Editing Old French (section)

===Evolution and separation from Vulgar Latin===
Beginning with [[Plautus]]' time (254–184 {{smallcaps|b.c.}}), one can see phonological changes between [[Classical Latin]] and what is called [[Vulgar Latin]], the common spoken language of the [[Western Roman Empire]]. Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in [[phonology]] and [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin "died" as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of the spoken language).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jozsef |first=Herman |title=Vulgar Latin |date=1997 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |isbn=0-271-02000-8 |translator-last=Wright |translator-first=Roger |chapter=The end of the history of Latin}}</ref>{{rp|109–115}} Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the [[Romance languages]], including Old French.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Brill Online Dictionaries |url=http://iedo.brillonline.nl/dictionaries/content/latin/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617111122/http://iedo.brillonline.nl/dictionaries/content/latin/index.html |archive-date=2013-06-17 |access-date=2013-06-16 |publisher=Iedo.brillonline.nl}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Romance languages |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/508379/Romance-languages |access-date=2013-06-16 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mallory |first1=J. P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&q=%22The+predominance+of+the+Latin+language%22 |title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture – Google Boeken |last2=Adams |first2=Douglas Q. |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1997 |isbn=9781884964985 |access-date=2013-06-16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of Italic |url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Italic |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110223205805/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Italic |archive-date=February 23, 2011 |access-date=2013-06-16 |publisher=Oxford Dictionaries}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of Romance |url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Romance |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110426015754/http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Romance |archive-date=April 26, 2011 |access-date=2013-06-16 |publisher=Oxford Dictionaries}}</ref>

By the late 8th century, when the [[Carolingian Renaissance]] began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance [[orthoepy]] rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon [[Alcuin]], was tasked by [[Charlemagne]] with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as {{IPA|{{angbr|viridiarium}}}} {{gloss|[[orchard]]}} now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than {{IPA|*/verdʒjær/}} (later spelled as {{abbr|OF|Old French}} {{lang|fro|'vergier'}}).<ref>Wright (1982), pp. 104–7</ref>

Such a radical change had the effect of rendering Latin [[sermon]]s completely unintelligible to the general Romance-speaking public, which prompted officials a few years later, at the [[Third Council of Tours]], to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in {{lang|la|rusticam romanam linguam}} or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'.<ref>Wright (1982), pp. 118–20</ref>

As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise a new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the [[Oaths of Strasbourg]] and the ''[[Sequence of Saint Eulalia]]''.