ROMANCE LANGUAGE (' Langue Romane ' or `Romande,' in French) is the name given to a kind of bastard Latin, which came into common use in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, among the populations formerly subject to Rome, while the Northern conquerors, the Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Langobards, &c., spoke their own language or dialects, which are called by chroniclers of the times' lingua Teutonica," or "Teutisca." The conquered people were called by the general name of Romans, from whence came the name of the language, which was also called " vulgaris." In course of time however the conquerors adopted the language of the conquered, who being more instructed, furnished most of the priests and scholars of the age. But the language thus adopted by both the conquering and the conquered races, although essentially formed of Latin elements, differed according to the various localities and the greater or lesser degree of admixture of the northern people with the Roman popula tion. For instance, king Dagobert in the 7th century published a statute, styled, " Lex Alamannorunt," for the use of the German tribes who had crossed the Rhine, the language of which differs from that of the " Lex Ripuariorum," which the same king published for the use of the people situated between the Lower Rhine and the Jima, who were mostly of old Roman extraction. The former employs the ilk as an article before substantives, in imitation of the articles sa and der used by the Goths and Franks in their own language; but the Lex Itipuaria does not employ ilk for the same purpose. In the old charters of Italy and Spain of the Sth and 9th centuries, we find ilk and ipso employed likewise as articles, ipso ccdesia, illa olio, illas cases, ilia *trade, jibe rio, &c. ; but these charters are not so old by a century or two as the France-Latin documents, in which those pronouns are introduced for a similar purpose. The oldest documents in the ' Espaha Sagrada ' in which the ilk appears as an article is A.D. 775; and the oldest of those of Italy quoted by Muratori are of the years 713 and 736.
Of the various dialects thus formed, that of the south of France, called afterwards League d'Oc, bccatne a refined language sooner than the others, and retained its superiority from the 10th to the 13th century, when the Italian, I'ortuguese, and Spanish languages assumed a regular grammatical and literary form, which they have retained ; whilst the romance of the south of France has gradually fallen into disuse, having given way to the Northern French Langue d'Oil or ifOui. The latter appears to have originally differed little from the League d'Oc, but it gradually changed its terminations, and assumed other peculiarities of form, which have been retained by the modern French. it is demonstrated by Itayoeuard that the inhabitants of Northern France in the Pth century spoke the same language as those of the south. The text of the oath taken at Strasburg in the year
812, by Louis, called the Germanic, before the French people, would alone be a sufficient proof of this. The text of this curious document is as follows :—" Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poplo, ct nostro commits' salvament, dist di en avant, in quant Deus eavir et podir me durst, si salvara jeo cist moon fradre Karlo, et in adjudha, et in cadhuna coca, Si cum cen per drcit son fradre salver dist, in o quid it mi altre si fazet, et ab Ludher !nil plaid nunquam prindrai, 'neon vol cist moon fradre Karle in damn° sit." (Roquefort, ' Glossaire de ha Langue Romano, Paris, 1808, Introduction.) The gradual process by which the corrupt Latin spoken in the provinces of Western and Southern Europe in the Gth, 7th and 8th centuries was transformed Into the Romance languages of the 9th and 10th centuries, is very clearly exhibited by Ilaynonard, in his El4mena de la Grammaire de la Longue Romano avant fan I000.' The Latin cases had become neglected or confused, and to supply their place the repositions de served to denote the genitive and ad the dative. The next step was to cut off the final syllable of the noun, and so to make it indeclinable. Thus the accusative ahbatem became abbat ; make tatem, roajestat; ardentem, ardent ; amantent, arrant; and so forth. The accusatives in ionens were reduced to ion, religionetn, religion, &c. When the suppression of the Latin termination left two harsh-sounding consonants at the end of the word, a euphonic vowel was added, " arbitr.utri," "ar-bite-c." The pronouns ilk and ipso had been used in the corrupt Latin as auxiliary to substantives : " Dono illas 'einem quomodo ills rivulus eurrit ; " " Ilia medietate do ipsa porcione," &c. From idle so used originated the romance articles el, lo, la, and from "pee the demonstrative pronouns, is, so or su, and sa, which the Sardinian dialect has retained to this day as an article. These articles were declined with the prepositions de and a. " Ego Hugo della Roca ;" " Fossattim de la vita ;" " Villarn noetram quo vocatur al la Corlaria," &e. These and other examples taken from documents of the 9th century show the introduction of articles even in the written language which affected to preserve in some degree the Latin form; the change must have been more rapid and complete in the spoken or popular idiom. Other changes took place in the pronouns and the verbs, for which we refer to Raynouard's Eldmeus. The use of the auxiliary verb aver, " habere," already existed in the Latin, in a certain form : " De Ciesare satis hoc temnore dictum haliebo " (Cicero, ' Philip. V.' 28); " Si babes jam statutum quod tibi agendum putes " (` Epist. ad Famil.', iv. 2). The Latin also used the auxiliary " esse " in some tenses of the passive. The Romance language only made the use of these auxiliaries more general.