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 very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)
“While you are divided from us by geographical lines, which are imaginary, and by a language which is not the same, you have not come to an alien people or land. In the realm of the heart, in the domain of the mind, there are no geographical lines dividing the nations.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)