[citation needed] Oïl languages are those modern-day descendants that evolved separately from the varieties of the ancient langue d'oïl.

[citation needed] Five zones of partially mutually intelligible Oïl dialects have been proposed by Pierre Bec:[9] Non-standard varieties: Gallo has a stronger Celtic substrate from Breton.

Gallo originated from the oïl speech of people from eastern and northern regions: Anjou; Maine (Mayenne and Sarthe); and Normandy; who were in contact with Breton speakers in Upper Brittany.

[citation needed] Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the classical Latin sic 'thus', such as the Italian sì, Spanish and Catalan sí, Portuguese sim, and even French si (used when contradicting another's negative assertion).

However, neither lingua romana nor langue d'oïl referred, at their respective time, to a single homogeneous language but to mutually intelligible linguistic varieties.

[citation needed] In the 13th century these varieties were recognized and referred to as dialects ("idioms") of a single language, the langue d'oïl.

However, since the previous centuries a common literary and juridical "interdialectary" langue d'oïl had emerged, a kind of koiné.

The author of the Vie du bienheureux Thomas Hélye de Biville refers to the Norman character of his writing.

As the influence of French (and in the Channel Islands, English) spread among sectors of provincial populations, cultural movements arose to study and standardise the vernacular languages.

Theatrical writing is most notable in Picard (which maintains a genre of vernacular marionette theatre), Poitevin and Saintongeais.

The particular circumstances of the self-governing Channel Islands developed a lively strain of political comment, and the early industrialisation in Picardy led to survival of Picard in the mines and workshops of the regions.

There are some regional magazines, such as Ch'lanchron (Picard), Le Viquet (Norman), Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine [1] (Jèrriais), and El Bourdon (Walloon), which are published either wholly in the respective Oïl language or bilingually with French.

Currently Walloon, Lorrain (under the local name of Gaumais), and Champenois have the status of regional languages of Wallonia.

This was apparent not so much in the vocabulary (which remained overwhelmingly of Latin origin) as in the phonology and syntax; the invading Franks, Burgundians and Normans became the rulers and their accents were imposed as standard on the rest of the population.

Portuguese was heavily influenced by more than a millennium of perennial contact with several dialects of both Oïl and Occitan language groups, in lexicon (up to 15–20% in some estimates, at least 5000 word roots), phonology and orthography.

[14][15][16] The influence of Occitan was, nevertheless, the most marked, through the status Provençal in particular achieved in southwestern Europe around the troubadour apex in the Middle Ages, when Galician-Portuguese lyric was developed.

Aside the direct influence of Provençal literature, the presence of languages from modern-day France in the Galician-Portuguese area was also strong due to the rule of the House of Burgundy, the establishment of the Orders of Cluny and Cister, the many sections of the Way of St. James pilgrimage route that come from elsewhere in Europe out of the Iberian Peninsula, and the settlement in Iberia of people from the other side of the Pyrenees, arriving during and after the Reconquista.

[17][18] The anti-Portuguese factor of Brazilian nationalism in the 19th century led to an increased use of the French language in detriment of Portuguese, as France was seen at the time as a model of civilization and progress.

[19] The learning of French has historically been important and strong among the Lusophone elites, and for a great span of time it was also the foreign language of choice among the middle class of both Portugal and Brazil, only surpassed in the globalised postmodernity by English.