the French vs. the Franks

My mother tongue and national language is Catalan. I obviously speak fluent Spanish and French since it is very important (both for political and communication reasons).

English is also a must (in my case I was born in France of Catalan parent, which I left at an early age, I was brought up in Australia, and never learnt Spanish properly until we came back to Spain when I was a teenager. I have also learnt Italian and some basic German.

Although I live near Barcelona I speak the same language than many friends I have in Perpinyà (Perpignan) and the Rosselló (Roussillon), although that part of Catalonia happens to be on French soil (since 1659). I can tell you we would never dream of speaking French or Spanish amongst us.

How can catalan be your national language if you live in Spain ???

How can catalan be your national language if you live in Spain ???

The Spanish Constitution acknowledges Catalonia as one of the historical nationalities that make up Spain. A nationality isn't only a State, although in some countries people do believe that.

From Wikipedia:
With the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, the old historic nationalities — Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia and Galicia — were given far-reaching autonomy, which was then soon extended to all Spanish regions, resulting in one of the most decentralized territorial organizations in Western Europe.


Catalonia was independent (within the Spanish monarchy) until 1714 and has never lost a strong nationalistic feeling.

Jordi,

Occitan and Catalan had been sharing a similar linguistic substratum until the former endured the influence of French whereas the latter grew more Iberic. That’s what I understand from your account about Western European Romany.

The following is written on the site of Canada’s Laval university : “Oc languages (or else : Occitan languages) gave birth to Gascon, Languedocian, Bearnese, etc., and also to Catalan which is closely related to them”. That infers that Catalan – notwithstanding ulterior or eventual Iberisation or Castilianisation – is actually a branch of Occitan.

Laval’s site also states that French and other Langues d’Oïl pertain to the Gallo-Roman group whereas Occitan and all Langues d’Oc (therefore including Catalan) belong to the Occitano-Roman group – that is a group distinct from the so-called Gallo-Roman one, although the overwhelming majority of either Oc or Oïl populations were Gallo-Romans anyway (ie: Gauls speaking Low Latin). I share the point of view shown on Laval’s site except I wouldn’t use the terms ‘Gallo-‘ and ‘Occitano-‘ to draw the line between Oïl area and Oc area (including Catalan before Reconquista). I’d call Northern Romance what Laval calls Gallo-Roman (after all Occitano-Roman too was invented by Gauls) and I would add Francoprovençal (Arpitan) and Rhetic languages to that. Similarly I’d call Central Romance the linguistic area covered by Occitan (when it was spoken) and Catalan plus what’s called Padany (Northern Italy or Po valley).

At the end of the day Catalan was influenced by Spanish while Occitan ‘simply’ disappeared (it took many centuries). The two languages are indeed different today : phonetics, syntax, morphology and lexical base. According to the stuff published by Laval university, it appears that Occitan and Catalan share a common genotype and distinct phenotypes (with additional ‘historical’ Oïl and Hispanic superstrata, respectively). Almost (?) like Low German (which led to Dutch, Low saxon etc) and High German : same West Germanic genotype, but different phenotypes (plus varied Latin influences impacting Low and High German differentiatedly). A question would remain should we retain Laval’s views about Romance classification : if Catalan and Occitan share the same genotype (a genotype different from Iberic Romance and Northern Romance genotypes – the 3 genotypes being based on Latin anyway), is it possible to identify Proto-Central Romance as opposed to Proto-Northern Romance and Proto-Iberic Romance ? I guess this reconstruction would be all the more Herculean as the very valid concept of diasystemic continuum you mentioned adds an extra layer of complexity.

A few more points.

1/ The French kings of France weren’t the only ones – not even the first ones – to conquer Occitany since the French kings of England did exactly that as they secured lands located in Western Occitany inherited through continental vassalage from their Normand, Angevin and Aquitanian ancestors.

2/ In addition to his native Francique (Frankish), Charlemagne spoke Latin fluently and could converse in Greek. I believe all Merovingian and Carolingian kings knew Low Latin or Old French (I have to check that). After Charlemagne’s death, his successors divided his empire in 3 parts : Francia Occidentalis (the part given to Charles, a grandson of Charlemagne), Lotharingy (the part intended for Lothaire, Charles’ brother) and Francia Orientalis (for Louis, a third brother). Charles the Bald (king of Fr. Occ.) and Louis the Germanic (king of Fr. Or.) formed a coalition to seize the part of Lothaire – the brother of both Charles and Louis, the owner of Lotharingy and the (nominal) Emperor of Occident. The Oath of Strasbourg signed in 842 by Charles and Louis is the ratification of their alliance against their brother Lothaire. Charles’ version of the Oath was written in Old French while that of Louis was drawn up in a Tudesque language.

