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Where did deliberate written Romance texts first appear in the 9th century?
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Italic languages
Map showing the approximate extent of the Italic and neighboring languages about 250 bce.
Deliberate attempts to write in vernacular Romance first appeared in northern France during the 9th century. This development is evidenced by two primary texts:1
- The Strasbourg Oaths (842 CE): A document containing Romance versions of oaths sworn by two of Charlemagneβs grandsons.2
- The Eulalia poem (880β882 CE): A short sequence regarding the life of St. Eulalia, which serves as the second existing text in Old French.12
Northern France was the region where these texts first emerged, likely because Latin had undergone more radical changes there than in other areas. While the Latin alphabet was not entirely suited for representing the spoken vernacular of the time, these documents represent the earliest deliberate efforts to record the language.1