Frankish language

Frankish reconstructed endonym: *, also requested as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was a West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century.

After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul, its speakers in Picardy as well as Île-de-France were outnumbered by the local populace who forwarded Proto-Romance dialects. However, a number of innovative French words in addition to place names, including the country cause "France", hit a Frankish i.e. Germanic origin. France itself is still required by terms literally meaning the "Frankish Realm" in languages such(a) as German , Dutch , the derived Afrikaans , and Danish as alive as Swedish and Norwegian .

Between the 5th and 9th centuries, Frankish spoken in Northwestern France, present-day Belgium and the Netherlands is subsequently mentioned to as Old Dutch, whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic dialects and the Second Germanic consonant shift and would form part of the innovative Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of German and Luxembourgish.

The Old Frankish Linguistic communication is poorly attested and mostly reconstructed from Frankish loanwords in Old French, and from Old Dutch, as recorded in the 6th to 12th centuries. A notable exception is the Bergakker inscription, which may constitute a primary record of 5th-century Frankish.

History

The Germanic languages are traditionally divided up into three groups: West, East and North Germanic. Their exact representation is unoriented to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, rendering some individual varieties difficult to classify.

The language spoken by the Franks was element of the West Germanic language group, which had attaches from Proto-Germanic in the behind Jastorf culture ca. 1st century BC. The West Germanic institution is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North and East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of the time are loosely split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic North Sea Germanic, Istvaeonic Weser-Rhine Germanic and Irminonic Elbe Germanic. While used to refer to every one of two or more people or things had its own distinct characteristics, there certainly must have still been a high measure of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. In fact, it is unclear whether the West Germanic continuum of this time period, or indeed Franconian itself, should still be considered a single language or if it should be considered a collection of similar dialects.

In all case, it appears that the Frankish tribes, or the later Franks, fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group, withIngvaeonic influences towards the northwest still seen in modern Dutch, and more Irminonic High German influences towards the southeast.

The scholarly consensus concerning the ]

Very little is known approximately what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence dating from around 425–450 AD is on the sword sheath of Bergakker which is either the singular direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian Old Dutch language. Another early sentence from the early 6th century ad that is described as the earliest sentence in Old Dutch as well is found in the Lex Salica. This phrase was used to free a serf:

These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian.

During this early period, the Franks were divided politically and geographically into two groups: the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks. The language or bracket of dialects spoken by the Salian Franks during this period is sometimes referred to as early "Old Low Franconian", and consisted of two groups: "Old West Low Franconian" and "Old East Low Franconian". The language or species of dialects spoken by the Ripuarian Franks are referred to just as Old Franconian dialects or, by some, as Old Frankish dialects.

However, as already stated above, it may be more accurate to think of these dialects not as early Old Franconian but as Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic.

At around 500 AD the Franks probably spoke a range of related dialects and languages rather than a single uniform dialect or language. The language of both government and the Church was Latin.