Back Gallo Afrikaans Gallo ALS Idioma galó AN Idioma galó AST Qallo dili Azerbaijani Gallaoueg Breton Galó (llengua) Catalan Galaweg Welsh Gallo German Galoa lingvo Esperanto
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| Gallo | |
|---|---|
| Western Armorican | |
| galo | |
| Native to | France |
| Region | Upper Brittany |
Native speakers | 191,000 (2012)[1] |
Early forms | |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | gall1275 |
| ELP | Gallo |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-hb |
| IETF | fr-gallo |
 The historical Gallo language area of Upper Brittany | |
 Gallo is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[3] | |
Gallo is a regional language of eastern Brittany. It is one of the langues d'oïl, a Romance sub-family that includes French. Today it is spoken only by a minority of the population, as the standard form of French now predominates in this area.
Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria, an area now corresponding to the border lands between Brittany, Normandy, and Maine. Gallo was a shared spoken language among many of those who took part in the Norman conquest of England, most of whom originated in Upper (i.e. eastern) Brittany and Lower (i.e. western) Normandy, and thus had its part, together with the much bigger role played by the Norman language, in the development of the Anglo-Norman variety of French which would have such a strong influence on English.
Gallo continued as the everyday language of Upper Brittany, Maine, and some neighbouring portions of Normandy until the introduction of universal education across France, but is spoken today by only a small (and aging) minority of the population, having been almost entirely superseded by standard French.
As a langue d'oïl, Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard, and the Poitevin dialect among others. One of the features that distinguish it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence. There is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais. However, as the dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais, there is a less clear isogloss. The clearest linguistic border is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton, a Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the western territory of Brittany.
In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, but remains overwhelmingly Latinate. The influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory.
As of 1980[update], Gallo's western extent stretches from Plouha (Plóha), in Côtes-d'Armor, south of Paimpol, passing through Châtelaudren (Châtié), Corlay (Corlaè), Loudéac (Loudia), east of Pontivy, Locminé (Lominoec), Vannes, and ending in the south, east of the Rhuys peninsula, in Morbihan.
- ^ "Enquête socio-linguistique : qui parle les langues de Bretagne aujourd'hui ?" [Socio-linguistic survey: who speaks the languages of Brittany today?]. Région Bretagne (in French). 8 October 2018. Archived from the original on 6 October 2018. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^ a b Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Glottolog 4.8 - Shifted Western Romance". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2023-11-27. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
- ^ Moseley, Christopher; Nicolas, Alexander, eds. (2010). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (PDF) (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022.