Editing Gallo language (section)

== Linguistic classification ==
Gallo is one of the ''langues d'oïl'', a dialect continuum covering the northern half of France. This group includes a wide variety of more or less well-defined and differentiated languages and dialects, which share a Latin origin and some Germanic influence from [[Frankish language|Frankish]], the language spoken by the [[Franks]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Abalain|first=Hervé|title=Le français et les langues historiques de la France|publisher=Jean-Paul Gisserot|year=2007|pages=57}}</ref>

Gallo, like the other ''langues d'oïl'', is neither ancient French nor a distortion of modern French.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Machonis|first=Peter A.|title=Histoire de la langue : Du latin à l'ancien français|publisher=University Press of America|year=1990|isbn=978-0-8191-7874-9|pages=149}}</ref> The ''langues d'oïl'' are [[Gallo-Romance languages]], which also includes [[Franco-Provençal]], spoken around [[Savoy]]. These are in turn [[Romance languages]], a group which also includes, among others, [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Galician language|Galician]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]].

Gallo has not just borrowed words from Breton, but also aspects of grammar; the use of the preposition ''pour'' as an auxiliary verb is said to be of Celtic origin. The relationship between the two is comparable to that of the two languages of Scotland: [[Scots language|Scots]], an [[Anglo-Frisian languages|Anglic]] language closely related to English, and [[Scottish Gaelic]], a Celtic language descended from Old Irish.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=DeKeyser|first1=Robert|last2=Walter|first2=Henriette|date=September 1995|title=L'aventure des langues en Occident: Leur origine, leur histoire, leur géographie|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/416271|journal=Language|volume=71|issue=3|pages=659|doi=10.2307/416271|jstor=416271|issn=0097-8507|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Gallo is typically not mutually intelligible with French, primarily due to its differing [[phonology]] and vocabulary. This is in spite of what [[Paul Sébillot]] wrote in 1878: "[Gallo] is a dialect of French (...): it contains a considerable quantity of old words, a very small amount of words borrowed from Breton, and is, except for several local expressions (...) very easy to understand."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sébillot |first=Paul |date=1878 |title=Sur les limites du breton et du français, et les limites des dialectes bretons |journal=Bulletins de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris |volume=1 |pages=241}}</ref> The study of language has evolved considerably since the 19th century, however, and there is no longer any universally accepted criterion to distinguish decisively between language and dialect.