1970s that a concerted effort to promote Gallo literature started. In 1979 Alan J. Raude published a proposed standardised orthography for Gallo. The consonants in Gallo are almost
792-487: A poetical text of 336 quatrains and the earliest known Romance text from Brittany, and to Le Roman d'Aquin , an anonymous 12th century chanson de geste transcribed in the 15th century but which nevertheless retains features typical of the mediaeval Romance of Brittany. Gallo is a language of oral tradition, whose history is rich with stories, fables, and legends. Gallese legends frequently address recurring characters, such as Gargantua and Morgan le Fay , or questions of how
880-404: A purpose, which means that the silent h and double consonants are eliminated, except in certain specific cases (ll to indicate palatalization, etc.). Aneit has the same difficulties as ELG, since a speaker with a different pronunciation needs to know the standardized spelling to be able to decipher the written system. Another problem faced by Aneit is its use of diacritics not easily accessible on
968-422: A schwa ([ ə ]) in most regions. This distinction between [e] and [eː] makes it possible to differentiate past participles by gender and number. While in standard French, chassé , chassée, and chassés are all pronounced the same, most Gallo speakers make a phonemic distinction between the masculine chassé [ʃasə] and the feminine chassée or plural chassés [ʃase]. In this example, the pronunciation of é
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#17330848810831056-433: A schwa, and elsewhere it's a [ɛ] or an [e] (the geographical distribution is the same as for [e]/[eː]). The Latin [o] in open stressed syllables became a ue , then monophthonged in both French and Gallo around the 12th century, becoming [ œ ] in French, [ə] in Gallo. Cór thus became qheur . The evolution of the Latin [e] in closed stressed syllables is much more diverse, and the original diphthong éi has been replaced by
1144-632: A single language or if it should be considered a collection of similar dialects. In any case, it appears that the Frankish tribes, or the later Franks, fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group, with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest (still seen in modern Dutch), and more Irminonic (High German) influences towards the southeast. The scholarly consensus concerning the Migration Period
1232-573: A small part of northern France, and the adjoining area in Germany centered on Cologne). The Franks united as a single group under Salian Frank leadership around 500 AD. Politically, the Ripuarian Franks existed as a separate group only until about 500 AD, after which they were subsumed into the Salian Franks. The Franks were united, but the various Frankish groups must have continued to live in
1320-440: A strong influence on English. Gallo continued as the everyday language of Upper Brittany, Maine, and some neighbouring portions of Normandy until the introduction of universal education across France, but is spoken today by only a small (and aging) minority of the population, having been almost entirely superseded by standard French. As a langue d'oïl , Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard , and
1408-550: A system authentic to the language without reference to other modern writing systems. Regional differences were less pronounced during the Medieval era, meaning ELG’s spelling choices are based on a more standardized form. In the words for finger, evening, and me (in French: doigt, soir, moi), which display regional pronunciation differences, the “oi” found in French is written as “ei”, giving the forms: deit, seir, mei, though [ei] will not be
1496-530: A tendency to underestimate their competence and choose thus to not report speaking it. This makes estimates of the number of speakers vary widely. Although a written literary tradition exists, Gallo is more noted for extemporised story-telling and theatrical presentations. Given Brittany's rich musical heritage, contemporary performers produce a range of music sung in Gallo (see Music of Brittany ). The roots of written Gallo literature are traced back to Le Livre des Manières written in 1178 by Étienne de Fougères,
1584-598: A visually distinct system for Gallo, but it requires learning and is not immediately intuitive for Gallo speakers, who may not even recognize it as Gallo upon first seeing it. ELG is used in some public places, such as for bilingual signage in the Rennes metro system. The Aneit system was introduced in 1984 by the Bertègn Galèzz Association, successor to the organization Friends of the Gallo Language. The system
1672-463: Is a movement for standardisation on the model of the dialect of Upper Brittany . It is difficult to record the exact number of Gallo speakers today. Gallo and vernacular French share a sort of continuum, so speakers may have difficulty determining exactly which language they are speaking. Many people speak Gallo while using a considerable amount of French words and phrases, thus confounding the language question further. Moreover, Gallo speakers may have
