Old Frankish - Influence of Old Frankish On French and Other Languages

Influence of Old Frankish On French and Other Languages

Most French words of Germanic origin came from Frankish (some others are English loanwords), often replacing the Latin word which would have been used. It is estimated that modern French took between 700 and 1000 stem words from Old Frankish. Many of these words were concerned with agriculture (e.g., French: jardin "garden"), war (e.g., French: guerre "war") or social organization (e.g., French: baron "baron"). Old Frankish has introduced the modern French word for the nation, France (Francia), meaning "land of the Franks", as well as the name for the Paris region, Ile-de-France from "Lidle Franken" or "Little Franconia". The influence of Frankish on French is decisive for the birth of the early langue d'oïl compared to the other Romance languages, that appeared later such as langue d'oc, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan, Italian, etc., because its influence was greater than the respective influence of Visigothic and Lombardic (both Germanic languages) on the langue d'oc, the Romance languages of Iberia, and Italian. Not all of these loanwords have been retained in modern French. French has also passed on words of Frankish origin to other Romance languages.

Frankish also had an influence on late Latin itself. Latin words with Frankish roots include sacire, meaning "seize" (from Frankish sekjan, related to English "seek"). Frankish speech habits are also responsible for the substitution of Latin cum ("with") with aboc (a Frankish corruption of apud hoc "near this" ≠ Italian, Spanish con) in Old French (Modern French avec), and for the use of a non tonal form of Latin homo "man" : on one side homme "man" and on the other side Old French hum, hom, om > modern on, indefinite pronoun meaning "we", "it", etc. (compare German der Mann "man" and man, indefinite pronoun). English also has many words with Frankish roots, usually through Old French e.g. random (via Old French randon, Old French verb randir, from *rant "a running"), standard (via Old French estandart, from *standhard "stand firm"), scabbard (via Anglo-French *escauberc, from *skar-berg), grape, stale, march (via Old French marche, from *marka) among others. It has also left many etyma in the different Northern Langues d'oïls such as Picard, Champenois, Bas Lorrain and Walloon, more than in Common French, and not always the same ones. A few Italian words are of Frankish origin, too. They entered the vulgar language after the Frankish Empire annexed the Lombardic Kingdom of Italy.

See below a non-exhaustive list of French words of Frankish origin. An asterisk prefixing a term indicates a reconstructed form of the Frankish word. Most Frankish words with the phoneme w, changed it to gu when entering Old French and other Romance languages; however, the northern langue d'oïl dialects such as Picard, Northern Norman, Walloon, Burgundian, Champenois and Bas-Lorrain retained the or turned it into . Perhaps the best known example is the Frankish *werra ("war" < Old Northern French werre, compare Old High German werre "quarrel"), which entered modern French as guerre and guerra in Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese. Other examples include "gant" ("gauntlet", from *want) and "garder" ("to guard", from *wardōn). Frankish words starting with the phoneme s changed to es when entering Old French (e.g., Frankish skirm and Old French escremie > Italian scrima > Modern French escrime).