Franks language

motatalea

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Why did franks ( a west germanic people) adopted roman language when they went to modern day france? Was this because of the controll strength of romans in that country?
 
The Franks did not adopt the Latin in France. They first settled in modern-day Belgium around the 3rd century. This was a part of the Roman Empire where the official language was Latin. The Franks therefore adopted Latin. They introduced new Germanic words and changed the pronunciation of Latin. After a few centuries the language became known as Romance, then Old French.
 
The Franks did not adopt the Latin in France. They first settled in modern-day Belgium around the 3rd century. This was a part of the Roman Empire where the official language was Latin. The Franks therefore adopted Latin. They introduced new Germanic words and changed the pronunciation of Latin. After a few centuries the language became known as Romance, then Old French.

1-ok but why they didnot keep taiking with their own germanic language in france like anglo-saxons did in england?Was this because of the strength of roman controll their?
2- were the normans having catholic denomination or protostant one?
3-last but not least Was flander part of belgium under the roman empire?and could you tell me please which countries in North and North western europe that have never been conquered by romans?
 
1 -Acculturation.
- No.

2 -Catholic, protestants didn't existed yet.

3 - Yes.
- Ireland, Scandinavian countries.
 
1-ok but why they didnot keep taiking with their own germanic language in france like anglo-saxons did in england?Was this because of the strength of roman controll their?

Because the Franks worked for the Romans. Many of them served as soldiers to defend the borders of the empire against other Germanic tribes. The Franks became culturally Roman. Some of them even become Roman senators and consuls.

3-last but not least Was flander part of belgium under the roman empire?and could you tell me please which countries in North and North western europe that have never been conquered by romans?

Flanders, the southern Netherlands and the German Rhineland were all Roman. Northern Germany, Poland and anything north and east were never Roman.
 
All the Netherlands and northern Germany west of the Elbe river was conquered by the Romans (for a few time, but still conquered).
 
All the Netherlands and northern Germany west of the Elbe river was conquered by the Romans (for a few time, but still conquered).

Briefly conquered, but not really Romanised.
 
Hej, The franks adopted latin, but yet continued using their old high german very late, as the Ludwigslied tells us, because it's dated 881 and is about the battle of Saucourt, Saucourt being in Picardy, near the coast. That means the kings and the court was still speaking that germanic language and there was an audience for that singing (or maybe it was propaganda for the east ?). I think genetics tells us there wern't so many real franks in what is today's France and this is probably why it brutally ended together with the carolingian dinasty ?
 
I agree with yvesson here.
As he says, Franks did not abandon their language at first, and under Roman rules, their folk spoke a Germanic language, even if their elite may have known latin (the elite of the ones who were allied to Romans, not all of the Franks tribes).
After they went in today France (Gaul) aroud 428 when Rome was become weak they were the winners, not the loosers, otherwise they could not have left so much GERMANIC words in french (weapons, military terms, authority terms, what they could have not passed us if they spoke latin since a long time; I think that on military ground, Romans were superior and it would have been seen in their language, what does not seem the case. That said Carolus Magnus was very impressed by the Roma culture as it seems, I'm not sure that at Clovis (Hlodovik: Louis) times it was the same.
language: Oil French contains a noticeable number of Frankish words, but as a whole the phonetic evolution from Vulgar Latin is not due to Germanics but to Celts and in some way to pre-Celts. In north and north-east where Franks were more numerous (they left maybe around 20% to 33% of their DNA there) they infuenced more the phonetic (among others: less palatalization, maintain of W- or V- without evolution to GW- and then to G- like in the rest of Oil France and even Occitanie, this influence produced the same result as the Viking one in North Normandy.
 
Hej, it's likely that the likes of Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) was bilingual, as was its court, but yet the church was strong and taught latin to the gallo roman people in gaul, which became, as you say, early french with a lot of germanic influence in the very north and remained a germanic language in the east and everywhere the germanic people were numerous. You are also right that Picard kept the K sound instead of ch (Catieu / Chateau or capieu / chapeau) and the W sound instead of G (Wèpe / guèpe).
It's likely that Charlemagne wanted to copy the roman empire, as seen on its coins, he appears like a roman emperor on them. But for me the main reason latin became the main language is the church, not the romans (well, the roman church). As the influence of the church grew from Vth to Xth centuries, the germanic languages were eradicated in gaul. The monks havn't copied much germanic manuscripts in the XIth centuries and after, possibly there was a lot of them during the merovingian and carolingian dynasty ?
I think that Clovis may have been bilingual too, I have no idea how it worked in the roman legions, but it's likely Childeric spoke latin, or at least spoke it like an immigrant, which would lead to introduce technical germanic words in latin or proto-french he and his soldiers spoke.
 
what say Wikipedia (not always as sure as Bible but...)
"...The Franks expanded south into Gaul. Although the Franks would eventually conquer all of Gaul, speakers of Old Franconian apparently expanded in sufficient numbers only into northern Gaul to have a linguistic effect. For several centuries, northern Gaul was a bilingual territory (Vulgar Latin and Franconian). The language used in writing, in government and by the Church was Latin. Eventually, the Franks who had settled more to the south of this area in northern Gaul started adopting the Vulgar Latin of the local population. This Vulgar 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. the "people's language".[11] 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."...
I red some suppositions of the same sort elsewhere.
 
The writing of Wikipedia makes it even look like Français appeared much to the south of the main places of Frankish invasion and settlement, but not. It was basically adjacent to the areas that would eventually become Franconian-speaking, and certainly much of the North of Gaul was perhaps bilingual but with a clear predominance of Vulgar Latin, otherwise local Oïl languages like Normand and Picard would probably be less divergent from French if they were just much more recent transplants into Northern Gaul. What we call "French" today was basically Francien as spoken by Parisians, similar to Orléanais our Tourangeau dialects, and it developed only some 200-250km from Franconian-speaking zones.
 