1760-616: Is also used to make a syllabic [l] and [ʁ], as in berton [bʁˌtɔ̃]. Like all langues d'oïl , Gallo underwent the vowel shift known as Bartsch's law , according to which the Latin [a] in open stressed syllables, when preceded by a palatal consonant, became ie , as in cápra , which became chieuvr . As in French, the sound [j] represented by the letter i disappeared around the Renaissance, giving chèvre and cheuv , though this sound can still be observed in Côtes-d'Armor . In eastern Brittany,
1848-404: Is also used. The very common diphthong [aw] most often is the result of the disappearance of a consonant that existed in Latin. For example, fagu ("beech") became fao , and what once was two consecutive, separately pronounced vowels, [fau], has become a diphthong: [faw]. In some words, such as talpa , the [l] became a vowel, [u], and then [w], so [al] thus became [aw]: [tawp], while in French,
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#17330848810831936-514: Is becoming [astœʁ] in eastern Upper Brittany. In the south of Loire-Atlantique , thanks to contact with Poitevin , [ɔ] is common, and guernol [gɛʁnɔl] and parto [paʁtɔ] are heard instead of guernouille [gɛʁnuj] and partout [paʁtu]. Gallo has diphthongs, just like Latin itself, other langues d’oïl, and other Romance languages. Diphthongs in Gallo generally use the semi-vowels [w] and [j], more rarely [ɥ]: [wa], [wə], [wi], [aw], [ja], [ju], [aj], [ej], [ɛ̃i], [ɥi], [ɥɛ̃], [ɥə], etc. The triphthong [jaw]
2024-428: Is difficult to determine when such a transition occurred, but it is thought to have happened by the end of the 9th century and perhaps earlier. By 900 AD the language spoken was recognizably an early form of Dutch, but that might also have been the case earlier. Old Dutch made the transition to Middle Dutch around 1150. A Dutch-French language boundary came into existence (but this was originally south of where it
2112-665: Is difficult to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period , rendering some individual varieties difficult to classify. The language spoken by the Franks was part of the West Germanic language group, which had features from Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture (c. 1st century BC). The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North and East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of
2200-488: Is not done in all regions, and [j] is often replaced by [l]. The word pllée , for example, can be pronounced [pje] or [ple]. Germanic in origin, [ h ] generally hasn’t been pronounced since the 13th century, but it is still used in Mené, a small region around Merdrignac and Plémet . The vowel system of Gallo is close to French, but they diverged as they evolved, and Gallo has a number of phenomena not found in French, such as
2288-472: Is not yet a single writing system that is unanimously agreed upon, mainly due to regional pronunciation differences. The word for “me” could be pronounced any of the following ways: [maj], [mεj], [mej], [ma], [mε] or [me]. This large variance makes it difficult to pick a single written form that would be most suitable. If the orthography of French was used, the word could be written in countless ways: maï, maye, maille, mèï, mey, meille, ma, mé, mè , etc. However,
2376-688: Is relatively difficult for linguists today to determine what features of these dialects are due to Frankish influence, because the latter was in large part obscured, or even overwhelmed, by later developments. Most French words of Germanic origin came from Frankish, often replacing the Latin word which would have been used. It is estimated that modern French took approximately 1000 stem words from Old Franconian. Many of these words were concerned with agriculture (e.g. French : jardin 'garden'), war (e.g. French : guerre 'war') or social organization (e.g. French : baron 'baron'). Old Franconian has introduced
2464-447: Is replaced by [ ɛ ] or remains [e]. Some words do not obey the rule, such as pátre and mátre , which have become pere [peʁ] and mere [meʁ] in practically all of Upper Brittany, while [pəʁ] and [məʁ] are only heard in the center-west. The [a] in open stressed syllables before [ l ] doesn't follow the [e]/[eː] pattern either, and has evolved very differently in different regions. Sále has thus become sèl , sél , sé or seu . Schwa
2552-688: Is subsequently referred to as Old Dutch , whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic dialects and the Second Germanic consonant shift and would form part of the modern Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of German and Luxembourgish . The Old Frankish language is poorly attested and mostly reconstructed from Frankish loanwords in Old French , and inherited words in Old Dutch, as recorded in
