gallo-roman

19:39 May 30, 2013 

Makes me think of Astérix, or his successors...

12:46 May 30, 2013 

Shouldn't it be romain?

12:33 May 30, 2013 

I really don't think that anyone of us has problems understanding what the author means or with reading the refs posted.

12:14 May 30, 2013 

is the language/dialects that was/were spoken in France at the time he is referring to. The problem with that is that it cannot be deemed Vulgar Latin, because that was spoken during the RE as a common version of the classical Latin we know, also in places like Turkey. At some point, when the Romans had left the building, the Latin that was spoken turned gradually into something more Germanic because of the tribes that came from the east, splitting France into the two main parts: Occitan and Francoprovençal. The problem with the stage before that is that it is largely theoretical because the Germanic tribes were not in the habit of producing much in the way of documents. The term Vulgar Latin is too wide a term in time and place to refer to it in this way. Proto-Romance could be another idea, but in that case it should be certain that 'grom.' refers really to that time-frame and linguistic area.

12:03 May 30, 2013 

Thank you so much, writeaway, what an excellent clarification in your first link!

the vernacular language or group of dialects, of which few records survive, spoken in France between about 600 ad and 900 ad ; the intermediate stage between Vulgar Latin and Old French

Somehow "Gallo-Romance" makes a lot more sense to me, but that may just be a personal thing, according as it does with the terms I happen to be familiar with.

09:42 May 30, 2013 

09:35 May 30, 2013 

09:31 May 30, 2013 

Many thanks - unfortunately I'm having trouble finding an appropriate i.e. linguistic definition of Gallo-Roman. This is typical:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gallo-Roman

From when until when was this language spoken? Might it be better to call it (at a guess) "Vulgar Latin as spoken in the area now belonging to France"?