"In addition to his native Francique (Frankish), Charlemagne spoke Latin fluently"
I have read that the Frankish aristocracy was bilingual in Frankish / proto-French until the 9th century. Anybody who knows for sure?

Addition to : "Charles’ version of the Oath was written in Old French while that of Louis was drawn up in a Tudesque language".

Charles declaimed his speech in 'teudisca lingua' (Frankish) to make himself understood by Louis's troops. Conversely, Louis spoke in 'romana lingua' (Old French) to make sure Charles' forces could comprehend the full meaning of the Oath.

Oath in 842 Old French written 'by' Charles and pronounced by Louis :
"Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro comun saluament, d'ist di in auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son
fradra saluar dift, in o quid il mi altre si fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit".

Oath in 842 Frankish written 'by' Louis and pronounced by Charles :
"In Godes minna ind in thes christânes folches ind unsêr bêdero gehaltnissî, fon thesemo dage frammordes, sô fram sô mir Got geuuizci indi mahd furgibit, sô haldih thesan mînan bruodher, sôso man mit rehtu sînan bruodher scal, in thiu thaz er mig sô sama duo, indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, the mînan uuillon imo ce scadhen uuerdhên".

Oath in Classical Latin :
"Per Dei amorem et per christiani populi et nostram communem salutem, ab hac die, quantum Deus scire et posse mihi dat, servabo hunc meum fratrem Carolum, et ope mea et in quacumque re, ut quilibet fratrem suum servare jure debet, dummodo mihi idem faciat, et cum Clotario nullam unquam pactionem faciam, quae mea voluntate huic meo fratri Carolo damno sit".

Oath in Latin spoken in Gaul in the 5th century : (reconstructed)
"Por Deo amore et por chrestyano pob(o)lo et nostro comune salvamento de esto die en avante en quanto Deos sabere et podere me donat, sic salvarayo eo eccesto meon fradre Karlo, et en ayuda et en caduna causa, sic quomo omo per drecto son fradre salvare devet, en o qued illi me altrosic fatsyat, et ab Ludero nullo plag(i)do nonqua prendrayo, qui meon volo eccesto meon fradre Karlo en damno seat".

Oath in French spoken in the 11th century : (reconstructed)
"Por dieu amor et por del crestiien poeple et nostre comun salvement, de cest jorn en avant, quan que Dieus saveir et podeir me donet, si salverai jo cest mien fredre Charlon, et en aiude, et en chascune chose, si come on par dreit son fredre salver deit, en ço que il me altresi façet, et a Lodher nul plait onques ne prendrai, qui mien vueil cest mien fredre Charlon en dam seit".

Oath in French spoken in the 15th century : (reconstructed)
"Pour l'amour Dieu et pour le sauvement du chrestien peuple et le nostre commun, de cest jour en avant, quan que Dieu savoir et pouvoir me done, si sauverai je cest mien frere Charle, et par mon aide et en chascune chose, si comme on doit par droit son frere sauver, en ce qu'il me face autresi, et avec Lothaire nul plaid onques ne prendrai, qui, au mien veuil, à ce mien frere Charles soit à dan".

Oath in French spoken today :
"Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour le salut commun du peuple chrétien et le nôtre, à partir de ce jour, autant que Dieu m'en donne le savoir et le pouvoir, je soutiendrai mon frère Charles de mon aide et en toute chose, comme on doit justement soutenir son frère, à condition qu'il m'en fasse autant, et je ne prendrai jamais aucun arrangement avec Lothaire, qui, à ma volonté, soit au détriment de mon frère Charles".

Greg:
I really enjoyed your post. The fact remains Catalan has an independent official language since the 12th century, which hasn't evolved very much from a morpho-syntax point of view since then. Young catalans can read the great 13th century Chronicles in the Catalan original without needing an up-to-date version (I've read the same happens with Icelandic regarding the Escandinavian Sagas).

The reason is the substratum (I'd rather say the "direct line" in this case, since the substratum would be all that is Pre-Roman and there is a bit of that too) leads us to the Romanised population of this side of the Iberian peninsula, closely linked to the Romanised population of the Occitan side since it would seem we had a "common Latin stock", whilst Spanish and Portuguese have a more "cultivated" or "archaic" Latin base. Many more soldiers settled in the Occitan-Catalan area than in more central Spain where they had more "civil servants" of the more cultivated sort. It would seem we had many more "popular" Latin settlers from an early to a later date and soldiers oftens settled here after 20 years of service to the Empire.

