by Lakshmi Gopal

Created on: January 03, 2009

French is a romance language spoken in France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Canada and in many other countries and by an estimated 169 million people around the world, imcluding those non-native speakers who use French as their main means of communication. French also holds the reputation of being one among the five official languages of the United Nations and a large number of International organisations.

The prehistory of the French begins with the colonisation of Gaul by the Romans which at that time was inhabited by the Celts. The Celts were Indo-Europeans, related to the Greeks, Romans and Germanic people in both culture and language. They began to move westwards from around 500 B.C from their original homes in Central or Eastern Europe and settled in Gaul, after displacing the Iberians and Ligurians from there. They developed into prosperous, innovative farmers and stockbreeders. At this time the Greek settlements on the Mediterranean coast at such places as Nice, Marseilles etc. Harassed by the Gauls, they asked the Roman aid against them and thus the first Roman campaign in Gaul took place. In 57 B.C with the conquest of Julius Caesar a gradual process of Romanisation and Latinisation began developing in all areas of life. Most of the Gallic words were imported in French through Latin. But this was vulgar Latin', the colloquial dialect spoken by the Roman army and its agents and not the literary dialect of Cicero, the great Roman philosopher.

After the degradation of the Roman Empire in the 5th century B.C Gaul saw a series of invasions in the form of various Germanic barbarians, including Vandals, Saxons and Vikings who settled in Gaul, intermarried with the locals and picked up the local Gallo-Roman dialect. This resulted in different dialects across the French territory which shared many words and characteristics. But it was the Franks from Germany that had the greatest impact on the evolution of French. In 476 B.C under king Clovis1, they moved into France from today's Belgium and created a federation called Francia'. They subdued the Gauls and Clovis founded a dynasty that lasted three centuries. Like other invaders they also contributed words to modern French and due to their political power their influence was more powerful. Thus modern French words describing home life,clothing,war and emotions such as fauteuil'(armchair),'gant'(glare)'muraille'(wall)'em oi'(emotions)'orgueil'(pride) were evolved. The Franks gave the Gallo-Latin a new grammatical

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