Latin, Lingua Romana and French: The Transition Period
Roger Wright
The Period of Transition between Latin, Lingua romana and French. living language which was still called lingua latina in the eighth century A.D. thought then as being one single despite wide social geographical variation. But it had split into several languages by end thirteenth century: French, Provenzal, Catalan, Castilian, Portuguese, Italian, etc., well « dead » we know Medieval Latin. initial stage this process came Carolingian realms during ninth century, when for first time some people made a systematic distinction Latin (standardized grammatica, what would call Latin) Romance. This kind standardized writing according to rules Donatus Priscian, speech procedures Germanic-speaking scholars who were used pronouncing all words if reading them aloud, with specified sound each written letter. Romance half incipient dichotomy combined spoken register new form, initially based (e.g. Cantilene de sainte Eulalie) on providing symbol roughly correspondences letter that been established reformers form essentially an experimental way before eleventh century; after that, different Romance-speaking areas needed spell ways, idea there rather than became generally accepted. Thus transitions are question both change language’s name, latter is much politics linguistics.
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