The Gallo-Romance branch of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and

Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separ ...

. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the

Occitano-Romance The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...

Gallo-Italic The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...

, and

Rhaeto-Romance languages Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The quest ...

. Old Gallo-Romance was one of the two languages in which the

Oaths of Strasbourg The Oaths of Strasbourg were a military pact made on 14 February 842 by Charles the Bald and Louis the German against their older brother Lothair I, the designated heir of Louis the Pious, the successor of Charlemagne. One year later the Trea ...

were written in 842 AD.

Classification

The Gallo-Romance group includes: * The Oïl languages. These include French, Orleanais,

Gallo Gallo may refer to: *Related to Gaul: ** Gallo-Roman culture **Gallo language, a regional language of France **Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages **Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...

Angevin Angevin or House of Anjou may refer to: *County of Anjou or Duchy of Anjou, a historical county, and later Duchy, in France **Angevin (language), the traditional langue d'oïl spoken in Anjou **Counts and Dukes of Anjou * House of Ingelger, a Frank ...

, Tourangeau, Saintongeais, Poitevin, Bourguignon, Picard, Walloon,

Lorrain Lorrain may refer to: * Claude Lorrain (1600–82), a 17th-century French artist of the baroque style * Lorrain language, a Romance dialect spoken in Lorraine region in France and Gaume region in Belgium See also * Lorain (disambiguation) * Lor ...

and

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

. *

, of east-central France, western Switzerland, and

Aosta Valley , Valdostan or Valdotainian it, Valdostano (man) it, Valdostana (woman)french: Valdôtain (man)french: Valdôtaine (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = Official languages , population_blank1 = Italian French ...

region of northwestern Italy. Formerly thought of as a dialect of either Oïl or Occitan, it is linguistically a language on its own, or rather a separate group of languages, as many of its dialects have little mutual comprehensibility. It shares features of both French and

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

. Other language families often included in Gallo-Romance: *

, including languages and dialects such as

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

, Provençal, Gascon-Aranese and Aragonese. *

Rhaeto-Romance Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The questi ...

, including Romansh of Switzerland,

Ladin Ladin may refer to: * Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language *Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy See also *Laden (disambiguation) * Ladino (disambigua ...

of the

Dolomites The Dolomites ( it, Dolomiti ; Ladin: ''Dolomites''; german: Dolomiten ; vec, Dołomiti : fur, Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form pa ...

area, and Friulian of

Friuli Friuli ( fur, Friûl, sl, Furlanija, german: Friaul) is an area of Northeast Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity containing 1,000,000 Friulians. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giuli ...

. Rhaeto-Romance can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as a separate branch within the

Western Romance languages Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included ...

. Rhaeto-Romance is a diverse group, with the Italian varieties influenced by Venetian and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

and Romansh by Franco-Provençal. *

, including

Piedmontese Piedmontese (; autonym: or , in it, piemontese) is a language spoken by some 2,000,000 people mostly in Piedmont, northwestern region of Italy. Although considered by most linguists a separate language, in Italy it is often mistakenly reg ...

, Ligurian,

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and

Eastern Lombard Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic dialect spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are Be ...

, Emilian, Romagnol,

Gallo-Italic of Sicily , states = Northwest Italy , region = Central and eastern Sicily , speakers = 60,000 , ref = , date = 2006 , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Italic , fam3 = Romance , fam4 = Italo-Western , f ...

and

Gallo-Italic of Basilicata The Gallo-Italic of Basilicata ( it, Gallo-italico di Basilicata) is a group of Gallo-Italic dialects found in Basilicata in southern Italy, that could date back to migrations from Northern Italy during the time of the Normans. These dialects ...

. Venetian is also part of the Gallo-Italic branch according both to Ethnologue and Glottolog. Gallo-Italic can be classified as Gallo-Romance or as a separate branch of the

. Ligurian (and Venetian if considered) retain the final -o, being the exceptions in Gallo-Romance. * In addition to these languages, there are several

French-based creole languages A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th- or 18th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the ...

, such as Haitian Creole. In the view of some linguists (

Pierre Bec Pierre Bec (; oc, Pèire Bèc; 11 December 1921 – 30 June 2014) was a French Occitan-language poet and linguist. Born in Paris, he spent his childhood in Comminges, where he learnt Occitan. He was deported to Germany between 1943 and 1945. Aft ...

