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 402 FRANCE (LANGUAGE AND LITEEATUEE) oil; hence the southerner Provencal dialect was named la langue cToc, and the northern (Roman- Wallonic) la langue (Toil. After 879 the focus of the former was at the court of the kings of Aries, and in 927 the chief point of the latter was at the court of the duke of Normandy. Less troubled by wars and more thoroughly Romanized, the south produced distinguished troubadours during two centuries, while the north had, somewhat later, its trouveres, both named from trovare, to find : finders of songs, poets. From the beginning of the crusades to the death of St. Louis (1095-1270) the two dia- lects approached toward a fusion. The vulgar language was employed in the crusades in rousing the populace, whose war cry was, Diex el wit (God wills it). A few fragments of the Bible date before 1100; but popular heroic and religious songs appear to have been composed and recited by the jongleurs (jocula- tores). The development of chivalric poetry in Provence was checked by the persecution of the Albigenses; the language of the trouba- dours was proscribed, and, together with the political rule of the north, the idiom of Picardy (a branch of the langue cVoil) extended toward the south. The real French language began to be developed about the time of the conquest of Constantinople by the French crusaders, at the beginning of the 13th century. Already be- fore the conquest of England by William (1066) English youths were sent to be educated in France ; but the conquest made the Norman- French the official and court language in Eng- land. Froissart's "Chronicles" (14th cen- tury) is the first work in genuine French. Francis I. substituted the language for Latin in public transactions. Rabelais greatly enriched it ; Ronsard and Du Bellay, Amyot and Mon- taigne, and others, developed it further. The religious reform, political troubles, the influ- ence of the Italian wars and queens, modified it greatly. The introduction of Arabic words is chiefly due to the crusades, and that of Greek and Latin words and of scientific terms to the study of those languages and to the cultivation of the natural sciences. The academic fran- caise, established by Richelieu for the regula- tion of the national language (1635), the influ- ence of the court, the labors of the Port-Royal- ists, especially Pascal (1656), and a galaxy of great writers, purified, augmented, and diffused it more and more. It was first used as a diplo- matic language at the conferences of Nime- guen (1678). The French is certainly a very clear tongue, on account of the strictly logical order of its syntax, but very monotonous, and incapable of the composition of words already fixed, as well as of bold poetic turns. The French language, in short, is, like every other, the exponent of the nationality, vicissitudes, intelligence, culture, and taste of the people that speak it. It is written with the same let- ters as the English. K and W occur only in Breton, Norman, and Flemish names incorpo- rated into French, and in other foreign words. There are 12 distinct vowels as regards their quantity; they are represented by six letters called vowels, or by their combination, and by the help of m, n, viz. : a, e, e, i, o, u, ou, eu, and four nasals, an, in, on, un. Including all modifications (d, e, i, 6, 4, ou, and the so-called e muet), they stand for 20 sounds, of which Malvin-Cazal and Michelet of the conservatoire de musique count 17. Of consonants there are 20, represented by 18 letters, viz. : I, Tc (also written c and cJi as in chosur, q, qu, and g as in sang et eaux), d, f (and ph g hard (also gJi, gu), the sound of English si and zi in vision, crazier (written g before e, i, and y, and j be- fore all vowels except i and y), h (unless mute), I, I mouille as in the English million (written ill, il, or I7i, and now generally dropping the sound of I, as mou-ye), m, n, n mouille as in the English onion (written gn, nJi), p, r, s (also c before e, i, y ; also x in Bru- xelles, t in nation), t (also final d when pro- nounced with the next word, as grand Jiomme), V (also final f, when pronounced with the next word, as neuf aunes], y as in the English yes, with the preceding power of i (for instance, payer, pronounced pe-ye), z (written also s, x, when pronounced with the next word, as les eaux, aux esprits), and the sound of the English sli, as in shall (written cTi). Most consonants are not uttered when final, unless they are joined to a succeeding word which begins with a vowel or Ti mute. S, x, z, t, being the prin- cipal grammatic letters, are most frequently joined in this manner. On French pronuncia- tion Malvin-Cazal, Mme. Sophie Dupuis, and Bescherelle (Plus de grammaires) may be advan- tageously consulted. The dialects $&& patois of the French language are : I. The academic, consecrated by the best literature. II. Old French: 1, Walloon (rouchi), in Belgium and West Luxemburg ; 2, Franco-Flemish ; 3, Picard and the dialect of Artois. All these are Franco-Romanic. III. New French. A. In the north: 1, Norman; 2, patois of Paris and Champagne ; 3, of Lorraine and the Vosges; 4, the Bourguignon; 5, patois of Or- leans and Blois ; 6, of Anjou and Maine. B. In the middle and west: 1, Auvergnat; 2, Poite- vin ; 3, Vendeen ; 4, Bas Breton ; 5, Berrichon ; 6, Bordelais and Gascon. C. In the east: 1, Franc-Comtois and its varieties in Valais and Neufchatel, and partly in the cantons of Fri- bourg and Bern ; 2, Vaudois (Roman, Remain) ; 3, Savoisien and G6nevois ; 4, Lyonnais ; 5, pa- tois of the cities of Dauphiny. D. In the isl- ands of Jersey and Guernsey, Anglo-Norman. French is also spoken with various local pecu- liarities or corruptions in Algeria, on the Sene- fal, in the Mascarene and Seychelles islands, rench Guiana, the French West Indies, the greater part of Hayti, in Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, and some other of the United States, by the Jialitans of Lower Canada and even some aboriginal tribes, and in some settlements in Asia and Oceanica. There are also small French colonies in the banat of Temesvar and