History of French

The franc is modern belongs to the group of languages ​​called romance. Descendants of Latin, arguably these languages ​​represent living shadows of the ancient Roman empire, reflecting the divergent histories of regions formerly unified under Roman rule.

The origin of modern French (and other Romance languages) spoken version was a popular Latin that had spread by conquering Roman legions - namely, in the case of the French, in the Alpine Gaul by the armies of Julius Caesar during the previous century the birth of Christ.

Map of France The invasion of Gaul in the year 400 AD by Germanic tribes (including so-called Franks) who fled from attacks by nomads of Central Asia, resulted in the loss of military control by Rome and led to the establishment of a new class Frankish ruler whose mother tongue, of course, was not Latin. The adaptation of the popular Latin spoken by the native population tended to impose authoritative for example, a pronunciation that retained a marked Germanic flavor - mainly in the vowel sounds that can still be heard in the French of today (the  u and eu of modern French, for example, remains very close to the U and O of modern German - sounds unknown to any other modern language descended from Latin).

The popular spoken Latin grammar which descends French was easier than it was the Latin of classical literature. The appearance over time, however, a French language that specifically derived from the Latin spoken, took further simplification. Much of what Latin had communicated to modify the pronunciation of words was now communicated by separate words or phrases, and especially by word order (which in Latin had been extremely flexible because logical relationship between words could be detected at the ends of single words, regardless of the order thereof).

The changes in grammar gradually made ​​it harder and harder for speakers of the current understanding of the Latin language still used in Christian religious services and in legal documents. As a result, a written codification of spoken language developed for use in current law and policy was necessary. The first written documents in a distinctly French language (Francien, of Frankish) were called Oaths of Strasbourg, pronounced by two grandsons of Charlemagne in 842 AD

This French language was in fact one of several different languages ​​descended from Latin, spoken in various parts of the post-Roman Gaul. Other mainly included are the so-called Provence (or langue d'oc) spoken in much of the southern half of what is now metropolitan France. However, the so-called language French won a special situation as a result of its association with the dominant feudal military power - namely the court of Charlemagne and his successors - whose territorial reach and effective control of French life grew over time.

The return of the French court to Paris - after its move to Aachen (Aix la Chapelle) under Charlemagne - and the greatest success of his armies against the Anglo-Norman occupiers of the main northern and southwestern France, led to a territorial consolidation that guaranteed the future position of French as the official language of a centralized monarchy (later nation-state). Thus it was established the French by the Edict of Villers-Cotterets in 1539.

The poetic fertility of medieval Provençal, meanwhile, which had already far exceeded the French in the so-called period of Troubadours, he gave way then to the literary language of the central court and central institutions of justice and education - the language of Paris and the Ile de France region around him.

The grammar of the French language spoken and written today, it is in essence unchanged since the late seventeenth century, when official efforts to standardize, stabilize and clarify the use of French grammar is institutionalized in the French Academy. The purpose of this uniformity was political: to facilitate the extension of the influence of the court and to smooth the processes of law, administration and commerce throughout and even beyond the territory of France, as colonial enterprises (as far as India and Louisiana) opened new scenarios that imperial growth.

Even today, after the decline of the influence of the empire of France after World War II, France remains the second language of a vast Francophone population extends beyond the territories and French overseas departments (Guyana France, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Pierre and Miquelon, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Tahiti, Seychelles, Mauritius and Reunion Island).