Gallo-Roman languages

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The Gallo-Roman languages are a subgroup of the Romance languages , which in turn represent a branch of the Indo-European language family . The Gallo-Roman languages ​​include the Oïl languages in northern France , including French , Occitan in southern France, Franco-Provençal , Piedmontese and, in a broader sense, Catalan and other languages ​​of northern Italy ( e.g. Lombard ). The Gallo-Roman languages ​​developed from the spoken Latin , the term Gallo-Roman refers to the Celtic people of the Gauls , who formerly settled in the area of ​​distribution of the Gallo-Roman languages ​​and presumably influenced regional Latin to a relatively high degree. The area of ​​distribution of the Gallo-Roman languages ​​is called Galloromania .

Emergence

The Gallo-Roman languages ​​are one of the Romance languages that have Latin as their common origin. Latin, originally the language of Rome , spread with the expansion of the Roman Empire in large parts of Europe, including in what is now France , Wallonia in Belgium , in the north of Italy and in the regions of Romandie , Graubünden and Ticino that belong to Switzerland where the Gallo-Roman languages ​​are native.

In the 1st and 2nd centuries BC The Romans conquered Gaul . After subjugating it militarily, they introduced their administrative, school and legal systems there, all based on the Latin language. The population soon learned the new language in order to be able to trade or to pursue a career in business, administration and politics. This process is known as romanization or latinization. The Latin that was spoken in the conquered territories was not the classic Latin of the writers, but a colloquial language also used in Rome, the so-called Vulgar Latin . Classical Latin was taught in schools, however, and linguistic unity throughout the Roman Empire was ensured by the central influence of Rome.

The actual genesis of the Gallo-Roman languages ​​began with the collapse of the empire in the 5th century. The political and cultural influence shifted from Rome to the centers of the individual provinces . The Roman school system collapsed and the uniform written Latin was soon no longer mastered. Vulgar Latin developed and changed differently in different regions. It was influenced by the languages ​​that were spoken before the arrival of Latin, such as Ligurian , Basque or Iberian , but above all by the Celtic of the Gallic tribes. Franconian exerted an even greater influence, when it came to the Galloromania region when the Franks conquered the land in the 4th to 6th centuries.

French

Map of the Oïl languages

distribution

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French is the best known and most widely spoken of the Gallo-Roman languages. It is the national language of France and is used throughout the national territory in all public areas by around 48 million speakers. French is also to be found in many other European countries as the mother tongue , official language or lingua franca: in southern Belgium , in Luxembourg , in Switzerland , in Italy , Monaco , Andorra and on the Channel Islands . Outside of Europe, there are also communities of speakers who have French as their mother tongue, such as in Canada and the USA , as well as communities of speakers with French as the official or lingua franca that exist in South America , on many islands in the Indian Ocean and in the Caribbean , in Oceania and in Africa are at home. This wide spread of the language goes back to the colonization activities of France . The Francophonie , that is, the entire French-speaking world, approximately 104 million includes speakers, so French is ranked six of the world's languages one.

characterization

French has moved more away from Latin than the other Gallo-Roman languages; this difference is based on several factors: The conquest by the Romans and the associated Romanization took place from the south and reached the north of Gaul relatively late. The influence of the Celtic languages ​​was therefore stronger in the north, the area less Latinized. The settlement movement of the Franks, on the other hand, came from the north and reached the south later, so the Franconian-Germanic influence was more pronounced in the north than in the south.

Development history

French was originally one of many language varieties in what is now France; it developed in the area around Paris , which later became the Ile de France . Between the 5th and 8th centuries it rapidly drifted further and further away from Latin. This dialect , the so-called French, began to spread from Paris early on. The centrally located city was considered the center of the country as early as the 11th century, as poems from this time show; two centuries later, Paris became the official capital of the Kingdom of France. From the 12th century onwards, the language of Paris influenced the literature and non-literary texts of the north. This development was supported by the geographical expansion of the king; more and more previously independent areas came under French rule. The regional language varieties largely disappeared in favor of the lead language. As early as the 13th century, a relatively homogeneous language was spoken in the northern part of the country, which was clearly different from the dialects used in the south. During this time the terms langue d'oïl (language of the "oïl") for the northern and langue d'oc (language of the "oc") for the southern language area, where oïl , the old French word for "yes" is and oc the old Occitan, common in the south.

