Where did French come from?

French is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Many people know that French is a descendant from Latin; but how did Latin really become French? We explore the language history and the linguistic transformations that led to the creation of French.

French was not only influenced by Latin, but by Gaulish (language spoken in Gaul, the region now known as France) and Germanic languages as well, primarily introduced by the Franks and the Alemanni (who spoke various dialects of Old High German). French isn't the only language which originated from Latin. Other languages like Italian, Spanish, Occitan, Catalan, Sardinian, Romansh, Romanian, Portuguese, and Galician descend from Latin as well.

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References
Lodge, R. A. (1993). French: From Dialect to Standard. New York: Routledge.
Mufwene, S.S. (2004). Language Birth and Death. Anthropology, 33, 201-222.
Polinsky, M., van Everbroeck, E. (June 2003). Development of Gender Classifications: Modeling the Historical Change from Latin to French. Language, 79(2), 356-390.

Видео Where did French come from? канала The Travelling Linguist