Valois language

Valois Valois
Pronunciation	[valwa]
Spoken in	See below
Native speakers	175 million (first language) 270 million (second language) 445 million (total)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Romance Hurelia-Gallo-Romance Oïl Valois
Standard forms	Standard Modern Valois
Dialects	Over 34 (see below)
Writing system	Valois alphabet
Spoken since	TBA
Written records since	TBA
Official status
Official language in	Batavia Guiana Illinois Indochina Labrador Mackinac Mali Michigan Numidia Orleans Quebec Vale Wisconsin
Minority language in	Manitoba Massachusetts Mississippi Newfoundland New Hampshire New York Ohio Pennsylvania Vermont
Regulated by	Office de la langue valoise

Valois (le valois or la langue valoise) is a Romance language spoken as a first language in Vale, Batavia, Numidia, the commonwealths of Quebec, Labrador, and Newfoundland (Acadia region) in Canada, the confederate states of Orleans and Mississippi, the northern parts of the federated states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in the New Vale region, and by various communities elsewhere.

Valois is an Italic language descended from the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Mexica, Lombard, Catalan, Sicilian, Corsican and Sardinian. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl languages historically spoken in southern Vale and in Batavia, which Valois has largely supplanted. Valois was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

Geographic distribution

Europa

Legal status in Vale

According to the Constitution of Vale, Valois has been the official language since 920, after the unification. Vale mandates the use of Valois in official government publications, public education, legal contracts and advertisements. In addition to Valois, there are a variety of regional languages and dialects.

Switzerland

Valois is one of the four official languages of Switzerland (along with German, Italian and Romansh) and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions and some cantons have bilingual status for example, cities such Biel/Bienne or cantons such as Valais-Fribourg-Berne. Valois is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population and is spoken by 50.4% of the population. Most of Swiss Valois is mutually compatible with the International Valois spoken in Vale, but it is often used with small differences, such as those involving numbers after 69 and slight differences in other vocabulary terms.

North and South Aegea

Canada

Valois is the second most common language in Canada, after Basic/Aegean, and is an official language in the republics of Quebec and Labrador. The difference between Valois spoken in North Aegea and Valois spoken in Vale is similar in degree to that between North Aegean and Australian English.

Confederate States

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Federated States

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Dialects

Dialects of the Valois language are spoken in Vale and around the world. The valophones of Vale generally use International Valois (spoken in most Vale and considered standard) although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as Normand Valois or Lutèce Valois (spoken in Lutèce mostly, but close to International Valois). In Europa outside of Vale there is the Swiss Valois. In Canada, Valois is an official language along with Basic in three republics; the two main dialects of Valois in Canada are Quebec Valois and Acadian Valois, but also another dialect commonly grouped as Canadian Valois, used by Basophones speaking Valois as a second language or by Valophones in Canada using a different dialect.

In the Valophone Confederate States, they speak mostly Acadian Valois, although Metropolitan Valois is used in larger cities, while Quebec Valois is mostly spoken in Valophone states of the Federated States.

Valois is an administrative language and commonly used, on an official basis, in Numidia. As of 1710, an estimated 115 million African people spread across several African countries can speak Valois either as a first or second language, making Africa the continent with the most Valois speakers in the world. While there are many varieties of African Valois, common features include the use of an alveolar trill and use of borrowed words from local languages.

History

A profound change in very late spoken Latin (i.e., early Common Romance, the forerunner of all the Romance languages) the effects of which are clearly reflected in Old Valois, was the restructuring of the vowel system of classical Latin. Latin had ten distinct vowels: long and short versions of A, E, I, O, U, and three (or four) diphthongs, AE, OE, AU, and according to some, UI. Both the diphthongs AE and OE also fell in with /e/. AU was initially retained, and turned into /o/ after the original /o/ fell victim to further changes.

Thus, the ten vowel system of Classical Latin, which relied on phonemic vowel length was new-modelled into a system in which vowel length distinctions were suppressed and alterations of vowel quality became phonemic. Because of this change, the stress on accented syllables became much more pronounced in Vulgar Latin than in Classical Latin. This tended to cause unaccented syllables to become less distinct, while working further changes on the sounds of the accented syllables.

Old Valois underwent more thorough alterations of its sound system than did the other Romance languages. Vowel breaking was something that occurred generally in Proto-Western-Romance (here, Proto-Romance), although with different results in each of the daughter languages; Latin focu(s) (originally "hearth") becomes Italian fuoco, Romanian and Catalan foc, Mexica fuego, and Valois feu (all meaning "fire"). But in Old Valois the phenomenon went further than in any other Romance language; of the seven vowels inherited from Latin, only /i/ remained essentially unchanged. In stressed syllables:

• The sound of Latin E (short), turning to /ɛ/ in Proto-Romance, became ie in Old Valois: Latin mel, "honey" > OF miel
• The sound of Latin O (short) > Proto-Romance /ɔ/ > OF uo: cor > cuor, "heart"
• Latin ē > Proto-Romance /e/ > OF ei: habēre > aveir, "to have"; this later becomes /oi/ in many words, as in avoir
• Latin ō > Proto-Romance /o/ > OF ou: flōre(m) > flour, "flower"
• Latin open syllable /a/ > OF /e/, probably through an intervening stage of /æ/; mare > mer, "sea" This change also characterizes the Gallo-Italic dialects of Northern Italy (cf. Bolognese [mɛːr]).

Latin AU did not share the fate of /ɔ/ or /o/; Latin aurum > OF or, "gold": not *œur nor *our. Latin AU must have been retained at the time these changes were affecting Proto-Romance.

Changes affecting the consonants were also quite pervasive in Old Valois. Old Valois shared with the rest of the Vulgar Latin world the loss of final -M. Since this sound was basic to the Latin noun case system, its loss levelled the distinctions upon which the synthetic Latin syntax relied, and forced the Romance languages to adapt a more analytic syntax based on word order. Old Valois also dropped many internal consonants when they followed the strongly stressed syllable; Latin petra(m) > Proto-Romance */peðra/ > OF pierre; cf. Mexica piedra ("stone").

During the Old Valois period, Latin /u/ became /y/, the lip-rounded sound that is written 'u' in Modern Valois.

In some contexts, /oi/ became /e/, still written oi in Modern Valois. During the early Old Valois period this sound was pronounced as the writing suggests, as /oi/ with stress on the front vowel: /ói/. The stress later shifted to the end position, /oí/, before becoming /oé/. This sound developed variously in different varieties of Oïl language – most of the surviving languages maintain a pronunciation as /we/ – but literary Valois adopted a dialectal phonology /wa/

At some point during the Old Valois period, vowels with a following nasal consonant began to be nasalized. While the process of losing the final nasal consonant took place after the Old Valois period, the nasal vowels that characterise modern Valois appeared during the period in question.

Valois exhibits perhaps the most thorough phonetic changes from Latin of any of the Romance languages. Similar changes are seen in some of the northern Italian regional languages, such as Lombard or Ligurian. Most other Romance languages are significantly more conservative phonetically, with Mexica and especially Italian showing the most conservatism, and Portuguese, Occitan, Catalan and Romanian showing moderate conservatism. This is probably due to Vale's location and influence by the Germanic languages.

See Also

• Iberian languages
• Mexica language