Old French - Dialects

Dialects

Since Old French did not consist of a single standard, competing administrative varieties were propagated by the provincial courts and chanceries.

The French of Paris was one of a number of standards, including:

• the Burgundian of Burgundy, then an independent duchy whose capital was at Dijon;
• the Picard language of Picardy, whose principal cities were Calais and Lille. It was said that the Picard language began at the east door of Notre-Dame de Paris, so far-reaching was its influence;
• Old Norman, spoken in Normandy, whose principal cities were Caen and Rouen. The Norman conquest of England brought many Norman-speaking aristocrats into the British Isles. Most of the older Norman (sometimes called "French") words in the English language reflect the influence of this variety of Oïl language which became a conduit for the introduction into the Anglo-Norman realm, as did Anglo-Norman control of Anjou and Gascony and other continental possessions. The Anglo-Norman language reflected a shared culture on both sides of the English Channel. Ultimately, this language declined and fell, becoming Law French, a jargon spoken by lawyers, which was used in English law until the reign of Charles II. Norman, however, still survives in Normandy and the Channel Islands as a regional language;
• the Walloon language, centered around Namur in present-day Wallonia;
• the Gallo language of Brittany, the Romance language of the Duchy of Brittany;
• the Lorrain, the Romance language of the Duchy of Lorraine.