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The Isoglosses of French Romance

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Map illustrating a rough sketch of traditional Romance language isoglosses in France. The lines are mostly approximate.

I welcome any feedback about improving this map, as long as said comments come with accessible online references.


LANGUE D'OÏL

1. Southern limit of the Langues d'Oïl (Oïl languages)
Loss of final /a/ and mandatory final stress.
Ex: Occitan Vida, Arpitan Via, French Vie

2. French isolate traits
Beau /bo/ versus /bjo/ most elsewhere
Oi /wa/ versus conservative /we/ most elsewhere

3. The Joret Line – Principal isoglosses of the Northern Oïl area
Ka and Ga preserved north of the line, /ʃa/ and /ʒa/ to the south
- Waloon, north of the line, preserved the intermediate /tʃa/ and /dʒa/
Soft “C” rendered as /ʃ/, from /tʃ/, to the north and /s/, from /ts/, to the south
Ex: Norman “cacher” versus French “chasser”

4. First of three isoglosses defining the Eastern Oïl area
/w/ of germanic loans preserved (Picard, Waloon) or rendered as /v/ (Norman, Lorrain)
rather than the /gw/ and /g/ found elsewhere
Ex: Picard “warder” versus French “garder”

5. Second eastern isogloss
East of the line, diphthongization of /ɛ/ as /jɛ/ in closed syllables
Ex: Waloon “fiesse” versus French “fête”

6. Third eastern isogloss
Ex: French “poisson”, Picard “pichon” (Portuguese"peixe"), Lorrain “pouhhon” (Spanish "peje")

7. Morvandiau and southern bourguignon
Conservative dialects retaining Arpitan influence.
Ka and Ga rendered as /tsa/ and /dza/ rather than /ʃa/ and /ʒa/

8. Waloon
Preserved latin /s/ before consonants, including word initially
Ex : French “pâte” versus Waloon “påsse”, “fête” versus “fiesse”

9. Monophthonged “eau”
East of the line Bê /bɛ/, Beau /bjo/ most elsewhere

10. (+ 11) Monophthonged “oi”
Ex: Poitevin “crère”, Bourguignon “crère”, French “croire”

11. Isoglosses defining the Western Oïl area
a. “oi” monophthonged /ɛ/: “neir” versus French “noir”
b. First pers. sing. pronoun replaces first pers. plural : Angevin J'ai, J'avons
c. Palatalization of L between consonant and vowel : French “blé”, Angevin “bié”
d. Preservation of Old French /ao/: French “chaud” /ʃo/, Poitevin “chàud” /ʃao/
e. French “eu”, West “ou”; French “-oir”, West “-eux”

12. Nort-west area
a. Palatalization of K and G before front vowels
Ex: “guêpe” versus “djèpe”; “curé” versus “tchuré”
b. Diphtongization of nasal "an" to "aun"
Ex: French “Nantes” versus Angevin “Naunnt” (Breton “Naoned”)

13. Poitevin-Saintongeais
a. First pers. sing./plural pronoun “y” /j/ rather than /ʒ/
b. Severe diphthongization : French “crème” /krɛm/, P.-S. “craeme” /kraɛ̯m/


LANGUE D'OC

Between 1. and the dashed line : the Croissant dialects. Transitional between Oïl and Oc
Highly heterogenous. Most noteworthy is the common dropping of final /a/ and /e/

14. Southern limit of Langue d'Oïl-Arpitan
Complete lenition of intervocalic consonants
Ex: Occitan Vida, Arpitan Via, French Vie
Alpine Provençal drops intervocalic /d/ and /g/:
Ex: Occitan “cantada”, Alpine “chantaa”, French “chantée”

15. Southern limit of Gallo-occitan affrication (Excludes Raeto-Roman)
a. Latin KA and GA become /tsa/ and /dza/ in Northern Occitan, /dʒ/→/ʒ/ and /tʃ/→/ʃ/ in most of the Langue d'Oïl
Arpitan is variable, /tsa/ and /dza/ being most common with /tʃ/, /θ/ and /st/ also being observed in places.
b. Plural -s dropped with compensatory vowel lengthening (except southern Auvergnat and southern V.-Alpin)
Limousin : las vachas /la:'vatsa:/ (Fr: les vaches)