As I told you we can clearly diferentiate the medieval Catalan poetry written at the same time from the prose, simply because prose is in Catalan and poetry is in Occitan. Both Gascons and Catalans were considered to write some sort of "bastard" language when they wrote troubadoresc poetry by the rest of Occitan and our young Catalans need translation for that medieval poetry whilst they don't for the prose or historical accounts, in a language that is very close to the present day one (they just need a thesaurus of words.)

From the 15th century on Catalan adopts (very partially) a more "Iberian" vocabulary whilst the morpholy and syntax has changed very little and has always been "more Iberian". An example would be "cercar" (to look for), which becomes "buscar" in most Catalan dialects although "cercar" is the normal form in the more archaic Balearic Islands Catalan and usual in the literary language. An Internet searcher is nowadays a "cercador" in Catalan. On the other hand, "boscar" also exists in Lengadocian, at least. Since the 19th century Literary Catalan has recovered a lot of the medieval vocabulary that was never really lost in some more conservative dialects. It is true that Catalan and Occitan are as close (in their written form) as Spanish and Portuguese (in their written form, as well). I agree the relationship would be the same as Dutch and German but, are Portuguese and Spanish (at least in their medieval forms) part of the same diasystem as well from a strictly technical linguistic point of view?

It is not true that Occitan has died out. I hold an Occitan diploma and I learnt the language in inland Provence in the 1980s. I've spoken Occitan with native speakers throughout the country. In Bearn, the heart of Gascony, more than 50% of the population still speaks it. It is true that it is not taught in school and that it is fading amongst the younger generations because of French repressive policies (if it's alive it's called a "patois" and not considered real Occitan although it clearly is). Anyway, there is an interesting movement and "calandreta" schools teaching young children in Occitan throughout Occitania. I know many of the French don't like this but it's a fact. It is rarely heard in the cities and bigger towns, although there are Occitan associations throughout the country. As far as Catalan is concerned it is official in three Spanish Autonomous Regions (Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands) and it is spoken by over 8 million people (98% on the Spanish side) and according to the latest census 75% of the population of Barcelona is fluent in Catalan although Spanish is also ver much heard, specially in the big cities. It is also spoken arounf the Perpinyà region (Perpignan) in France and in the town of l'Alguer (Alghero) in Sardinia, due to a medieval settlement.

Regarding the 842 Oath you make it evolve to Modern French and I feel it's a philological trick due to French scholars. Contemporary French is actually an of-shoot of Francien and has evolved so much that the text would even be closer to Italian or Spanish!

I assure you that a contemporary Occitan or Catalan speaker (without Latin studies) would understand much more of that text than any living French monolingual speaker or any other Latin language speaker. The reason is simple, the more you go back in time the more conservative is the text. Since Occitan and Catalan are much more conservative than French and I agree that we are basically Gallo-Romance, any Catalan (or native Occitan) high school student would figure out what it was all about whilst a French high school student wouldn't. I'll prove my point keeping close to the original although the "style" would be somewhat old fashioned.

This would be a rough translation into Classical 16th century Catalan of your 842 Carlemagne oath. You can compare both and see how close they really are, to the point they almost seem the same language:

Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro comun saluament, d'ist di in auant, in quant Deus sauir et podir me dunat, si saluarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in adiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son
fradra saluar dift, in o quid il mi altre si fazet. Et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon uol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit".

Per amor de Déu e per lo poble cristià e el nostre comú salvament, d'est dia en avant, en quant Deu saber e poder m'és donat, sí salvaré el meu frare Carles e en ajuda e en cascuna cosa, si com hom per dret son frare deuré salvar ..., qui amb mi haurà de fer l'altre tant. E ab Ludher nul pleit nunca prendré que en damnatge d'est mon frare Carles sia.

I could perfectly say, in this case, that the text written above is in archaic Catalan and nor in archaic French and you will have understood why Contemporary Catalan is much closer (and Occitan, of course) to the 842 Oath than French. The only major changes in contemporary 21st century Catalan would be "i" instead of "e" (and), amb (for "ab) and "germà" for "frare" ("frare" now meaning "friar" (brother) as in English and "germà" closer to Iberian "hermano") or the use of "haver" (ha) per ésser (és). On the other hand we now prefer the gallic "mai" than the more Iberian "nunca" ("never" in Latin). The style is obviously very old fashioned but everybody would understand it around here.

