In addition, the retention of Frankish as a native language before the eventual shift to Gallo-Romance, which lasted from the Merovingian conquest of Gaul until several centuries later, was not limited to the elite but also included sizable minorities of free peasants.
[3] Hugh Capet (AD 987), born to a Saxon mother, was reportedly the first King of France to need an interpreter when addressed by envoys from Frankish Germany.
As a result of over 500 years of Germano-Latin bilingualism, many Germanic words became ingrafted into the Gallo-Romance speech by the time it emerged as Old French in AD 900.
It is for this reason that Modern French pronunciation has a rather distinct and undeniably "Germanic" sound when compared to other Romance languages, such as Italian and Spanish, and is a major contributing factor in why there exists a distinction between Northern French varieties spoken in regions where Frankish settlement was heavy (langue d'oïl) vs. those where Frankish settlement was relatively slight (langue d'oc).
Gothic languages, like Burgundian, made contributions (via Provençal), as did Old Norse and Old English via Norman French.
Finally, Modern English has made contributions to the French lexicon, most notably within the past few decades.