Phonological history of Gallo Romance

[Otto Kretschmer]

Is la a specific reason as to why Gallo Romance languages n faster than other branches of Romance languages?
Gaulish, the language spoken before Latin in Gaul, was very similar to Latin. It had very similar grammar and phonology so it was easy for Gauls to learn Latin, probably easier than for Dacians or Greeks or speakers of Iberian languages

[Kuchigakatai]

At least up to the Early Old French period you could hypothesize there was influence from Frankish speakers, as learners of spoken Latin-Romance in the intervening period.

This doesn't help explain the many changes between Early Old French and today's French though, a period also noticeably less stable than its parallel in Portuguese, Spanish or Italian... Maybe English and French areally conspired to lose a lot of word-final unstressed material.

[Otto Kretschmer]

I thought since Gaulish was similar to Latin then Gallo Romance languages should in fact be more conservative.

Frankish influence only directly impacts the northern hslf of France

[zompist]

Frankish influence only directly impacts the northern hslf of France

FWIW, that's the area where French developed. The southern half spoke varieties of Occitan/Provençal.

[Otto Kretschmer]

I meant Gallo Romance as a whole. The title is misleading and was corrected

[zompist]

I meant Gallo Romance as a whole. The title is misleading and was corrected

I think your question makes more sense if you're asking about French.

Do you think these three languages are terribly different in terms of linguistic change?

Pare nostra del cel, sigui santificat el teu nom; vingui el teu Regne; faci’s la teva voluntat, com al cel, així també a la terra.
Dóna’ns avui el nostre pa de cada dia; i perdona’ns les nostres ofenses, com també nosaltres hem perdonat els qui ens ofenen;
i no deixis que caiguem en la temptació, ans deslliura’ns del Maligne.

Paire Nòstre, que siés dins lo Ciel, que tio nom se santifique que tio Rénhe véne, que ta volontat sibi facha dins lo Ciel e sus la tèrra.
Dona-nos, aura,lo pan de tuchi lhi jorns e pardona-nos i nòstri peccats como nosautri ilh pardonèm an aquilh que nos fan de mal.
E pòuça-nos pas a la tentacion, mas delibera-nos dal mal.

Pai Nosso, que estás no céu; santificado seja o Teu Nome; venha o Teu Reino; seja feita a Tua Vontade; assim na terra como no céu;
O pão nosso cada dia nos dai hoje; e perdoai as nossas dívidas; assim como nós perdoamos os nossos devedores;
E não nos deixes cair em tentação; mas livrai-nos do mal.

[Ares Land]

I concur. Occitan isn't that divergent from other varieties of Romance. (It's in fact quite comparable to Catalan and Northern Italian dialects.)

The sad truth is, I'm afraid, we don't know.

First, there are outliers within many language families. (Arabic is very conservative within Semitic, Seneca underwent dramatic changes within Iroquoian, etc.)
In addition to that, a fairly simple change (the loss of intervocalic stop) did most of the damage, so to speak, and paved the way for other, further changes.
I read somewhere (I'll have to dig up a reference) that Frankish influence might have led to a strong stress accent and hence to loss of non-stressed element.
It's worth remembering that Northern Gaul was a rural backwater before the Germanic invasions; it's conceivable that many Northern Gauls never learnt Latin. There's still ongoing research. It has recently come to light that Normand and Picard (oïl language that are a tad more conservative, lacking palatization before /a/, for instance) developed in all likelihood in places where there were more Latin speakers (these are coastal areas and along trade routes to Britain).
For that matter, French kept a handful of words of Gaulish origin; Occitan has practically none.

All of that goes for phonology; in terms of grammar, French isn't that much of an outlier (and Old French did retain case for quite some time.)
In vocabulary, as expected, it has a bit more Germanic borrowings but it's a lot more conservative than, say, Romanian.

Language standardization also hides much continuity; French to Italian, for instance, looks a lot more like a continuum if you take Franco-Provençal, Occitan, and Gallo-Italian languages into account.

[Linguoboy]

I concur. Occitan isn't that divergent from other varieties of Romance. (It's in fact quite comparable to Catalan and Northern Italian dialects.)

Catalan is more often grouped with Occitan than with Ibero-Romance. Its Ibero-Romance features (e.g. intervocalic voiced stops weakening to approximants, merger of b/v) are relatively recent, superficial, and not found in all varieties.

For that matter, French kept a handful of words of Gaulish origin; Occitan has practically none.

Really? I don’t know much about the Occitan lexicon but that would surprise me honestly, given that Catalan has at least two dozen.

[Ares Land]

Ah, I must have remembered that wrong... I'm pretty sure it has far fewer than French though!

(Counting direct loans, not Gaulish loans into Latin, in which case the list is far longer)

[Talskubilos]

Catalan is more often grouped with Occitan than with Ibero-Romance.