Do you understand why the French hide the real history of Latinity, Occitanity and much more?

After all, a language is some sort of dialect with an army behind. Or so they say. I trust that posts regarding this contribution will have at least the level of Greg's contribution. Otherwise I wouldn't have taken the worry.

"What fabbrice called Italian used to be a dialect spoken in Central Italy and an Italic Romance Language as are Sardinian and South Italian (spoken in the Midi = Mezzogiorno). "

Standard Italian (today) is based upon the Florentine dialect - highlighted by the works of Dante. It is not from Central Italy.

You all argue amongst yourselves that Italian and Occitan (and Catalan) are in differnt linguistic subgroups, but that means little to me when they are so easy to all read.

(Rewritten to include Italian)
cheese - It - fromage Oc formatge - Ca formatge - Fr fromage - Sp queso - Po queijo
table - It - tavola - Oc taula - Ca taula - Fr table - Sp mesa - Po mesa
window - It - finestra - Oc fenèstra - Ca finestra - Fr fenêtre - Sp ventana - Po janela
bird - It - uccello - Oc aucel - Ca ocell - Fr oiseau - Sp pajaro - Po ave
apple - It - mela - Oc poma - Ca poma - Fr pomme - Sp manzana - Po maçã
fork - It - forchetta - Oc forqueta - Ca forquilla - Fr fourchette - Sp tenedor - Po garfo.

How does one decide where a language belongs? I'm tempted to see it should be in the same group as occitan and catalan because of how close many of the words are. The ones that are farthest of all are Spanish and Portuguese. I could understand if these were separated into a different group, but they aren't. Can anyone give me an explanation as to why Italian is split into the eastern group and not the western group? Or is it mainly geography, because it's obviously very close to Occitan and Catalan. Closer than it is to say Romanian, in my opinion (I have many Romanian friends)

Oops, the Italian for cheese should "formaggio" I was reading all the others and somehow...

Dear Tiffany,

Rather than giving you a long explanation myself I recommend you read the following article. As Greg says, within the Western Romance Group, Catalan would be the most central language (by default) since it shares things from the three groups: Ibero-Romance, Gallo-Romance and Italo-Romance, although it is clearly beweeen Ibero and Gallo Romances.

Differences are often more in the structure (syntax) of the language than in vocabulary itself. Obviously, there is a continuum (excluding Sardinian and Romanian) and the languages, which have evolved the most would certainly be Portuguese at the far west and French at the far north. Spanish would be pretty close to Portuguese as far as evolution is concerned and French is "the most" evolved Latin language.

Regarding vocabulary, Spanish says "manzana" from "matiana", which also meant "apple" in Latin. The fact is Ibero Romance often has a more ancient (or archaic) Latin in its vocabulary. Regarding neologisms Spanish also seems to go apart: Ventana (same as "Window" is the place thorugh which the "vent" (wind) blows, "tenedor" (fork) is the "instrument you hold" (tener: to hold), whilst the other Latin all share a common etym. Furthermore, Spanish has been more heavily influenced by the Arabic adstratum and French more by the Germanic Adstratum (because of historical reasons). This explains why the other southern Latin languages are more conservative as far as lexicon "words" are concerned.

This isn't always the case, though. Spanish "azúl" is closer to Italian,whilst Catalan and Occitan "blau" are closer to French "bleu", English "blue" and German "blau"!; since the Germanic adstratum is stronger than in Spanish.

As you can see it's all very fascinating and the fact is if you speak two or three Latin languages you can understand more than 90% of what is written in the other "western" continuum languages. I remember understanding (as a teenager) written Portuguese and Italian since I was a speaker of Catalan, French and Spanish since early childhood. Later on, when I studied those languages (and Occitan) I realised that there "were" differences. I still find Romanian somewhat baffling although I can understand more written Sardinian. I think it has been an error to stop teaching some Latin to Romance language speakers since it is also useful to learn other neighbouring languages and understanding your own much better.