2640-595: Is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton , a Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the western territory of Brittany. In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, but remains overwhelmingly Latinate. The influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory. As of 1980 , Gallo's western extent stretches from Plouha ( Plóha ), in Côtes-d'Armor , south of Paimpol , passing through Châtelaudren ( Châtié ), Corlay ( Corlaè ), Loudéac ( Loudia ), east of Pontivy , Locminé ( Lominoec ), Vannes , and ending in
2728-466: Is that the Frankish identity emerged during the first half of the 3rd century out of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups, including the Salii , Sicambri , Chamavi , Bructeri , Chatti , Chattuarii , Ampsivarii , Tencteri , Ubii , Batavi , and Tungri . It is speculated that these tribes originally spoke a range of related Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. Sometime in
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2816-402: Is the result of five years' research throughout Upper Brittany, and takes its name from the brochure presenting it to the public: Nostre lenghe aneit ("our language today"). Also called "unified spelling", it follows in the footsteps of ELG in terms of its basis on etymology for its spelling. The Aneit system differs from ELG on a number of points, however. For example, every letter must have
2904-427: Is today). Even though living in the original territory of the Franks, these Franks seem to have broken with the endonym "Frank" around the 9th century. By this time the Frankish identity had changed from an ethnic identity to a national identity, becoming localized and confined to the modern Franconia in Germany and principally to the French province of Île-de-France . The Franks expanded south into Gaul as
2992-458: The Breton word gall , meaning 'foreigner', 'French' or 'non-Breton'. The term was first used by Breton speakers, which may explain why it is used rarely by Gallo speakers themselves. Henriette Walter conducted a survey in 1986 which showed that just over 4% of Gallo speakers in Côtes-d'Armor had ever used the term, and a third of them found it "had quite a pejorative connotation". According to
3080-640: The British Isles . Julius Caesar 's invasion of Armorica in 56 BC led to a sort of Romanization of the population. Gaulish continued to be spoken in this region until the 6th century CE, especially in less populated, rural areas. When the Bretons emigrated to Armorica around this time, they found a people who had retained their Celtic language and culture. The Bretons were therefore able to integrate easily. In contrast to Armorica's western countryside, Nantes and Rennes were Roman cultural centres. Following
3168-575: The Constitution of France was amended in 2008. Article 75-1 asserts that "regional languages are part of the French heritage". Moreover, Gallo is the only langue d'oïl to be recognized as a regional language by the French Ministry of Education . Nevertheless, like all of the other regional languages of France, the use of Gallo has declined since the 19th century. Similar to speakers of other regional languages, Gallo speakers began to associate French as
3256-550: The Migration Period , these two cities, as well as regions to the east of the Vilaine , including the town Vannes , fell under Frankish rule. Thus, during the Merovingian dynasty , the population of Armorica was diverse, consisting of Gaulish tribes with assimilated Bretons, as well as Romanized cities and Germanic tribes. War between the Frank and Breton kingdoms was constant between
3344-518: The Poitevin dialect among others. One of the features that distinguish it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence. There is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais . However, as the dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais , there is a less clear isogloss . The clearest linguistic border
3432-457: The linguists and philologists of the time, including pivotal figures such as the Brothers Grimm . As a result, many contemporary linguists tried to incorporate their findings in an already existing historical framework of " stem duchies " and Altstämme (lit. "old tribes", i.e. the six Germanic tribes then thought to have formed the "German nation" in the traditional German nationalism of
3520-490: The "people's language". Urban T. Holmes has proposed that a Germanic language continued to be spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language from these regions only during the 10th century. The Franks also expanded their rule southeast into parts of Germany. Their language had some influence on local dialects, especially for terms relating to warfare. However, since
