French language translation and its neighbours

France is one of the most historically inhabited locations in Europe west of Italy, with evidence of older and older habitation being discovered on a nearly daily basis. Originally called Gaul, it was one of the most valued provinces of the Roman Empire during its glory days. After the fall of the Roman Empire, and the onset of darkness and chaos, it was a French tribal king, Clovis, who brought the first semblance of order to the expanses of Europe, and throughout continued history up to today, France has played a pivotal role in the evolution of culture, science and politics.

It is a nation of sweeping, forested valleys, vistas of snow-capped mountains and beautiful, sun-drenched Mediterranean shores. Bordered by Germany, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland, France has had an influence on the development of many of its neighbouring cultures, and vice versa.

As a result, the French language (one of the more beloved Latin languages of linguists) has seen its share of changes, as well as offshoot dialects over the years. Originally descended from a form of vulgar Latin, just as Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and Italian, French therefore shares quite a few similarities to these other languages. As a result of this, as well as its proximity to the sources of these languages, many dialects of French borrow heavily from these other linguistic influences.

In France providence herself, there are in fact over 20 dialects of French alone. The most widely spoken, especially internationally, dialect of French in its motherland belongs to a group of languages known as the oil language family. This is a more formal set of French dialects, with stricter grammatical rules and is often associated with higher society in time past. This is a sharp contrast to the Occitan family of French dialects that are commonly associated in history with rural and peasant populations, especially before the revolution of the 18th century. Other notable dialects of French in the oil language family include Norman, Lorrain, Picard and Champanois (spoken in the famous and beautiful Champaign Valley among other locations).

In sharp contrast, Occitan languages are far less formal, and are not heavily used in any exported speech or communications outside of the country. These languages are spoken in the southern region of France known as Occitania, on and around the border with Spain. During the Middle Ages before the establishment of a proper French nation, this language family was actually more widely spoken than the oil language family entirely. Notable dialects in this family include Vivaroalpenc, Linousin and Gascon.


This set of language families is most noted or its pronunciation of letters and sold bowls that in proper French are silent, such as pronouncing "Bizet" as "biz-ett" rather than "bee-zae". There is also a notable reduction of glottal harshness in this family of languages than is seen in the oil language or the Franco-Provencal family of languages. This is probably the easiest family of French languages for the uninitiated to learn, due to its severely reduced rigors of mastering pronunciation. 

Many schools abroad teach this family of languages for the first couple of years for serious French students, before moving on to the more proper Lorrain or Norman. Occitan cultures are a proud, and very self-reliant group of Southern French and Northern Spanish people and proudly speak their dialect.

Franco-Provencal languages are actually the result of isolated, smaller pockets of Latin derivatives being absorbed by the expansion of France under the Carolignian dynasty during the days of the Holy Roman Empire, of which France was the seat. These languages tend to vary wildly, the time has tempered them to match most standard French dialects' level of glottal pronunciation as well as inflection. However, many conjugation rules will vary randomly from one dialect to the other, with no commonality between them. These are often seen spoken in the more rural areas far removed from population canters. A few noted dialects in this group include Bressan, Jurassien and Savoyard. These obscure dialects have been made largely famous due to their exposure through dramas such as those by Aleixandre Dumas.

However, when nearing borders with other nations, a phenomenon known as slippage occurs with language. In slippage, the languages of the two nations gradually bleed together due to continued communications in exchanges between neighbours who just happen to be on the other sides of the border.

There are two noted groups of these languages in French, German and Italian, though linguistic experts have identified concrete French roots in the Spanish dialects of Catalan and Basque as well. These slippage languages' status as dialects of French or the other component language is still debated heavily among linguists, and most likely a resolution to this debate will never be reached. Noted languages in these groups include Corsican (Italian), Alsatian and French Flemish (Germanic), as well as Ligurian (Gallo Italic).

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