At the same time, it's easier for an Englishman to learn "pure Italian" than for a Frenchman, Occitan, Catalan, Castilian (Spanish) or Portuguese speakers since we are heavily influenced by our "native" langue and its similarities with other neighbouring languages.
I imagine very much the same happens between speakers of Scandinavian languages or between speakers of German and Dutch.
The reason why English is so convenient (for Germanic and Latin language speakers) is because it's different enough but shares enough of both worlds to make it not too difficult.


http://www.google.es/search?q=Italo+Romance+group&btnG=B%C3%BAsqueda&hl=es

Tiffany,

I'm not versed enough in Romanistics (not even in the philology of French, my mother tongue) to tell you why and how 'arbitrary' linguistic borders are anticipated or even defined. I put 'arbitrary' between brackets because the notion of diasystemic continuum advanced by Jordi could technically ruin any attempt to design any strict frontier between, say, Central Romance and Iberic Romance. Diasystemic continuum means, for instance, that there's a border for almost any word pertaining to original Latin stock like 'fromage', 'queso' and 'formaggio' (or Germanic stock for words like 'blanc', 'blanco' and 'biancho'). Nonetheless lexical borders (perhaps as many as words considered) may be drawn on a map (isoglosses) and give a rough idea of the linguistic areas : when you see ten or twenty lexical borders (for 10 or 20 words) piling up within a 10-km-wide strip, then you may safely say 'the' linguistic border is somewhere within this strip. The 10-km-wide strip may be assimlilated to a fictitious line (a 'strict' border) because the areas studied may vary from 5.000 km2 up to 200.000 km2. However, this is all about words (mainly in written forms). This kind of approach needs optimising to render phonetic, syntactic and morphologic variations perceptible through mapping.

I supposed Florence and its vicinity to be in Central Italy - not in Padany or the Alps, not in Mezzogiorno - but it all depends upon what's called Northern, Central and Southern. What I know for sure is that Standard Italian is roughly an offshoot of Florentine (or Toscan?). You feel that Standard Italian is close to both Occitan and Catalan. I'm wondering if languages as Lombard could even be closer to Catalan and Occitan than Standard Italian is.

In my opinion, Central Italic and Southern Italic languages are split into the Italic group, the Eastern group being Romanian and Latin languages spoken east of the Adriatic. Lombard would split into Central Romance (ie: Catalan + Occitan). So would of course Occitan spoken in Italy. Whereas French and Francoprovençal (Arpitan) spoken in Italy (mainly along the French border) would split into Northern Romance. So would some languages spoken in Northeastern Italy (along the Swiss border) although those are clearly distinct from both French and Francoprovençal (Arpitan).

Italophones are needed there!

Jordi,

I’m amazed by 21st-century Catalanophones’ ability to read Old Catalan prose that easily. I confess that understanding 842 Old French is a challenge. Intelligibility becomes possible – very difficult though – with later texts from the 11th or 12th century.

True it is that many Latin soldiers populated Narbonensis and Provincia. Historical evidence may be found in the neighbourhood of Nîmes (Nemausus) and Arles (Arelate).

While I knew of the tremendous literary ascendancy of Occitan within Western European countries, I was unaware that Gascon (well, half-surprised actually) and Catalan (complete surprise) were considered corrupted by contemporary Occitanophones.

What I called substratum was indeed irrelevant because the term conventionally refers to influence prior to Latinisation. But what I meant wasn’t Iberic or Gallic substrata : I implied the Latin ‘substratum’ prior to further Occitanisation and Catalanisation (the very ‘moment’, if at all, when ‘lingua romana rustica’ started differentiating). According to what you wrote, such a ‘moment’ is highly unlikely to have existed at all since Latinophones in Gaul and Hispany had already been speaking contrasted variants of Latin.

About ‘cercar’ and ‘buscar’. They are close to French etymons too. ‘Cercar’ would be ‘chercher’ (‘search’) while ‘buscar’ would be related to ‘débusquer’ (meaning ‘chase out’ or ‘drive out’).

I know the clinical status of Occitan is a very ticklish issue in France and perhaps in Catalogne. Some Occitanists are not afraid to put the blame on their up-to-19th-century ancestors who are said to have gradually given up the fight. France is traditionally considered the bad guy who killed Occitan. Many Occitans did flee their homes to seek in refuge in Spain or Italy while the crusade against Albigeois (13th century) was waged by both the king of France and the papacy.
Occitan and French were both powerful in late Middle Ages but the fight was politic, ideological and, above all, economic. You have to wait until 1539 (François I) to find French imposed as sole administrative language of the kingdom. The first to be concerned by the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1539) are the crown subjects living in all Oïl areas. Then people living in Oc areas under French rule. Navarre Parliament’s official language is still Gascon until late 16th century. In addition to administrative supremacy, French gains cultural hegemony among well-educated Occitans. The Rhetorics College of Toulouse (a continuation of the Consistori del gay saber) allows aspirants the exclusive use of French only. Despite all that, Occitan was the sole language spoken among the people living in the 16th century. Then came the heavily centralised linguistic policy applied during the late 19th and 20th centuries as the industrial revolution was changing things for ever : massive emigration from remote areas to fast-growing cities. The rest is known too well.

