Old Frankish

[Psychonaut]

This thread (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9429) got me thinking. Does anyone know if there has been any professional work done on reconstructing the Frankish language? I know that a lot of elements survived in Northern French surnames and placenames (and also in some Spanish words), but has there been any systematic work done on reconstructing it?

[Osweo]

In short, dunno. :P

But wouldn't it just be near identical with Old Flemish/Limburgish/all those dialects around there in mid western Germany?

[Bjólf]

No comprehensive study afaik, but some minor sure have been done.

Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_language#The_impact_of_Old_Frankish_on_mo dern_French

Compare:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_words_of_Germanic_origin

[Psychonaut]

But wouldn't it just be near identical with Old Flemish/Limburgish/all those dialects around there in mid western Germany?

I dunno, would it? ;)

[Osweo]

I dunno, would it? ;)

Yup. ;)















Where was old Hlodwig from? The modern border of Ripuarian Franconian, Low Rhenish and Limburg Dutch. Minus a few recent sound shifts and you have Old Frankish. Those dialects themselves could, without too much problem, be simply termed Neo-Frankish or whatever. Luxemburg might be an even better bet, at least for showing how the western variety of Frankish might have ended up.

I'll bet German and Dutch linguists can roll out a decent Old Frankish if they put their mind to it. But that's more 'conlang' recreational sort of thing than merely trying to retrospectively understand their own modern dialects.

What period are you thinking of, though? How long did Frankish hold out in furthest Neustria? Not too long, I should imagine. Not for any serious deviation from the ancestral types still spoken in Franken proper.

[The Black Prince]

^Yup :)

Also the Low Franconian languages/dialects (Dutch and Afrikaans) are the direct descendants of Old Frankish. So any linguist who knows a bit old-Dutch (500 CE -1150 CE) as some is used in the Salic Law (Maltho thi afrio lito : 'I say, I free you, half-free') is pretty close to Old Frankish.

Concerning Old Frankish maybe this is some reading:

Amsterdamer beitrage zur Alteren Germanistik: Band 56- 2002 edited by Erika Langbroek, Annelies Roeleveld, Paula Vermeyden, Arend Quak Published by Rodopi, 2002

It contains a part by Bernard Mees in which he describes the inscription on a frankish swordsheath found in Bergakker (NL) dating about 425 CE - 450 CE. The inscription is:haþuþȳwas ann kusjam logūns, meaning something as: I(he?) bestow(s) a brand (sword) upon (to) the chosen.

The word kusjam is somewhat puzzling since it is normally used for a javelin/spear, but maybe in these times the Franks used it for any kind of blade wether sword, spear, javelin? About kesjam/kusjam there is part of a dissertation written by Looijenga that deals about it (pp 50-51), it might give you clues about Germanic and Old-Frankish writings: http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/arts/1997/j.h.looijenga/c3.pdf

[Hrolf Kraki]

Does anyone have a sample of Old Frankish?

[Psychonaut]

Does anyone have a sample of Old Frankish?

Aside from the fragment that The Black Prince posted, all I've seen are the lists of Frankish names (http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/french.shtml).