In the 14th century, French changed significantly in terms of word order in sentence and sound. The actual character of the language emerged here, which is why this period is seen as a transition from old to new French. The spelling of the words, which mostly reproduced the earlier sound quite precisely, remained the same, only the pronunciation changed, which explains the complicated spelling of today's French.

Over the centuries, French penetrated the south, pushing back the regional languages . Edicts ordered the sole use of French; the printing press only promoted French, as the other languages ​​were mainly transmitted orally. The French Revolution spread from 1,789 francophone ideas and laws throughout the country; military service made it necessary to master the French language, and with industrialization from the north, the language also permeated the country. In 1881 compulsory schooling was introduced and the language of instruction was French. Today, French is the predominant language everywhere in France, including in the areas where the other Gallo-Roman languages ​​are spoken. Among those born after 1970 there is hardly anyone who has not learned French as their first language.

Occitan

distribution

The Occitan is the most important regional language of France. The distribution area covers about a third of the French state, to the south of a line that begins at the mouth of the Garonne , follows the course of the Dordogne for a while , continues in a north-westerly direction, includes the Massif Central , meets the Rhone south of Lyon and reached the sea near Monaco . Occitan is also spoken in the Val d'Aran in Spain and in the Waldensian valleys in Italy. There are around 200,000 active speakers and around 6 million potential speakers with more or less active knowledge; Occitan is the second language for most.

characterization

Occitan is less homogeneous than the Oïl languages; There are different dialects : Provencal and Languedocian , which are summarized as South Occitan dialects, Auvergnat , Limousin and Alpine Provençal , which are considered North Occitan dialects , and Gascon , which is classified by some linguists as a separate Romance language.

In the past, the term “Provençal” was often used for Occitan, which is no longer common today, as there is a risk of confusion with the Provençal dialect. The term "Occitan" is based on the French occitan , which in turn affects the term langue d'oc relates. Occitan has a lot of syntactic similarities with the Ibero-Romance languages and is closely related to Catalan ; in Old Provençal there are phonetic similarities to northern Italian. It is a conservative Romance language and has moved less far from Latin than French. Many phonetic changes that French show have not taken place in Occitan.

Development history

Occitan was the first of the Gallo-Roman languages ​​to develop a literary form in the Middle Ages, the troubadour poetry . The first lyrical texts were written around the year 1000, and with them began the two centuries of the heyday of troubadour poetry. Occitan was also used early on in science and administration, where previously only Latin was used; the first document dates from 1102. The end of this heyday began as early as the 13th century with the Albigensian Crusades (1209–1229). These were directed against a religious group that had settled in western Occitania, around Albi, and had turned against the Catholic Church. As a result of these crusades, Occitania was incorporated into the territory of the French king. In particular, the troubadour lyric lost its foundation with the Occitan courts, and French became more and more common in administration and politics. The Edict of Villers-Cotterets (1539) finally prescribed its exclusive use in law and administration, and writers also turned to French, which gained more and more prestige. Thus the written language was lost in the 16th century and with it the sense of belonging among the speakers; different dialects develop. Nevertheless, Occitan remained the spoken language of the rural southern France until the 19th century; French was only used for official speeches and in correspondence. Since a large part of the population could neither read nor write, Occitan was often the only language spoken.

Another major event in Occitan language history was the French Revolution . With new laws, announcements and the ideas of the revolution, its language also penetrated vehemently into the south. In addition, the various regional languages ​​of the country were systematically opposed by the government and French was propagated from then on . The most effective measure in this regard was compulsory schooling, which was introduced in 1881. Only the official language was used in schools, and the use of Occitan was forbidden to children under penalty of punishment. At the same time, the language's prestige declined, and many parents no longer passed their Occitan mother tongue on to their children. The spread of French-language media such as newspapers and radio and the emigration to industrial cities in the north also fundamentally changed the language situation in Occitania until the end of the Second World War . From the 1970s onwards, Occitan was only acquired as a second language or in parallel with French. Today Occitan can be taught in schools again, and an additional examination in the language can improve the Abitur grade. However, Occitan lessons are rarely promoted and therefore rarely practiced.

