OLD FRANKISH

'Old Frankish' was the language of the Franks and it is classified as a West Germanic language. Once it was spoken in areas covering modern Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of France and Germany.
The Franks first inhabited parts of the Netherlands and western Germany. From the 4th century they are attested as moving into the Roman Empire into what is now the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. In the 5th and 6th century they expanded their realm and dominated Roman Gaul completely as well as client states such as Bavaria and Thuringen.
The language of the Franks had a significant impact on Old French. By the year 900 it had evolved into Old Low Franconian (including Old Dutch) in the area that was originally held by Franks of the 4th century, while in Valois and Ille-de-France (Paris) it was replaced by Old French as the dominating language. Old Frankish is only directly attested in a few words in the Lex Salica, and is mostly reconstructed from Old Low Franconian and loanwords in Old French. This Germanic language has introduced the modern French word for the nation, France to mean "land of the Franks", but except from loanwords, French is not closely related to Frankish.
The main difference between Frankish and neighbouring Germanic languages is that it is thought to be more 'celticised', probably by Belgic peoples, like for example the Menapii, whose language persisted in the realm of the Franks.

Contents

The impact of Old Frankish on modern French

See also

The impact of Old Frankish on modern French

Most French words of Germanic origin came from Frankish (most of the others are English loanwords, see Franglais), often replacing the Latin word which would have been used. This can be shown with the examples in the table below.

Old Frankish	Old French	Modern French	Latin	Modern Dutch	Modern English
''warding''	''guardenc''	''gardien''	''custōs''	''verweerder''	warden/guardian
''skirmjan'' (verb)	''escarmouche'' (noun)	''escarmouche'' (noun)	''leve proelium'' (noun)	''schermutseling (noun)''	skirmish (verb or noun)
''bera''	''biere''	''bière''	''cervīsia''	''bier''	beer
''scoc (noun)''	''choc (noun) choquer (verb)''	''choquer (verb) ''	''perculsus (noun)''	''schok (noun)''	to shock / shock
''grappon (verb)''	''graper (verb)''	''gripper (verb) ''	''comprehendo (verb)''	''(be)grijpen (verb)''	to grasp/to comprehend

Frankish also had an influence on Latin itself; Latin words with Frankish roots include ''sacire'', meaning "seize" (from Frankish ''sekjan'', related to English "seek").
English also has many words with Frankish roots, usually through Old French eg. ''random'' (via Old French ''randon'', from ''rant'' "a running"), ''scabbard'' (via Anglo-French
★ ''escauberc'', from
★ ''skar-berg''), ''grape'', ''stale'', ''march'' (via Old French ''marche'', from
★ ''marka'') among others.
Most Germanic words (especially ones from Frankish) with the phoneme ''w'', changed it to ''gu'' when entering French and other Romance languages. Perhaps the best known example is the Frankish ''werra'' "to repel" (Compare English "war") which entered modern French as ''guerre'' and ''guerra'' in Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese.

See also

★ List of Portuguese words of Frankish origin

★ List of Spanish words of Frankish origin