It is widely known that France has a beautiful culture and language, but did you know the historical reason why French is a ‘Romance Language’ is a result of wars and invasion?

French language primarily descends from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans, and thus belongs to the ‘Romance’ Language Group.

The Romans were a strong empire that once invaded the actual French territory, which was known as La Gaule; where numerous tribes speaking le Gaulois (‘Gaulish’) composed of Celtic dialects inhabited La Gaule. Some traces of Gaulish influence are still present in the French spoken today; for example, these traces include the Gauls’ ancient and unique way of counting people by twenty.
(In modern French, we still have quatre-vingt {’80’}, but there were also six-vingt {‘120’} and quinze-vingt {‘300’}.)

Once the Romans conquered the Gauls in the second and first century BC, vulgar Latin (which the common people spoke) rapidly dominated, as it was similar to Gaulish, and was deemed fashionable and good for business.

However, the Gauls were invaded yet again, this time by the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes. Later on though, the Franks were also Romanized and accepted the Roman Empire.
As the Franks melted into the Romano-Gallic population, a new multicultural population was formed: Les Francs.

At the beginning, French language was called le Francilien. It was born in Paris and spread all over Europe through poems and literature telling the adventures and loves of heroes.
These stories were known as ‘Romances’ after the French language, which became in modern French the word ‘roman’ meaning ‘novel’ and in English the word ‘romantic.’

Because French has been spoken for more than two thousand years, has spread across its border, and today it is spoken all over the world-mainly in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Monaco. Who knew that invasion and politics would end up creating one of the most popular and loved languages in modern times!