The langues d'oil form a dialect continuum of Gallo-Romance languages that includes standard French and its closest relatives, spoken historically across northern France, southern Belgium and the Channel Islands. Their name comes from the medieval word oil, meaning yes, which distinguishes them from the southern lengas d'oc, whose own word for yes gave Occitan its name, and oil itself evolved into the modern French oui. Besides standard French, the group traditionally includes Picard, Norman (including Anglo-Norman), Walloon, Burgundian, Lorrain, Gallo, Poitevin-Saintongeais, Angevin and Champenois, and Walloon holds recognized minority-language status in the French Community of Belgium.
Facts
RegionNorthern and central France, southern Belgium, Switzerland, and the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey and Sark 1 Speaker CountReflects French, the langues d'oil group's dominant modern member; the cited article gives no single combined total for the group as a whole. Proto-Language StatusThe langues d'oil descend from Vulgar Latin as spoken in post-Roman France; the region's own word for yes, hoc ille, contracted to oil, distinguishing it from the oc-saying south, so the group is traced through attested Vulgar Latin and Old French stages rather than a separately reconstructed proto-language. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Oil Languages
Wikimedia FoundationInfobox, geographic distribution field
Northern and central France, southern Belgium, Switzerland, Guernsey, Jersey, Sark
History section, origin of the name oil
By late- or post-Roman times Vulgar Latin within France had developed two distinctive terms for signifying assent (yes): hoc ille ("this (is) it") and hoc ("this"), which became oïl and oc, respectively.
View the Source 2. Wikipedia: French Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, speaker figuresQuote, Lead section, speaker figures
it is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 74 million are native speakers
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