Francien (), also anglicized as Francian (), is a 19th-century term in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

that was applied to the French dialect that was spoken during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

in the regions of

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...

(with

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

at its centre), Orléanais, as well as Touraine, Berry, and Bourbonnais before the establishment of the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

as a standard language.Lodge, R. Anthony : 2004. ''A Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French''. Cambridge University Press. 290 pages
Page 63
Abalain, Hervé : 2007. Le français et les langues historiques de la France. Éditions Jean-paul Gisserot, p. 154, « l’orléanais, le tourangeau �� le berrichon, le bourbonnais, le parler d’Île-de-France sont des variations d’une même langue devenue le français standard »
Abalain 2007, p. 154
. According to one theory of the development of French, Francien was chosen out of all the competing ''oïl'' languages as an

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

( Norman and Picard being the main competitors in the medieval period). The theory currently prevailing, however, is that Francien was one of the dialects in the

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

on top of which an administrative language, untrammeled by perceived regionalisms, was imposed as a compromise means of communication and record to replace

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. The existence and definition of Francien were put forward in the 19th century, partly to support the idea of the French language as enjoying a direct and pure lineage from Latin and to minimize the contributions of the various Romance languages of France. Nowadays, the question of Francien is a controversial topic in discussions of language policy in France.

Notes

Oïl languages Obsolete scientific theories Spurious languages 19th-century neologisms {{Romance-lang-stub

See also

Notes