3608-751: The /w/ or turned it into /v/. Perhaps the best known example is the Franconian * werra ('war' < Old Northern French werre , compare Old High German werre 'quarrel'), which entered modern French as guerre and guerra in Italian , Occitan , Catalan , Spanish and Portuguese . Other examples include gant ('gauntlet', from * want ) and garder ('to guard', from * wardōn ). Franconian words starting with s before another consonant developed it into es - (e.g. Franconian skirm and Old French escremie > Old Italian scrimia > Modern French escrime ). Franconian speech habits are also responsible for
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3696-561: The 1990s, the main focus of the curriculum was cultural awareness of the Gallo language and identity. However, in 2002, Gallo's optional-subject status in secondary schools was withdrawn. In reaction to the 2002 decision, an effective and committed network of Gallo activists advanced Gallo's status in Brittany schools. Gallo is now taught in Upper Brittany's state schools, though the number of students enrolled in Gallo courses remains low. In
3784-650: The 19th century, however, and there is no longer any universally accepted criterion to distinguish decisively between language and dialect. The Celts settled in Armorica toward the 8th century BCE. Some of early groups mentioned in the written records of the Greeks were the Redones and the Namnetes . They spoke dialects of the Gaulish language and maintained important economic ties with
3872-464: The 2003-04 academic year, there were 569 students learning Gallo at secondary school or university. For comparison, in the same year, 3,791 students were learning Breton at the same levels of schooling. On December 17, 2004, the Regional Council of Brittany officially recognized Breton and Gallo as "the official languages of Brittany, alongside the French language." One of the metro stations of
3960-552: The 20th century, government policy focused exclusively on French. In 1962, Charles de Gaulle established the Haut Comité pour la défense et l'expansion de la langue française ; this committee's purpose was to enforce the use of French, to the detriment of minority languages. Furthermore, in 1994, the Loi Toubon declared that any governmental publications and advertisements must be in French. Gallo did not gain national recognition until
4048-532: The 4th or 5th centuries, it becomes appropriate to speak of Old Franconian rather than an Istvaeonic dialect of Proto-Germanic. Very little is known about what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence (dating from around 425–450 AD) is on the sword scabbard of Bergakker which is either a direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian (Old Dutch) language. Another early sentence from
4136-503: The 6th and 9th centuries, which made the border between the two difficult to define. Before the 10th century, Breton was spoken by at least one third of the population up to the cities of Pornic and Avranches . Historically, France has been a nation with a high degree of linguistic diversity matched with relative tolerance, that is until the French Revolution . Gallo's status as a tolerated regional language of France suffered as
4224-450: The 9th to 12th centuries. A notable exception is the Bergakker inscription , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish, though it is debated whether the inscription is written in Frankish, or Old Dutch. Germanic philology and German studies have their origins in the first half of the 19th century when Romanticism and Romantic thought heavily influenced the lexicon of
4312-574: The Breton capital, Rennes , has bilingual signage in French and Gallo, but generally the Gallo language is not as visibly high-profile as the Breton language, even in its traditional heartland of the Pays Gallo , which includes the two historical capitals of Rennes (Gallo Resnn , Breton Roazhon ) and Nantes (Gallo Nauntt , Breton Naoned ). Different dialects of Gallo are distinguished, although there
4400-570: The Franks remaining in the north and the rulers far to the south. Franks continued to reside in their original territories and to speak their original dialects and languages. It is not known what they called their language, but it is possible that they always called it " Diets " (i.e. "the people's language") or something similar. The word Diets is cognate with the Old English word þēodisc which, likewise, meant both nation and speech. Philologists think of Old Dutch and Old West Low Franconian as being
4488-488: The Franks who had settled more to the south of this area in northern Gaul started adopting the common Latin of the local population. This Colloquial Latin language acquired the name of the people who came to speak it (Frankish or Français ); north of the French-Dutch language boundary, the language was no longer referred to as "Frankish" (if it ever was referred to as such) but rather came to be referred to as " Diets ", i.e.
