Editing Old French (section)

{{Short description|Gallo-Romance dialect continuum}}
{{Infobox language
| name          = Old French
| altname       = {{lang|fr|Ancien Français}}
| nativename    = {{lang|fro|Franceis}}, {{lang|fro|François}}, {{lang|fro|Romanz}}
| pronunciation = {{IPA|fro|fɾãnˈt͡sɛjs|}}, {{IPA|fro|fɾãnˈt͡sɔjs|}}, {{IPA|fro|ruˈmãnt͡s|}}
| region        = Northern [[France in the Middle Ages|France]], parts of [[Belgium]] ([[Wallonia]]), [[Languages of Scotland|Scotland]], [[Norman England|England]], [[Norman Ireland|Ireland]], [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], [[Principality of Antioch]], [[County of Edessa]], [[Kingdom of Cyprus]]
| era           = Evolved into [[Middle French]] by the mid-14th century
| familycolor   = Indo-European
| fam2          = [[Italic languages|Italic]]
| fam3          = [[Latino-Faliscan languages|Latino-Faliscan]]
| fam4          = [[Latin]]
| fam5          = [[Romance languages|Romance]]
| fam6          = [[Italo-Western languages|Italo-Western]]
| fam7          = [[Western Romance languages|Western Romance]]
| fam8          = Gallo-Iberian
| fam9          = [[Gallo-Romance languages|Gallo-Romance]]
| fam10         = Gallo-Rhaetian?<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Hammarström |first1=Harald |last2=Forkel |first2=Robert |last3=Haspelmath |first3=Martin |last4=Bank |first4=Sebastian |date=2022-05-24 |title=Oil |url=https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oila1234 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221008064016/https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oila1234 |archive-date=2022-10-08 |access-date=2022-10-07 |website=[[Glottolog]] |publisher=[[Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology]]}}</ref>
| fam11         = [[Franco-Provençal|Arpitan]]–[[Langues d'oïl|{{lang|fr|Oïl|nocat=yes}}]]
| fam12         = [[Langues d'oïl|{{lang|fr|Oïl|nocat=yes}}]]
| ancestor      = [[Old Latin]]
| ancestor2     = [[Vulgar Latin]]
| ancestor3     = [[Proto-Romance language|Proto-Romance]]
| ancestor4     = [[Old Gallo-Romance]]
| iso2          = fro
| iso3          = fro
| glotto        = oldf1239
| glottorefname = Old French (842-ca. 1400)
| notice        = IPA
}}

'''Old French''' ({{lang|fro|franceis}}, {{lang|fro|françois}}, {{lang|fro|romanz}}; {{langx|fr|ancien français}}) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th<ref name="French first attested">{{cite book |last1=Battye |first1=Adrian |last2=Hintze |first2=Marie-Anne |last3=Rowlett |first3=Paul |title=The French Language Today |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RnUGCAAAQBAJ&dq=History+of+French+language&pg=PP1 |date=2000 |publisher=Routledge |pages=12 |edition=2nd|isbn=978-1-136-90328-1 }} [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it was deemed no longer make to think of the varieties spoken in Gaul as Latin. Although a precise date can't be given, there is a general consensus (see Wright 1982, 1991, Lodge 1993) that an awareness of a vernacular, distinct from Latin, emerged at the end of the eighth century.]</ref> and mid-14th centuries. Rather than a unified [[Dialect#Dialect or language|language]], Old French was a [[Dialect cluster|group]] of [[Romance languages|Romance]] [[dialect]]s, [[Mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]] yet [[Dialect continuum|diverse]]. These dialects came to be collectively known as the {{lang|fr|[[langues d'oïl]]}}, contrasting with the {{lang|fr|langues [[Occitan language|d'oc]]}}, the emerging [[Occitano-Romance languages]] of [[Occitania]], now the south of France.

The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of [[Middle French]], the language of the [[French Renaissance]] in the [[Île-de-France]] region; this dialect was a predecessor to [[French language#Modern French|Modern French]]. Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms ({{lang|fr|[[Poitevin-Saintongeais]]|italic=no}}, [[Gallo language|Gallo]], [[Norman language|Norman]], [[Picard language|Picard]], [[Walloon language|Walloon]], etc.), each with its linguistic features and history.

The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the [[Kingdom of France]] and its vassals (including parts of the [[Angevin Empire]]), and the duchies of [[Upper Lorraine|Upper]] and [[Lower Lorraine]] to the east (corresponding to modern north-eastern [[France]] and Belgian [[Wallonia]]), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to [[Norman England|England]] and the [[Crusader states]] as the language of a feudal elite and commerce.{{sfn|Kinoshita|2006|p=3}}