FRE 315 - History of the French Language

In this course, we will investigate the French language from a very wide point of view, looking at its structure from a linguistic point of view (that is, descriptively and systematically). We will explore the way French was born historically to reach what we call “contemporary” French, not only the “standard” language, but also its diverse geographical and social varieties. Some of the questions we will grapple with are, but not limited to, how did French develop from spoken Latin into its form more than 1000 years ago? What were the factors that influenced the development of various regional (in France) and global dialects of French; in what ways are they unique? What is sociolinguistics and how does it apply in studying the evolution of language?

Satisfies French and Francophone Studies major and minor requirement