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#17330848810834576-719: The French que and oiseau . Silent letters are also avoided in the Vantyé system. Frankish language Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: * Frankisk ), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish , was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century. After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul (roughly, present-day France ), its speakers in Picardy and Île-de-France were outnumbered by
4664-545: The Germanic languages. Among other problems, this traditional classification of the continental West Germanic dialects can suggest stronger ties between dialects than is linguistically warranted. The Franconian group is a well known example of this, with East Franconian being much more closely related to Bavarian dialects than it is to Dutch , which is traditionally placed in the Low Franconian sub-grouping and with which it
4752-537: The Salian Franks during this period is sometimes referred to as early "Old Low Franconian", and consisted of two groups: "Old West Low Franconian" and "Old East Low Franconian". The language (or set of dialects) spoken by the Ripuarian Franks are referred to just as Old Franconian dialects (or, by some, as Old Frankish dialects). However, as already stated above, it may be more accurate to think of these dialects not as early Old Franconian but as Istvaeonic dialects in
4840-470: The West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. At around the 5th century, the Franks probably spoke a range of related dialects and languages rather than a single uniform dialect or language. The language of both government and the Church was Latin. During the expansion into France and Germany, many Frankish people remained in the original core Frankish territories in the north (i.e. southern Netherlands, Flanders,
4928-469: The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century. Although the Franks would eventually conquer almost all of Gaul, speakers of Old Franconian expanded only into northern Gaul in numbers sufficient to have a linguistic effect. For several centuries, northern Gaul was a bilingual territory ( Latin and Franconian). The language used in writing, in government and by the Church was Latin. Eventually,
5016-626: The [al] merged into [o]: taupe [top]. In northern Upper Brittany, diphthongs are used to express plurals: un martè [maʁtə], des martiaos [maʁtjaw]. In Loire-Atlantique, only the plural form is used. The nasal diphthong [ɛ̃ɔ̃], heard for example in grand ([gʁɛ̃ɔ̃] "great") is typical of western langues d’oïl and is also found in Norman , Poitevin-Saintongeais and Angevin , sometimes in slightly different forms ([aɔ̃] in Saintongeais, [ɛ̃ɑ̃] in Norman). There
5104-534: The border lands between Brittany, Normandy , and Maine . Gallo was a shared spoken language among many of those who took part in the Norman conquest of England , most of whom originated in Upper (i.e. eastern) Brittany and Lower (i.e. western) Normandy , and thus had its part, together with the much bigger role played by the Norman language , in the development of the Anglo-Norman variety of French which would have such
5192-484: The consonantal shift, while all others did so to varying degrees . As a result, the distinction between Old Dutch and Old Frankish is largely negligible, with Old Dutch (also called Old Low Franconian ) being the term used to differentiate between the affected and non-affected variants following the aforementioned Second Germanic consonant shift. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West , East and North Germanic. Their exact relation
5280-416: The countryside was created. In the 19th century, oral literature was collected by researchers and folklorists such as Paul Sébillot, Adolphe Orain, Amand Dagnet and Georges Dottin. However, these authors frequently rewrote this literature in French. Paul Féval wrote certain dialogues in Gallo in his novel Châteaupauvre (1876). Amand Dagnet (1857-1933) also wrote a number of original works in Gallo, including
5368-575: The creation of a common writing system is important for ensuring comprehensibility of text across regions and making a dictionary. There are two main strategies that have been employed in past attempts at a writing system. One strategy proposes a single written form for words that will be pronounced differently according to the region. The other strategy proposes allowing a word to be written in multiple different ways, with different letters or letter combinations, to allow for speakers of Gallo to write according to their pronunciation. Another difference separating
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#17330848810835456-402: The disappearance of the sound was even more dramatic than in French, and some speakers say chen (dog), while the French word remains chien (from Latin cáne ). The Latin [e] in open stressed syllables has also evolved into ie in both Gallo and French, with hĕri becoming yere , for example. In Gallo, the vowel following the y differs from region to region. In most of Upper Brittany, it's
5544-525: The early 6th century AD (that is also described as the earliest sentence in Old Dutch as well) is found in the Lex Salica . This phrase was used to free a serf : These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian. During this early period, the Franks were divided politically and geographically into two groups: the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks . The language (or set of dialects) spoken by