Technically, Occitan hasn’t died out. It’s a language used in literature, arts and sciences. It’s living on the net and within circles of passionate people. I know Occitan has overcome a divide tracing back to Mistral’s time between Occitanists and Provençaux (Provençal being the name given to Occitan by Italians living in the Middle Ages). My feeling is that ‘biological’ Occitan is nonetheless phasing out : rural Occitans using any oral form of their Occitan are now 70 or 80 and their children are more likely to live in Francophone cities than in original Occitanophone villages. Still, ‘new-born’ (urban) Occitan is (relatively) alive and kicking. That said, even Neo-Occitanophony lacks basic territorial continuity. On top of that, you may well see numerous stickers reading ‘Oc’ proudly stuck at the back of cars, but you may as well spend 20 years of your life in Southern France without even hearing the slightest word of Occitan.

About Francien (Francian in English). There’s a controversy here about Francien. Some say this concept is farcical to the extent it could have been invented by 19th-century ultra-Francophile Romanists to ‘prove’ that French was originating from the tiny royal domain of early kings of France. I’ve got to do more research about ‘Francien’ but it is quite possible that today’s French actually derives from an interdialectal Oïl variant rather than from ‘Francien’ (meaning a dialect spoken in Île-de-France = Paris and vicinity). It’s all the more likely as interdialectal Oïl-languages (among which the ancestor of Modern French may be found) were actually more successful than dialects stricto sensu. Moreover the terms French and Gaul are sometimes interchangeable as Opus Majus (1260) by Roger Bacon shows :
“Nam et idiomata ejusdem linguae variantur apud diversos, sicut patet de lingua gallicana, quae apud Gallicos et Picardos et Normannos et Burgundos et caeteros multiplici idiomate variatur. Et quod proprie et intelligentibiliter dicitur in idiomate Picardorum horrescit apud Burgundos, immo apud Gallicos viciniores (…)”.
“En effet, les idiomes d’une même langue varient suivant les individus, comme il arrive de la langue française qui auprès des Français, des Picards, des Normands et des Bourguignons varie de manière idiomatique. Et les termes corrects dans la langue des Picards font horreur aux Bourguignons, et même aux Français plus voisins (…)”
“Idioms deriving from a common language are indeed varying according individuals, as such is the case of the French language which varies idiomatically when used by French, Picards, Normands and Burgundians. What is deemed right in the tongue of Picards would be appalling to Burgundians, and even to more-neighbouring French (…)”.
Here ‘gallicana’ and ‘Gallicos’ means French (we’re in 1260 !). Francian isn’t even mentioned.

I believe you when you say that the 842 Oath would be understood more easily by 21st Central Romanophones than by contemporary Northern Romanophones. That doesn’t mean that 842 Oath isn’t written in Old French. Rather, it shows that evolution of French wasn’t completed as of 842. French looked more ‘Latin’ than it did in 1100 or does today.

At first sight I can tell you the 842 stuff is Old French :
1/ ‘pro Deo amur’ (‘pour l’amour de Dieu’ =? ‘on behalf of God’s love’ ) is an absolute regime case (cas régime absolu). It means that, contrary to Modern French (‘de Dieu’) and 16th-century Catalan (‘de Déu’), Old French resort to direct syntax (no preposition like ‘de’ is used).
2/ Also ‘Deo’ is placed before ‘amur’ : you can’t find *‘pro amur Deo’. In Modern French and (possibly) 16th-century Catalan, *’pour de Dieu l’amour’ and *’per de Déu amor’ are respectively impossible.
3/ In 842 articles like ‘le’, ‘la’, ‘les’ and ‘l’’ were already invented in OF, but not systematically used : OF ‘pro christian poblo’ versus 16th Cat ‘per lo poble cristià’.

I haven’t much time left to comment on French ‘hiding’ the ‘real’ history of Occitany and France. I’ll get to that later. Well let it be known that everybody knows about Occitany : you’ve got to be blind not to know.

Jordi,

Do you mean you can reach everyone in Spain with catalan?
other question...
Does Spanish look like Catalan? (written)
Is Catalan louder or softer of tone compared with Spanish?

Occitan - the hidden language of the Kathars....now we are talking daVinci Code!