Occitan is used mainly in rural areas today. There is no generally recognized written language, but rather various dialectal variations and, above all, deficits at the high-level linguistic level, although the Institut d'Estudis Occitains has established a standard, the so-called "Reference Occitan ", which is also taught in schools.

Efforts to revive Occitan were already there in the 16th century. Better known, however, is the “ Félibrige ” movement, which was founded in 1854 by the Provencal poets Mistral , Aubanel and Roumanille. Mainly due to the literary success of Frédéric Mistral, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his epic “Mirèio” , the “Félibrige” became the most important literary Renaissance movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. Another institution that promotes Occitan is the Societat d'Estudis Occitans , founded in 1930 , from which the Institut d'Estudis Occitans emerged in 1945 . Nevertheless, the minority languages ​​of France are still not officially recognized by the government.

Franco-Provençal (Arpitan)

See main article: Franco-Provencal Language

The Frankoprovenzalische is located in southeastern France, in Franche-Comte , in Lyonnais , Savoy and northern Dauphiné (with Grenoble ), also in Italy in Aosta Valley and in the Welsch Switzerland (except in the Bernese Jura and in the canton of Jura ). The number of speakers is between 60,000 and 200,000.

The status of Franco-Provençal is controversial; some linguists do not consider it an independent language, but rather a dialect . As an argument for this thesis it can be seen that the Franco-Provencal language is not uniform, but varies from region to region. There is also no fixed written standard or literature. From a phonetic point of view, it forms a bridge between north and south: part of its developments coincide with those in French, the other with those in Occitan. The term Franco-Provençal is derived from this fact, in which "Franco-" refers to the agreement with French, "-Provençal" to those with Provencal (as the name of Occitan used earlier is). The term was coined in 1874 by Graziadio Isaia Ascoli . This linguist put an end to the ambiguities that ruled the border between French and Occitan: He found that the disputed area had its own language variety, which he called Franco-Provencal.

Today, Franco-Provencal is increasingly being supplanted by French in France, especially in urban areas. Franco-Provençal is livelier in the Italian Aosta Valley, where it has remained the everyday language for a large part of the population to this day. In French- speaking Switzerland, Franco-Provençal is spoken almost only in the municipality of Evolène .

Catalan

Some linguists also count Catalan among the Gallo-Roman languages, while others assign it to Iberoromania . On the one hand, there is a close relationship with Occitan - Catalan has more phonetic and lexical similarities with Occitan than with the other languages ​​of the Iberian Peninsula. On the other hand, Catalan agrees in some features with Ibero-Romance languages. It can therefore be seen as a kind of bridging language between the two Romance language groups. The language area includes the eastern part of the French Pyrenees , eastern Spain and the Balearic Islands with a total of 9.4 million speakers and 11.6 million who understand Catalan.

Moselle Romansh

As Moselromanisch is called a speech room at the end of the Roman Empire the province inhabited by Celtic strains Belgica I (the area around Mosel and Saar has) is formed. The Franks then migrated to this area. Despite the onset of language overlap, some Romance language islands (cf. Aachen, Prüm , Trier and Sint-Truiden ) survived into the 11th century .

See also

literature

  • Peter Cichon: Introduction to the Occitan Language. Bonn 1999.
  • Helmut Berschin / Josef Felixberger / Hans Goebl: French language history. Munich 1978.
  • Horst Geckeler / Wolf Dietrich: Introduction to French Linguistics. Berlin 2007.
  • Lorenzo Renzi: Introduction to Romance Linguistics. Tübingen 1980.
  • Walther von Wartburg : The emergence of the Romanic peoples. Halle / Saale 1939.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Joachim Grzega : Romania Gallica Cisalpina: Etymological-geolinguistic studies on the Northern Italian-Rhaeto-Romanic Celticisms (supplements to the journal for Romanesque philology 311). Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Haubrichs: "The lost romance in the German-speaking area". In: Gerhard Ernst (Hrsg.): Romance language history. An international handbook on the history of the Romance languages. Partial volume 1. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, pp. 695-708.