5632-442: The elites) resulting in a taxonomy which spoke of " Bavarian ", " Saxon ", " Frisian ", " Thuringian ", " Swabian " and " Frankish " dialects. While this nomenclature became generally accepted in traditional Germanic philology, it has also been described as "inherently inaccurate" as these ancient ethnic boundaries (as understood in the 19th century) bore little or limited resemblance to the actual or historical linguistic situation of
5720-458: The idea of rejuvenating Gallo's presences in schools. They were primarily motivated in increasing the linguistic competence of children. In 1982, Gallo was officially adopted as an optional subject in secondary schools in Brittany, even appearing on France's secondary school-exit exam, the Baccalaureat. It took years for the Gallo language to actually be incorporated into the curriculum, but by
5808-416: The language of both the administration and the Church was Latin, this unification did not lead to the development of a supra-regional variety of Franconian nor a standardized German language. At the same time that the Franks were expanding southeast into what is now southern Germany, there were linguistic changes taking place in the region. The High German consonant shift (or second Germanic consonant shift )
5896-477: The language of intellectuals and social promotion, and Gallo as an impediment to their success. As a result, the rate of children learning the language has diminished, since parents struggle to see the benefit of Gallo in their children's future. Within recent history, the presence of Gallo has fluctuated in Brittany's school system. Shortly before World War II, the Regional Federation of Bretagne introduced
5984-530: The local populace who spoke Proto-Romance dialects. However, many modern French words and place names, including the eventual country's name, "France", have a Frankish (i.e. Germanic ) origin. France itself is still known in some languages by terms literally meaning the " Frankish Realm ". Between the 5th and 9th centuries, Frankish spoken in Northeastern France, present-day Belgium, and the Netherlands
6072-502: The modern French word for the nation, France ( Francia ), meaning 'land of the Franks'. According to one hypothesis, the name for the Paris region, Île-de-France , was also given by the Franks. The influence of Franconian on French is decisive for the birth of the early langues d'oïl compared to the other Romance languages , that appeared later such as Occitan , Romanian , Portuguese , Spanish , Italian , etc., because its influence
6160-503: The most part did not experience the shift. The set of dialects of the Franks who continued to live in their original territory in Germany eventually developed in three different ways and eventually formed three modern branches of Franconian languages . The Frankish Empire later extended throughout neighboring France and Germany. The language of the Franks had some influence on the local languages (especially in France), but did not develop into
6248-501: The northern half of France. This group includes a wide variety of more or less well-defined and differentiated languages and dialects, which share a Latin origin and some Germanic influence from Frankish , the language spoken by the Franks . Gallo, like the other langues d'oïl , is neither ancient French nor a distortion of modern French. The langues d'oïl are Gallo-Romance languages , which also includes Franco-Provençal , spoken around Savoy . These are in turn Romance languages ,
6336-453: The other hand, word-final silent consonants are retained to preserve the continuity between derived forms: fauc (false) (the final c is not pronounced) is related to fauchae (to mow), where the consonant is pronounced. In French, word-final e often serves to indicate an otherwise silent consonant should be pronounced, such as in grand [grɑ̃] and grande [grɑ̃d]. ELG indicates this with a doubled consonant: graund and graundd. ELG’s choices create
6424-422: The pervasive use of schwa and diphthongs . In Gallo, as in French, the [ a ] of Latin in stressed syllables has evolved into [ e ] or [ eː ]. Thus, adsátis became assé [ase]. However, while French has combined [e] and [eː] into just [e], a distinction was preserved in Gallo. The [eː], manifests, for example, when [a] was followed by [s], became either an [e] or a diphthong, most often [ej]. The [e] became
6512-520: The pronunciation everywhere. Ruczèu ("stream", in French: ruisseau) is pronounced [ʁysəw] in eastern Upper Brittany and [ʁyzəw] in the west. The ae in Bertaeyn ("Brittany"), can be pronounced [ae], [aɛ], [aə], or other possibilities. The diagraphs oe, cz, and tz are notable distinguishing elements of ELG. Word-final e ceased to be pronounced as early as the twelfth century in Gallo, several centuries before French, so Raude proposes to not write them. On
6600-510: The proposed systems is their usage of silent letters and non-phonetic spelling. Some systems try to maintain a one-to-one correspondency between letters and sounds, whereas some choose to add silent letters or diagraphs in an attempt to better represent the sounds of Gallo. The first effort to codify Gallo spelling was undertaken by the Friends of the Gallo Language ( Association des Amis du parler gallo ) in 1977. It proposed using French spelling as