, Andreas Schorta,

Heinrich Schmid Heinrich Schmid (6 April 1921 – 23 February 1999) was a Swiss linguist and "father" of the Rhaeto-Romance Dachsprachen ("umbrella languages") Rumantsch Grischun and Ladin Dolomitan. Heinrich Schmid lived his entire life in the same house in Z ...

Geoffrey Hull Geoffrey Stephen Hull (born 6 September 1955) is an Australian linguist, ethnologist and historian who has made contributions to the study of Romance, Celtic, Slavonic, Semitic, Austronesian and Papuan languages, in particular to the relationshi ...

) Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic form a single linguistic unity named "Rhaeto-Cisalpine" or "Padanian", which includes also the Venetian and

Istriot The Istriot language () is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken by about 400 people in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, particularly in Rovinj and Vodnjan. It should not be confused with the Istrian ...

languages, whose Italianate features are deemed to be superficial and secondary in nature.The most developed formulation of this theory is to be found in the research of Geoffrey Hull, "La lingua padanese: Corollario dell’unità dei dialetti reto-cisalpini". ''Etnie: Scienze politica e cultura dei popoli minoritari'', 13 (1987), pp. 50-53; 14 (1988), pp. 66-70, and ''The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia: Historical Grammar of the Padanian Language'', 2 vols. Sydney: Beta Crucis, 2017..

Traditional geographical extension

How far the Gallo-Romance languages spread varies a great deal depending on which languages are included in the group. Those included in its narrowest definition (i.e. the Langues d'oïl and Arpitan) were historically spoken in the northern half of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, parts of

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, part of

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gra ...

, the

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...

region of

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, parts of Switzerland, and northern Italy. Today, a single Gallo-Romance language (French) dominates much of this geographic region (including the formerly non-Romance areas of France) and has also spread overseas. At its broadest, the area also encompasses southern France,

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

, the

Valencian Community The Valencian Community ( ca-valencia, Comunitat Valenciana, es, Comunidad Valenciana) is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid wi ...

and the Balearic islands in eastern

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Andorra , image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg , symbol_type = Coat of arms , national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none (Latin)"United virtue is stro ...

and much of northern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

General characteristics

The Gallo-Romance languages are generally considered the most innovative (least conservative) among the Romance languages. Northern France (the medieval area of the

langue d'oïl Langue is a municipality in the Valle Department, Honduras. The town is located near the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center. Most of the town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers. There are usually Mormon miss ...

, from which modern French developed) was the epicentre. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed earliest and appear in their most extreme manifestation in the langue d'oïl, gradually spreading out from there along riverways and roads. The earliest vernacular Romance writing occurred in Northern France, as the development of vernacular writing in a given area was forced by the almost total inability of Romance speakers to understand Classical Latin, still the vehicle of writing and culture. Gallo-Romance languages are usually characterised by the loss of all unstressed final vowels other than (most significantly, final and were lost). However, when the loss of a final vowel would result in an impossible final cluster (e.g. ), an

epenthetic vowel In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epenth ...

appears in place of the lost vowel, usually . Generally, the same changes also occurred in final syllables closed by a consonant. Furthermore, loss of in a final syllable was early enough in Primitive Old French that the Classical Latin third singular was often preserved: ''venit'' "he comes" > (Romance vowel changes) > (diphthongization) > (lenition) > (Gallo-Romance final vowel loss) > (final devoicing). Elsewhere, final vowel loss occurred later or unprotected was lost earlier (perhaps under Italian influence). Other than southern Occitano-Romance, the Gallo-Romance languages are quite innovative, with French and some of the Gallo-Italian languages rivaling each other for the most extreme phonological changes compared with more conservative languages. For example, French ''sain, saint, sein, ceint, seing'' meaning "healthy, holy, breast, (he) girds, signature" (Latin ''sānum'', ''sanctum'', ''sinum'', ''cingit'', ''signum'') are all pronounced . In other ways, however, the Gallo-Romance languages are conservative. The older stages of many of the languages are famous for preserving a two-case system consisting of nominative and oblique, fully marked on nouns, adjectives and determiners, inherited almost directly from the Latin nominative and accusative cases and preserving a number of different declensional classes and irregular forms. In the opposite of the normal pattern, the languages closest to the oïl epicentre preserve the case system the best, and languages at the periphery (near languages that had long before lost the case system except on pronouns) lost it early. For example, the case system was preserved in

Old Occitan Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old ...

until around the 13th century but had already been lost in

Old Catalan Old Catalan is the modern denomination for Romance varieties that during the Middle Ages were spoken in territories that spanned roughly the territories of the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and the isl ...