That's right. In fact, Pèire (Pierre) Bec proposed an Occitano-Romance grouping aside from Gallo- and Ibero-Romance.

Really? I don’t know much about the Occitan lexicon but that would surprise me honestly, given that Catalan has at least two dozen.

Some of these (e.g. carro, cavall) were already in Vulgar Latin, and there're other loanwords not listed, as e.g. volva '(snow) flake'.

[Otto Kretschmer]

Catalan did not originate in Iberia. It was brought there in late 8th century by Franks who reconquered a small part of Spain from Muslims

[Kuchigakatai]

volva '(snow) flake'.

What an interesting entry, for reasons I'll explain later. What does panotxa, given there in a red link, mean? And what do filagarsa and polsim mean here? I found the former is 'a loose thread (in cloth)'.

[Linguoboy]

What an interesting entry, for reasons I'll explain later. What does panotxa, given there in a red link, mean?

"Corncob". The second definition for "VOLVA" in the DCVB is "Fulles que cobreixen la panolla de moresc (Camp de Tarr.); cast. paja."

And what do filagarsa and polsim mean here? I found the former is 'a loose thread (in cloth)'.

That's the only definition I know for filagarsa. Polsim is a fine dust, powder, or spray (e.g. polsim d'una cascada).

[kadmii]

I vaguely recall reading something about how the Frankish influence resulted in Romance being spoken with word stress shifting from the penultimate to the beginning of the word, accelerating the wearing down

[Estav]

I vaguely recall reading something about how the Frankish influence resulted in Romance being spoken with word stress shifting from the penultimate to the beginning of the word, accelerating the wearing down

Might what you’re remembering be instead the hypothesis that Germanic influence contributed to reduction of unstressed syllables? French never underwent a stress shift from penult to initial syllables; the stress position in Latin continued to be used until the pervasive loss of post-tonic syllables (as in amīcus > ami) caused stress to stop being treated as a word-level feature of French pronunciation.

[kadmii]

Might what you’re remembering be instead the hypothesis that Germanic influence contributed to reduction of unstressed syllables?

Probably

[hwhatting]

Gaulish, the language spoken before Latin in Gaul, was very similar to Latin. It had very similar grammar and phonology so it was easy for Gauls to learn Latin, probably easier than for Dacians or Greeks or speakers of Iberian languages

Where do you get that idea from, especially on the morphology? Look e.g. at the Larzac inscription - how similar to Latin does that look? Not much closer than Greek, I'd say.

[Talskubilos]

Catalan did not originate in Iberia. It was brought there in late 8th century by Franks who reconquered a small part of Spain from Muslims

This is more a legend than a established historical fact.

[MacAnDàil]

I concur. Occitan isn't that divergent from other varieties of Romance. (It's in fact quite comparable to Catalan and Northern Italian dialects.)

The sad truth is, I'm afraid, we don't know.

First, there are outliers within many language families. (Arabic is very conservative within Semitic, Seneca underwent dramatic changes within Iroquoian, etc.)
...

Language standardization also hides much continuity; French to Italian, for instance, looks a lot more like a continuum if you take Franco-Provençal, Occitan, and Gallo-Italian languages into account.

Indeed.

In addition to that, a fairly simple change (the loss of intervocalic stop) did most of the damage, so to speak, and paved the way for other, further changes.
I read somewhere (I'll have to dig up a reference) that Frankish influence might have led to a strong stress accent and hence to loss of non-stressed element.
It's worth remembering that Northern Gaul was a rural backwater before the Germanic invasions; it's conceivable that many Northern Gauls never learnt Latin. There's still ongoing research. It has recently come to light that Normand and Picard (oïl language that are a tad more conservative, lacking palatization before /a/, for instance) developed in all likelihood in places where there were more Latin speakers (these are coastal areas and along trade routes to Britain).
For that matter, French kept a handful of words of Gaulish origin; Occitan has practically none.

All of that goes for phonology; in terms of grammar, French isn't that much of an outlier (and Old French did retain case for quite some time.)
In vocabulary, as expected, it has a bit more Germanic borrowings but it's a lot more conservative than, say, Romanian.

For that particular sound change, sure. But on other aspects, Picard and Norman can be more radical than French e.g. devoicing final consonants that are not even final consonants in standard French e.g. 'tape' for 'table' (IIRC) or 'paur' for 'pauvre' (poor) in Norman. Also Picard has 'is' for 'ils' (they) which has gone into informal French. Picard has 'cahielle' for 'chaise' (chair) (from my copy of (most of) the Französische Etymologische Wörterbuch).

[Zju]

Catalan did not originate in Iberia. It was brought there in late 8th century by Franks who reconquered a small part of Spain from Muslims

This is more a legend than a established historical fact.

Care to provide a source for that statement?