Scotland wasn't conquered either. There was actually 2 walls built by the Romans to keep out the barbarous Picts of Scotland
 
Hej,
Picard isn't that close to germanic languages, it's very close to french and has german influences, just more than french which also has them. Also the Strassbourg Oaths from 832 shows an early french which is said oïl by the linguists, but it isn't that obvious when you see it, so it's probably not a northern oïl language. At the same time, it should have been a bit of a standart to write it where it is ?
I doubt there was many bilingual people outside the elites.
Also we don't have the manuscripts from 800ish or 900ish, the originals, we have copies from after the Xth century, so there may have been such official texts in germanic language, but we will never know.
 
Picard seems a romance language spoken at a stage when Oïl french has not completely achieved is "neo-satemization"; among what made its differenciation from other french dialect there are conservative traits concerning velar occlusives rather than innovation, due to Germanic influence (like in North Normand) -
IMO (without proof) I think the populations of North France stayed a long time separated between "old Gallo-Romans" and more or less genuine Franks; the osmosis came with time, surely not abruptly (Franks rather in elites) and at first only Franks were bilingual, the others romance monolingual.
Paris french, for a long enough time, stayed under two influences: the Orléanais-Tourangeau dialects from one side, the Picard and also Champenois from another side, if I red well.
Concerning the Strasbourg Oaths it has been said it showed close ties with Poitevin dialects. ATW at those times, roman was already broken out in dialects, but they were not as differentiated as modern dialects, so... Even today, southern poitevin dialects has kept some few traits more conservative, putting them a little bit closer to Occitan dialects.
 
Hej, Poitou is indeed not northern. We got the oaths from Nithard who is located far norther, in Picardy (St Riquier), and those are again copies from the XIth century.
Hopefully, the new techniques allowing to read manuscripts which were erased will give us more clues about the languages at the time.
 
correture

Why did franks ( a west germanic people) adopted roman language when they went to modern day france? Was this because of the controll strength of romans in that country?

Correct ist, the Franks wanted to inherit the title of Roman emperor from Syagrius (? ca. 486/87) and pretended to save the western Roman Empire (and roman culture). Clodwig I. Aegidius proclaimed 476 himself as emperor of west. Around 486/87 Chlodwig I. defeated the last roman weak emperor Syargius and proclaimed the restauration of western romanum. This is his "christian hero legend" of Merowinger. To save the christian latin culture was now his job and he hope for recognition of Emperor title from the Emperor of Byzantium Zeno. But Zeno send Theoderich the great as magister militum per Italia 488 against Odoaker in Italy.
The end of Chlodwigs dream as roman Emporercame with Justinian I, he proclaimed himself as Emporer of Eastern and Western Romanum (Basileus Rhomaion and Byzantium). He makes now greek to the language of his empire, but in Western world (Frankenreich of Chlodwig I. ) the people spoken furthermore vulgar gallian Latin on the street and Latin in the church.
The Church is now splitted in a eastern Church with Byzantine Ritus and a western Church with romanic Ritus.
In the next time is developt the vulgar latin in gallia to a france language of western frankish kingdom.
The key to understand why the franks in West do not spoken germanic is the christian title. Only Latin or Greek was a language of christian church. The merowinger Dynastie was only christian "rex francorum" = Kings.
300 Years later, the Karolinger Karl the Great makes himself with the help from Pope of Rome to a Emporer of Rome after the romanic Ritus. In the contract of Aachen 812 his title was not "Imperator Romanum" (or greek "Basileus Rhomaion"), his title was "Romanum gubernans imperium". He was "Protector of Romanum imperium".
In the germanic site, he etablish 813 west german (thiotisca) as language of Administration, in france and belgica he etablish 813 oldfrance (rustica lingua romana) as language of Administration. East germanic, old germanic and north germanic was now languages of sclavos (Slavs). For Karl was all slavs include danish peoples Sclavini.

"Et ut easdem omelias quisque aperte transferre studeat in rusticam Romanam linguam aut Thiotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intellegere quae dicuntur
."

863 or 864 came Kyrill and Method as priest and teacher from Byzantium to Bratislava (romanic Devin). He created from local vulgar latin by Austrian Limes, east germanic or avar language by local population and greek letters a new "slavic" language.
A bit later 868 the pope gave Kyrill the permission to teach the holy bible in his new slavic language. Now chanced all "sclavos duces" to the eastern Church after byzantine Ritus and hunted the Franconian priests out of her duces.
Kyrills Students recruted croatians, bolgars and russia what created more slavic languages under the influence of local population. This was the end of frankish influence in slavic countrys. The slavic dux was now servantes of byzantine patriarch and eastern Church. And Karl and his follower together with other etablished Kings of western europe promoted the western church with the pope of Rome.
 
@Werner
All this is interesting and is written history - but it says little about languages shifts - my thought is that in today France-South-Benelux, the adoption of a late vulgar Latin language and abandon of Germanic cannot be only the result of a snobism of some rulers or the language of religion but rather the result of a demography process.
And this genesis?:
"He created from local vulgar latin by Austrian Limes, east germanic or avar language by local population and greek letters a new "slavic" language.
A bit later 868 the pope gave Kyrill the permission to teach the holy bible in his new slavic language. Now chanced all "sclavos duces" to the eastern Church after byzantine Ritus and hunted the Franconian priests out of her duces.
Kyrills Students recruted croatians, bolgars and russia what created more slavic languages under the influence of local population."
I do'nt understand too much...
 

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