Gallo-Romance Languages - Traditional Geographical Extension

Traditional Geographical Extension

Historically, various Gallo-Romance languages were spoken in France, except for some outlying regions (Corsica, western Brittany, the Basque Country, Flanders, Alsace and part of Lorraine); the Wallonia region of Belgium; the Romandy region of western Switzerland; the Channel Islands; the Eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula; and in Northern Italy.

Today, a single Gallo-Romance language (French) dominates most of this geographic region (including the formerly non-Romance areas of France), and has also spread overseas. Another, Franco-Provençal, is still commonly spoken in Italy's Aosta Valley. Conversely, English (a Germanic, rather than Romance, language) is now predominant in the Channel Islands.

Read more about this topic:  Gallo-Romance Languages

Famous quotes containing the words traditional, geographical and/or extension:

    The community and family networks which helped sustain earlier generations have become scarcer for growing numbers of young parents. Those who lack links to these traditional sources of support are hard-pressed to find other resources, given the emphasis in our society on providing treatment services, rather than preventive services and support for health maintenance and well-being.
    Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)

    Men’s private self-worlds are rather like our geographical world’s seasons, storm, and sun, deserts, oases, mountains and abysses, the endless-seeming plateaus, darkness and light, and always the sowing and the reaping.
    Faith Baldwin (1893–1978)

    The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)