Timeline of the evolution of the French language from its birth to the modern era
→ Before 58 BC, Gaul had around 10 million inhabitants who mainly spoke the Gaulish language, made up of Celtic dialects.
→ From 58 to 50 BC, Gaul was invaded by Roman armies under Julius Caesar.
→ From the invasion to the 5th century, Gaulish dialects and Classical Latin, but above all Vulgar Latin, coexisted in Gaul, and the reality for most Gauls was bilingualism.
→ From the 5th to the 9th century, Gallo-Romance gradually emerged from the Vulgar Latin spoken in northern Gaul through successive linguistic changes. This very early form of French gave rise to the oldest known text attesting to the use of French: The Strasbourg Oaths, a military oath between Charles the Bald and Louis the German.
→ From the 9th to the 13th century, Old French (also called roman, romanz, or romance) spread across Europe and beyond, influencing—and being influenced by—many other languages and cultures such as English, Latin, Arabic, Scandinavian languages, Italian, etc.
→ From the 14th to the 15th century, there was a transitional language between Old and Modern French: Middle French. These centuries were marked by major upheavals. The 14th century was characterized by the Black Death (plague) and the Hundred Years’ War, which led to the disorganization of institutions.
→ In 1539, Francis I signed the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, whose Articles 110 and 111 imposed French as the language of law and administration.
Article 110:Â In order to prevent any doubt regarding the understanding of the rulings of our sovereign courts, we wish and order that they be made and written so clearly that there may be no ambiguity or uncertainty, nor any need for interpretation.
Article 111:Â We therefore wish that all rulings and all other legal proceedings be pronounced, recorded, and delivered to the parties in the French mother tongue and not otherwise.
This measure thus made French the language of the State, but it was not directed against local spoken varieties—only against Church Latin. At that time, French was spoken mainly in Paris and among the aristocratic classes of northern France.
→ That same year, the first French–Latin Dictionary, by Robert Estienne, was published. Thanks to the invention of the printing press, there arose a need to codify the language, and grammarians, lexicographers, language theorists, and linguists gained importance.
→ May 1st, 1789, marks the beginning of the French Revolution with the first Estates-General, which led the Third Estate (the common people) to revolt against the nobility.
→ In the 19th century, the Romantics opposed Classical French. In order to enrich their works, they used both “noble” words and “low” or colloquial ones.
→ At the end of the 19th century, Realist writers adopted new vocabulary resulting from the Industrial Revolution(transportation terms such as tunnel, rail, wagon, tender, tramway, steamer; medical terms such as analgesic, hydrotherapy, homeopathy, etc.). 80% of people still spoke their local patois in everyday situations.
→ In the 20th century, the advent of new technologies (such as radio, airplanes, automobiles, and trams) led to a movement toward the standardization of French. People now wanted to understand one another from region to region. Patois came to be used mainly by older generations.
→ During the First World War, soldiers from France and its colonies were sent all over the world and brought together in military units. This mixing of populations completed the disappearance of patois in favor of the French language.
→ On January 7, 1972, the French government enacted Decree No. 72-9 on the enrichment of the French language, providing for the creation of ministerial terminology commissions to expand French vocabulary. This was a reaction to the growing use of English vocabulary due to globalization and the Internet (e.g., star, scooter, live, interviewer, click, etc.).
→ On August 4, 1994, following the 1972 law, the so-called Toubon Law was enacted, aiming to impose the use of French in many areas (signage, work, education, etc.), particularly in public services.
This timeline was originally written in French and even though I tried my very best on the translation, there might still be some small errors or some things that are not comprehensible when translated into English. If you come across these difficulties when reading, please tell me so I can edit the post !!
I also want to clarify that this timeline is a very condensed version of the history and that obviously some details are missing, I only included what I thought was important and what I wanted to remember. Also keep in mind that what I, a 15 year old French student, and you think is important or interesting might differ, so you might want to look into it yourself if you want more detail and see more of the parallels between language and the political history of France.
My sources are Wikipedia, Alloprof, my own history and French textbooks and texts of law especially for the last section.
If, like me, you're interested in this topic feel free to talk to me about it, my comments and dms are always open for interesting conversations !