The Gallo-Romance branch of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

includes in the narrowest sense the ''

langues d'oïl The ''langues d'oïl'' are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo- ...

'' and

Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a Gallo-Romance languages, Gallo-Romance language that originated and is spoken in eastern France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several di ...

. However, other definitions are far broader and variously encompass the Occitan or Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic or Rhaeto-Romance languages. Old Gallo-Romance was one of the two languages in which the Oaths of Strasbourg were written in 842 AD.

Classification

The Gallo-Romance group includes: * The ''

'' include French, Orleanais, Gallo, Angevin, Tourangeau, Saintongeais, Poitevin, Bourguignon, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Norman. *

in east-central France, western Switzerland and the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. Formerly thought of as a dialect of either the langue d'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 intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...

. It shares features with both French and Occitan. Other language families often included in Gallo-Romance: * Occitano-Romance, including languages and dialects such as Catalan, Occitan, and Aragonese. * Rhaeto-Romance, including Romansh of

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, Ladin of the Dolomites area and Friulian of

Friuli Friuli (; ; or ; ; ) is a historical region of northeast Italy. The region is marked by its separate regional and ethnic identity predominantly tied to the Friulians, who speak the Friulian language. It comprises the major part of the autono ...

. Rhaeto-Romance can be classified as either Gallo-Romance or a separate branch within the Western Romance languages. Rhaeto-Romance is a diverse group, with the Italian varieties influenced by Venetian and Italian and Romansh by Franco-Provençal. * Gallo-Italic, including Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol, Judeo-Italian,

Gallo-Italic of Sicily The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages Languages of Italy#Northern Italy, of northern Italy: Piedmontese language, Piedmontese, Lombard language, Lombard, Em ...

and Gallo-Italic of Basilicata. Venetian is also part of the Gallo-Italic branch according both to Ethnologue and Glottolog. Gallo-Italic can be classified as either Gallo-Romance or a separate branch of the Western Romance languages. Ligurian and Venetian, if it is considered in the category, retain the final -o and are the exceptions in Gallo-Romance. * In addition, there are several French-based creole languages such as

Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...

. In the view of some linguists ( Pierre Bec, Andreas Schorta, Heinrich Schmid, Geoffrey Hull), Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic form a single linguistic unity named "Rhaeto-Cisalpine" or "Padanian", which includes also the Venetian and Istriot languages, whose Italianate features are deemed to be superficial and secondary in nature.The most developed formulation of that 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 (the langues d'oïl and Arpitan) were historically spoken in the northern half of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, including parts of

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-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 culture, la ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

and part of Lorraine; the

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

region of

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

; the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

; parts of Switzerland; and Northern Italy. Today, a single Gallo-Romance language (French) dominates much of the 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 is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, the

Valencian Community The Valencian Community is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid wit ...

, and the Balearic islands in eastern

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

;

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

; and much of Northern

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The historical border between the Northern and Soutern varieties of Gallo-Romance languages has been called the Von Wartburg line.

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 from which modern French developed, was the epicentre. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed the earliest, appear in their most extreme manifestation in the langue d'oïl and gradually spread 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, which was 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 appears in place of the lost vowel, usually . Generally, the same changes also occurred in final syllables closed by a consonant.

, however, generally preserves the original final vowel after a syllable-final cluster, such as ''quattuor'' "four" > ''quatro'' (compare French ''quatre''). Furthermore, loss of in a final syllable was early enough in Primitive Old French that the Classical Latin third-person 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 rivalling 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 cases, which was fully marked on nouns, adjectives and determiners; was inherited almost directly from the Latin nominative and accusative cases; and preserved 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 for pronouns) lost it early. For example, the case system was preserved in Old Occitan until around the 13th century but had already been lost in Old Catalan although there were very few other differences between them. 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, merged 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'', which are 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 was noted above. One major exception is the Ligurian language, where apocope only occurred after nasal consonants. * Further reductions of final vowels in langue d'oïl and many Gallo-Italic languages, with the feminine and epenthetic vowel merging into , which was often subsequently dropped. * Early heavy reduction of unstressed vowels in the interior of a word, which is another defining characteristic. It 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 the final vowels phonemicised the long vowels, which 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, which resulted in the maintenance of the original distinction. The langue d'oïl branch was again at the forefront of innovation, with at least five of the seven long vowels diphthongising (only high vowels were spared). * Front rounded vowels 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 and repeated lenition occurs in many languages, especially in langue d'oïl and many Gallo-Italian languages. 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 langue d'oïl dialects (except Norman and Picard) and Swiss Rhaeto-Romance languages and many northern Occitan dialects have a secondary palatalization of and before , with different results because of the primary Romance palatalisation: ''centum'' "hundred" > ''cent'' , ''cantum'' "song" > ''chant'' . * Other than Occitano-Romance languages, most Gallo-Romance languages are subject-obligatory, but all other Romance languages are

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language in which 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 ...

languages. That 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 verb forms (e.g. ''aime''/''aimes''/''aiment''; ''viens''/''vient'') to be pronounced the same. 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 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 1st century AD and would certainly have triggered palatalisation. * Use of nominative ''-i'' for the masculine plural, instead of the accusative ''-os''.

Classification

Traditional geographical extension

General characteristics

References

Further reading