Death and Survival of Latin in the Empire West of the Rhine (Belgicae, Germaniae) and the Rise of the Frankish-Theodisc Languages

Abstract

Abstract This chapter deals with the regionally restricted survival of Latin and Gallo-Romance after the fall of the Western Empire and their replacement by varieties of West Germanic languages (especially Frankish), mainly in the regions of persistent contact between Romance and Germanic, i.e. in the regions between the Rhine, Moselle, and Meuse in Merovingian and Carolingian times. The phases of this linguistic change are attested by four sets of evidence: firstly, contemporary Germanic-Frankish loanwords, personal names, and Frankish toponyms; secondly, toponyms originating from Latin or Gallo-Romance dialects, received by target languages such as Frankish, Old High German, and Dutch; thirdly, Latin or Gallo-Romance loanwords in the Germanic-Frankish target languages; fourthly, Frankish loanwords in Old French and in Gallo-Romance dialects of Eastern and Northern France. Most of the Latin-Romance language islands in these regions came to an end in the eighth century, with the exception of the area around Trier and the River Moselle, called Mosella Romana, the densest and longest-lived zone of Latin-Roman continuity, ending only at the end of the tenth century. West of this region and the later Romance–Germanic language border, a huge number of Frankish loanwords and some West Germanic toponyms attest to the extent of contacts between Franks and Romans in Northern and Eastern Gaul until the extinction of the Frankish language (in around the eighth century, except for the elites), contacts that involved agriculture, military affairs, law, but also everyday terms, whose reception into Late Latin can only be explained by long-lasting bilingualism of the speakers.