2. The Wallachian (see under MormArrA).
3. The Spanish, which is characterized by copiousness and etymological obscurity, arising from the establishment of so many different nations on the soil. For one element of difference it contains a large number of Arabic words—as many as 500 terms have been enumerated. Of the various dialects the Castilian is considered the standard.
4. The Portuguese, including both the language of Portugal and of Galicia; it is nearly akin to the Spanish, but differs too much in some points of grammar to be reck oned a mere dialect.
5. Provencal, the language of the south of France, extending on the one side into Spain over Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic isles; and on the other over Savoy and part of Switzerland, about the lake of Geneva. The line of division between the Provencal and the northern idiom which has BOB' become the literary language of the whole of France, is usually drawn through Dauphine, Lyonnais, -Auvergne, Limousin, Perigord, and Saintonge. From the use of the affirmative oc (= yes), the Provencal was known as the Langue d'oc, as the northern French was called the Langue d'oil, from oil, modern French oui (see The Provencal was at an early period a cultivated lan guage, with a regular system of grammar, and in the 12th and 13th centuries produced a rich poetical literature (see TROUBADOURS).
0. French. extending over the northern half of France, and parts of Belgium and Switzerland. Diez conceives that at first northern French may have been little different from Provencal, but beginning with the 9th c. it has been more and more distinguished by the greater wearing away of the original grammatical forms. See FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
The language of the canton of the Grisons (q.v.), anciently Rhatia, though sufficiently distinct from Italian and French, is not considered by Diez to have attained sufficient fixity or independence to deserve being ranked along with the others as a seventh Romanic tongue. It is called by the Germans by the people themselves Rumonsh. There are two chief dialects, the Oberland, about the sources of the Rhine, and that spoken in the Engadine (q.v.), called the Ladin.
The chief authorities on this subject are the two great works of Diez (q.v.), the gram mar and the dictionary of the Romanic languages. The dictionary and the introduc tion to the grammar have been translated into English.