Gallo-Romance languages in the context of "Western Romance languages"

The langues d'oïl  are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo-Romance languages, which also include the historical languages of east-central France and western Switzerland, southern France, portions of northern Italy, the Val d'Aran in Spain, and under certain acceptations those of Catalonia.

Linguists divide the Romance languages of France, and especially of Medieval France, into two main geographical subgroups: the langues d'oïl to the north, and the langues d'oc in the southern half of France. Both groups are named after the word for yes in their recent ancestral languages. The most common modern langue d'oïl is standard French, in which the ancestral oïl has become oui.

The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages are a group of Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and French Catalonia. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian, East Iberian (Catalan/Valencian) and Southern Iberian (Andalusi Romance, also known as Mozarabic/Haketia) language groups. East Iberian's classification is a subject of ongoing scholarly debate, as some argue that the Occitano-Romance languages, composed of Occitan along with Catalan/Valencian, are better classified as Gallo-Romance languages.

Evolved from the Vulgar Latin of Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish and Portuguese, followed by Catalan-Valencian-Balear and Galician. These languages also have their own regional and local varieties. Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby counts seven "outer" languages, or language groups: Galician-Portuguese, Spanish, Asturleonese, "Wider"-Aragonese, "Wider"-Catalan, Provençal+Lengadocian, and "Wider"-Gascon.

The Normans (Norman: Normaunds; French: Normands; Latin: Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Francia followed a series of raids on the French northern coast mainly from what is now Denmark, although some also sailed from Norway and Sweden. These settlements were finally legitimized when Rollo, a Scandinavian Viking leader, agreed to swear fealty to King Charles III of West Francia following the siege of Chartres in 911, leading to the formation of the County of Rouen. This new fief, through kinship in the decades to come, would expand into what came to be known as the Duchy of Normandy. The Norse settlers, whom the region as well as its inhabitants were named after, adopted the language, religion, social customs and martial doctrine of the West Franks but their offspring nonetheless retained many of their traits, notably their mercenary tendencies and their fervour for adventures. The intermixing between Norse folk and native West Franks in Normandy produced an ethnic and cultural "Norman" identity in the first half of the 10th century, an identity which continued to evolve over the centuries.

The Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural and military impact on medieval Europe and the Near East. The Normans were historically famed for their martial spirit, and eventually for their Catholic piety as adherents of the Catholic orthodoxy of the Romance community. The original Norse settlers adopted the Gallo-Romance language of the Frankish land they settled, with their Old Norman dialect becoming known as Norman, Normaund or Norman French, an important literary language which is still spoken today in parts of mainland Normandy (Cotentinais and Cauchois dialects) and the nearby Channel Islands (Jèrriais and Guernésiais). The Duchy of Normandy, which arose from the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, was a great fief of medieval France. The Norman dukes exercised independent control of their holdings in Normandy, while at the same time being vassals owing fealty to the King of France, and under Richard I of Normandy (byname Richard sans Peur, meaning "Richard the Fearless"), the duchy was forged into a cohesive and formidable principality in feudal tenure.

Romansh (/roʊˈmænʃ, roʊˈmɑːnʃ/ roh-MA(H)NSH; sometimes also spelled Romansch and Rumantsch) is a Romance language of the Gallo-Romance and/or Rhaeto-Romance branch of languages spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grisons (Graubünden). Romansh has been recognized as a national language of Switzerland since 1938, and as an official language in correspondence with Romansh-speaking citizens since 1996, along with German, French, and Italian. It also has official status in the canton of the Grisons alongside German and Italian and is used as the medium of instruction in schools in Romansh-speaking areas. It is sometimes grouped by linguists with Ladin and Friulian as the Rhaeto-Romance languages, though this is disputed.

Romansh is one of the descendant languages of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, which by the 5th century AD replaced the Celtic and Raetic languages previously spoken in the area. Romansh retains a small number of words from these languages. Romansh has also been strongly influenced by German in vocabulary and morphosyntax. The language gradually retreated to its current area over the centuries, being replaced in other areas by Alemannic and Bavarian dialects. The earliest writing identified as Romansh dates from the 10th or 11th century, although major works did not appear until the 16th century, when several regional written varieties began to develop. During the 19th century the area where the language was spoken declined due to the industrialization of Switzerland, but the Romansh speakers had a literary revival and started a language movement dedicated to halting the decline of their language.

Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a Gallo-Romance language that originated and is spoken in eastern France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy.

Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighbouring Romance dialects (the langues d'oïl and the langues d'oc, in France, as well as Rhaeto-Romance in Switzerland and Italy).

Old High German (OHG; German: Althochdeutsch (Ahdt., Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous West Germanic dialects that had undergone the set of consonantal changes called the Second Sound Shift.

At the start of this period, dialect areas reflected the territories of largely independent tribal kingdoms, but by 788 the conquests of Charlemagne had brought all OHG dialect areas into a single polity. The period also saw the development of a stable linguistic border between German and Gallo-Romance, later French.

Valencian (valencià) or the Valencian language (llengua valenciana) is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan, either as a whole or in its Valencia-specific linguistic forms. The Valencian Community's 1982 Statute of Autonomy officially recognises Valencian as the name of the native language.

Valencian displays transitional features between Ibero-Romance languages and Gallo-Romance languages. According to philological studies, the varieties of this language spoken in the Valencian Community and Carche cannot be considered a single dialect restricted to these borders: the several dialects of Valencian (Alicante Valencian, Southern Valencian, Central Valencian or Apitxat, Northern Valencian or Castellon Valencian and Transitional Valencian) belong to the Western group of Catalan dialects.

Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance. Gallo-Italic may also be included. The subdivision is based mainly on the use of the "s" for pluralization, the weakening of some consonants and the pronunciation of "Soft C" as /t͡s/ (often later /s/) rather than /t͡ʃ/ as in Italian and Romanian.

Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby counts thirteen languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Asturleonese, Aragonese, Catalan, Gascon, Provençal, Gallo-Wallon, French, Franco-Provençal, Romansh, Ladin and Friulian.