The origins of the French language

 Here is a text with exercise I put together about the origins of the French language. You could use it with a very good GCSE group, or as part of a cultural heritage (patrimoine) theme in Y12 of A-level. Needless to say, there are masses of text-based resources on my site, at various levels.

Pedagogically-speaking, I'm generally not a great fan of using questions in English with texts, since I would rather stay in the target language where possible, allowing for deeper processing of the language and further input. (Creating TL sentences makes students think harder about, for example, grammar and vocabulary choice.) But where a text is already quite challenging, the use of English scaffolds the task since the questions provide partial translations of the original TL text. 

For assessment purposes, questions in English also separate out reading comprehension from written skill in the target language. Furthermore, L1 questions stop students from just lifting sections of text when answering. Questions in English are also, in effect, about translation and summary, themselves useful skills.

Questions in English may also just be one step in a teaching sequence, so in this case, with some classes the questions could be completed, then the answers summarised or translated into French.

Help yourself to the resource if you like it. The original Word doc is on frenchteacher.net.

Quelles sont les origines de la langue française ?

Le français est parlé par plus de 300 millions de personnes, en France, en Belgique, au Québec, en Suisse, dans plusieurs pays d’Afrique, tous avec des accents différents naturellement.

Partout, les gens utilisent à peu près les mêmes mots et la même grammaire. Mais il a fallu 25 siècles pour inventer le français.

Au 5e siècle avant Jésus-Christ, la France parle trois langues : le grec, le ligure et le gaulois. En 50 avant Jésus-Christ, les Romains envahissent la France avec leur langue, le latin. Au 5e siècle, le peuple des Francs prend place des Romains. Ils prononcent le latin d’une manière différente, ajoutent leurs mots, et créent une nouvelle langue : le roman.

En 800, Charlemagne réintroduit le latin dans les écoles et les églises. Alors, les gens cultivés parlent latin, et le peuple, roman. Au 10e siècle, le roman a pris des centaines de formes différentes dans les différentes régions. Pour dire oui, les gens du Nord disent oïl, les gens du Sud disent oc. La région qui s’appelle le Languedoc nous rappelle ce fait.

Peu à peu, c’est la langue parlée près de Paris qui devient le plus populaire : le francien, ou français. Pour que tous les habitants se comprennent, le roi François 1er décide, en 1539, que les lois seront écrites en français. Et, après la Révolution de 1789, l’école se fait en français.

Au fil des siècles, des mots étrangers entrent dans la langue française : « pays » est un mot gaulois, « prudence » est latin, « magasin » est arabe et « Internet » est anglais.

Alors, la langue française est toujours en train de se développer, pendant que dans les régions les dialectes ou patois continuent à exister.

Vocabulaire

several – p________                          everywhere – p______           roughly - _ p__ ____

it needed – il _ _____                         century – s_____ (m)             to invade - e_________

Ligurian - _______                              Gaulish – g______                  to add – a________   

to create – c_____                              to pronounce – p________     manner – m________ (f)

people – g____ (m)                            the people - __ p_____           hundreds – d__ c______

to remind – r________                        gradually - ___ _ ___              in order that – p___ q__

king – r__ (m)                                     laws – l___ (f.pl.)                    foreigner – é_______ (m)

in the process of - __ t____ d_           while – p______ ___              local dialect – p_____ (m)

 

Questions

1.    What does the figure 300 million refer to exactly?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

2.    What does the first paragraph say about each type of French?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

3.    What does the “25 centuries” refer to?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

4.    In 50 BC what languages were spoken in what we now call France?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

5.    What happened in 50 BC to change the future of language in France?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

6.    What happened in the fifth century (AD)?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

7.    What happened in the year 800?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

8.    Who spoke Latin and Romance?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

9.    Which two words were used to mean yes?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

10.  What gradually happened?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

11.  What was decided in 1539?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

12.  What happened after the Revolution of 1789?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

13.  What other phenomenon has made French change?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

14.  What is patois?

…………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Answers

1.    The number of people who speak French in the world.

2.    Each form has a different accent (many different ones actually).

3.    How long it has taken modern French to develop.

4.    Greek, Ligurian and Gaulish (think of Asterix).

5.    The Romans invaded.

6.    The Francs took over from the Romans.

7.    Emperor Charlemagne reintroduced Latin in schools and the church.

8.    Cultivated people Latin; the common people Romance (the language based on Latin).

9.    Oïl and oc. (Oïl became oui.)

10.  The language spoken around Paris became popular.

11.  Laws would be written in French.

12.  Schools were to use French.

13.  The introduction of words from other languages.

14.  A local dialect of French. (A dialect has some different words and grammar and a certain accent.)