, despite the fact that there were very few other differences between the two. The Occitan group is known for an innovatory ending on many subjunctive and preterite verbs and an unusual development of (Latin intervocalic -d-), which, in many varieties, merges with (from intervocalic palatalised -c- and -ty-). The following tables show two examples of the extensive phonological changes that French has undergone. (Compare modern Italian ''saputo'', ''vita'' even more conservative than the reconstructed Western Romance forms.) These are the notable characteristics of the Gallo-Romance languages: * Early loss of all final vowels other than is the defining characteristic, as noted above. * Further reductions of final vowels in

and many

Gallo-Italic languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications def ...

, with the feminine and

merging into , which is often subsequently dropped. * Early, heavy reduction of unstressed vowels in the interior of a word (another defining characteristic). That and final vowel reduction are most of the extreme phonemic differences between the Northern and the Central Italian dialects, which otherwise share a great deal of vocabulary and syntax. * Loss of final vowels phonemicised the long vowels that had been automatic concomitants of stressed open syllables. The phonemic long vowels are maintained directly in many Northern Italian dialects. Elsewhere, phonemic length was lost, but many of the long vowels had been diphthongised, resulting in a maintenance of the original distinction. The langue d'oïl branch was again at the forefront of innovation, with no less than five of the seven long vowels diphthongising (only high vowels were spared). *

Front rounded vowel A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded. The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include: * , a close front rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel") * , a near-close front rounded vowel (or " ...

s are present in all branches except Catalan. usually fronts to (typically along with a shift of to ), and mid-front rounded vowels often develop from long or . * Extreme lenition (repeated lenition) occurs in many languages, especially in langue d'oïl and many

Gallo-Italian languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...

. Examples from French: ''ˈvītam'' > ''vie'' "life"; *''saˈpūtum'' > ''su'' "known"; similarly ''vu'' "seen" < *''vidūtum'', ''pu'' "been able" < *''potūtum'', ''eu'' "had" < *''habūtum''. Examples from Lombard: *"căsa" > "cà" "home, house" * Most of langue d'oïl (except Norman and Picard dialects), Swiss

and many northern dialects of Occitan have a secondary palatalization of and before , producing different results from the primary Romance palatalisation: ''centum'' "hundred" > ''cent'' , ''cantum'' "song" > ''chant'' . * Other than

Occitano-Romance languages The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/ Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...

, most Gallo-Romance languages are subject-obligatory (whereas all the rest of the Romance languages are

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...

languages). This is a late development triggered by progressive phonetic erosion: Old French was still a null-subject language until the loss of secondary final consonants in Middle French caused spoken verb forms (e.g. ''aime''/''aimes''/''aiment''; ''viens''/''vient'') to coincide. Gallo-Italian languages have a number of features in common with the other Italian languages: * Loss of final , which triggers raising of the preceding vowel (more properly, the " debuccalises" to , which is monophthongised into a higher vowel): > , > , hence

Standard Italian Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

plural ''cani'' < ''canes'', subjunctive ''tu canti'' < ''tū cantēs'', indicative ''tu cante'' < ''tū cantās'' (now ''tu canti'' in Standard Italian, borrowed from the subjunctive); ''amiche'' "female friends" < ''amīcās''. The palatalisation in the masculine ''amici'' , compared with the lack of palatalisation in ''amiche'' , shows that feminine ''-e'' cannot come from Latin ''-ae'', which became by the first century AD, and would certainly have triggered palatalisation. * Use of nominative ''-i'' for masculine plurals instead of accusative ''-os''.

Classification

Traditional geographical extension

General characteristics

References

Further reading