6688-507: The same areas that they had lived in before unification, and to speak the same dialects as before. There must have been a close relationship between the various Franconian dialects. There was also a close relationship between Old Low Franconian (i.e. Old Dutch) and its neighboring Old Saxon and Old Frisian languages and dialects to the north and northeast, as well as the related Old English (Anglo-Saxon) dialects spoken in southern and eastern Britain. A widening cultural divide grew between
6776-446: The same as in French, but there are many local variants, such as the voicing of [ s ] into [ z ] in Pays de Retz and that of [ t ] into [ d ] in Pays de la Mée . Certain consonant combinations are also characteristic of certain regions, such as the plosives [ c ] and [ ɟ ], which can be compared to [ k ] or [ g ] followed by a light [ j ] sound. The affricates [ dʒ ] and [ tʃ ] appear in
6864-444: The same language. However, sometimes reference is made to a transition from the language spoken by the Salian Franks to Old Dutch . The language spoken by the Salian Franks must have developed significantly during the seven centuries from 200 to 900 AD. At some point, the language spoken by the Franks must have become identifiably Dutch. Because Franconian texts are almost non-existent and Old Dutch texts scarce and fragmentary, it
6952-402: The same ones. Below is a non-exhaustive list of French words of Frankish origin. An asterisk prefixing a term indicates a reconstructed form of the Frankish word. Most Franconian words with the phoneme w changed it to gu when entering Old French and other Romance languages ; however, the northern langues d'oil such as Picard, Norman, Walloon, Burgundian, Champenois an Lorrain retained
7040-560: The south, east of the Rhuys peninsula, in Morbihan . While most often spelled Gallo , the name of the language is sometimes written as Galo or Gallot . It is also referred to as langue gallèse or britto-roman in Brittany . In south Lower Normandy and in the west of Pays de la Loire it is often referred to as patois , though this is a matter of some contention. Gallo comes from
7128-491: The standard language or lingua franca . The Franks conquered adjoining territories of Germany (including the territory of the Allemanni ). The Frankish legacy survives in these areas, for example, in the names of the city of Frankfurt and the area of Franconia . The Franks brought their language with them from their original territory and, as in France, it must have had an effect on the local dialects and languages. However, it
7216-473: The survey, the term patois was the most common way of referring to the language. The term britto-roman was coined by the linguist Alan-Joseph Raude in 1978 to highlight the fact that Gallo is "a Romance variety spoken by Bretons". Gallo should not be confused with Gallo-Roman , a term that refers to the Romance varieties of ancient Gaul. Gallo is one of the langues d'oïl , a dialect continuum covering
7304-445: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). While each had its own distinct characteristics, there certainly must have still been a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. In fact, it is unclear whether the West Germanic continuum of this time period, or indeed Franconian itself, should still be considered
7392-472: The western part of Haute-Bretagne , where, for example, the word curë [kyʁe] is pronounced as [tʃyʁə], and the word ghepe as [dʒep]. Elsewhere, [cyʁə] and [ɟəp] can be heard. Qhi , meanwhile, can be pronounced [ki], [tʃi] or [ci]. These modifications result from an advancement of the place of articulation of the palatal consonants . The semi-consonant [j] is used extensively to palatalize other consonants, notably [fj], [tj], [sj] and [pj]. However, this
7480-473: Was a phonological development ( sound change ) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost complete before the earliest written records in the High German language were made in the 9th century. The resulting language, Old High German , can be neatly contrasted with Low Franconian , which for
7568-422: Was changed when the silent feminine or plural endings were added to the word. Latin verbs with infinitives ending in - are followed the same evolutionary pattern as in French. Captiáre became chasser [ʃasə] in Gallo and chasser [ʃase] in French. This evolution of the [a] in stressed syllables varies from region to region. While in central Upper Brittany , schwa has replaced [e]. In some outlying regions, it
7656-594: Was greater than the respective influence of Visigothic and Lombardic (both Germanic languages ) on Occitan, the Romance languages of Iberia, and Italian . Not all of these loanwords have been retained in modern French. French has also passed on words of Franconian origin to other Romance languages, and to English. Old Franconian has also left many etyma in the different northern langues d'oïl such as Burgundian , Champenois , Lorrain , Norman , Picard and Walloon , more than in Standard French, and not always
7744-505: Was thought to have had a common, tribal origin. In a modern linguistic context, the language of the early Franks is variously called "Old Frankish" or "Old Franconian" and refers to the language of the Franks prior to the advent of the High German consonant shift , which took place between 600 and 700 AD. After this consonant shift the Frankish dialect diverges, with the dialects which would become modern Low Franconian not undergoing
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