Latin in French and the Modern World

What do you know about Latin?

“A sleeping dragon is never to be tickled.”

Latin Root:Severus = “Severe”

Latin Roots:Draco = “Dragon/Serpent”Mal = “bad/evil”

Fleur = “flower” (Latin-flors)Delacour = “of the court”

Accio – “I summon”

Crucio – “I torture”

Felix Felicis – “Lucky of lucky”

Imperio – “I command”

Inferi – “those below, inhabitants of the underworld”

Levicorpus – “Light body”

Lumos – from lumen “light”

Reparo – “I recover”

Veritaserum – from veritas “truth,” a truth serum

Aeneas

Romulus and Remus

Monarchy

Tyranny

Republic

Caesar in Gaul

Caesar vs. Vercingetorix

Alesia

Blue: Official language.Green: Co-official or regionally official language.Red: "Unofficial whole" language usage.Yellow: Significant unofficial regional language.

Vulgar Latin

• Colloquial Latin

• Not the written language

• Vulgar = “common ordinary”

• Spoken by soldiers in occupying areas.

• Began in about 200 B.C.

Gallo-Romance

• Spoken mainly in France

• Derived from Vulgar Latin

• Aspects of Vulgar Latin that aren’t carried on into French.

Old French

• Takes dative, accusative, and ablative case in Latin and makes it the oblique case, which isn’t found in modern French.

• Called langue d’oil – meaning they use oui for yes, whereas the other Romance languages use forms of sic (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese “si”)

• Has influences of Scandinavian and Celtic that make it modern French.

Modern French

• Created by infusion of Gallo-Romance with Scandinavian and Celtic languages.

• First text written in French in 810, Oathes of Strausburg.

• 1539 made official language of King Francis I

• Kind of like vulgar Latin. Old French made literary language, like high Latin.