16. Vocalization of final /l/ to /w/ (line very imprecise)
Languedocian, Auvergnat “sal” /sal/; Provençal, Gascon, Alpine, Limousin “sau” /saw/

17a. Initial L /ʎ/ south of the line
Ex: Occitan libre /ˈli.βɾe/ vs. Catalan llibre /ˈʎi.βɾə/

17b. Provençal : Loss of palatal L : /λ/ > /j/ south of the line

18. Western limit of Gallo-italian languages
a. soft “c” and soft “g” as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ rather than /ts/ and /dz/
b. /l/ between consonant and vowel becomes /j/. Then /kj/ and /gj/ become /tʃ/ and /dʒ/.
Ligurian does the same with /pj/ and /bj/ : Ligurian “giancu” versus Italian “bianco”

19. Niçois (Occitan influenced by Ligurian)
a. final /a/ preserved, /o/ elsewhere
b. intervocalic “d” preserved, /z/ in Provençal and often dropped

20. Outer limit of Gascon
a. /ll/ to /r/ in intervocalic position, /t(ʃ)/ word finally.
b. /f/ to /h/ word initially
c. metathesis : Gasc. “praube”, French “pauvre”

21. Dropping intervocalic /n/: Latin “luna” vs. Gascon “lua”

22. Particular gascon lexicon

23. Particular gascon syntax

24. Betacism :
South : "b" and "v" initial /b/ and intervocalic /β/; North : "b" /b/ and "v" /v/
“vin” : Langedocian /bi/, limousin /vi/, provençal /ˈvĩᵑ/, Marseillais /ˈvẽᵑ/


CATALAN

25. Occitan-Catalan border
a. Latin /u/ fronted to /y/ in Occitan
b. L frequently velarized in Catalan
c. Final “a” /o/ in most of Occitan (except Niçois); However Valencian sometimes /ɔ/ with vowel harmony
d. Occitan preserved Latin /aw/ and /aj/; Catalan /ɔ/ and /ɛ/
e. Lack of falling diphthongs in Catalan: “foc” vs. Occitan “fuoc” or “fuec”

26. Northern Catalan
a. Loss of ante-penultimate stress
b. Reduction of “ia” to /i/ (common to Mallorcan)
c. Loss of /l/ before /t/

27. Eastern Catalan vs. Western Catalan
a. West: unstressed /a/ and /e/; East: schwa /ə/
b. West: unstressed “o” /o/; East: unstressed “o” /u/ (except Mallorca)
c. East: Loss of some final /t/ and /p/ after certain consonants
d. Latin stressed ĭ and ē become Eastern /ɛ/, Western /e/ and Balearic /ə/
e. West: in possessive pronouns /w/; East: /v/
f. East: “amb” /amb/; West: /en/

28. Catalan vs. Spanish
Common to all Gallo-Romance
a. Loss of all final vowels but /a/
b. Lack of distinction: “s” and “c(e,i)” both /s/
c. Preserved initial /kl/, /pl/ and /fl/ vs. Spanish /ʎ/ and Portuguese /tʃ/
d. Intervocalic voicing across word boundaries
e. Infinitive verbs lose final “r” (reintroduced to "-ir" and "-oir" verbs in standard French after linguistic reforms)
Other
f. Presence of many rising diphthongs (Shared with Occitan)
g. Lack of falling diphthongs in Catalan: “terra” vs. Spanish “tierra” (Shared with Portuguese)
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Comments6
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jfblanc's avatar
Interesting. Quelques ajustements sur les Alpes-Maritimes: j'ai produit une carte sur commons qui reporte les divisions linguistiques et dialectales:
Occitan ou langue d'oc:
- jaune provençal (jaune d'or niçois)
- rose vivaro-alpin (clair intermédiaire, médian alpin, foncé mentonnais)
Padan ou gallo-italien:
- violet royasque (avec nuances pour le tendasque et le brigasque)
En marron les anciens villages colonisés par les génois-liguriens qui ont abandonné leur parler pour le provençal puis le français dans le cours du XXe siècle (Escragnolles, Biot, Vallauris)
Monaco est une enclave padane (génoise-ligurienne).

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:…

Sur le mentonasque, article de référence de M. Olivieri: bcl.cnrs.fr/files/perso/olivie…