Name	Old French
Familycolor	Indo-European
Region	northern France, parts of Belgium (Wallonia) and Switzerland, England, Ireland, Kingdom of Sicily, Principality of Antioch, Kingdom of Cyprus
Extinct	evolved into Middle French by the 14th century
Fam1	Indo-European
Fam2	Italic
Fam3	Romance
Fam4	Italo-Western
Fam5	Western
Fam6	Gallo-Iberian
Fam7	Gallo-Romance
Fam8	Gallo-Rhaetian
Fam9	Oïl
Iso2	fro
Iso3	fro
Notice	IPA}}

Old French (''franceis'', ''françois'', ''romanz''; Modern French ) was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century. It was then known as the ''langue d'oïl'' (oïl language) to distinguish it from the ''langue d'oc'' (Occitan language, also then called Provençal), whose territory bordered that of Old French to the south. The Norman dialect was also spread to England, Ireland, the Kingdom of Sicily and the Principality of Antioch in the Levant.

Grammar and phonology

Historical influences

Gaulish

Gaulish, one of the survivors of the continental Celtic languages in Roman times, slowly became extinct during the long centuries of Roman dominion. Only several dozen words (perhaps 200) of Gaulish etymology survive in modern French, for example ''chêne'', ‘oak tree’ and ''charrue'' ‘plough'; Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167. Due to the expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin began to be spoken more often, explaining the limited influence and longevity of Gaulish.

Latin

Old French began when the Roman Empire conquered Gaul during the campaigns of Julius Caesar, which were almost complete by 51 BC. The Romans introduced Latin to southern France by 120 BC when it came under Roman occupation.

Beginning with Plautus's time (254–184 BC), the phonological structure of classical Latin underwent change, which would eventually yield vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the western Roman empire. This latter form differed strongly from its classical counterpart in phonology; it was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French. Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin ''equus'' was replaced in common parlance by vulgar Latin ''caballus'', derived from Gaulish ''caballos'' (Delamare 2003 p. 96), giving Modern French ''cheval'', Catalan ''cavall'', Occitan ''caval'' (''chaval''), Italian ''cavallo'', Portuguese ''cavalo'', Spanish ''caballo'', Romanian ''cal'', and (borrowed from Anglo-Norman) English ''cavalry'' and ''chivalry''.

Frankish

The Old Frankish language had a significant influence on the vocabulary, syntax, and the pronunciation of Old French after the conquest, by the Germanic tribe of the Franks, of the portions of Roman Gaul that are now France and Belgium during the Migration Period. The name ''français'' is derived from the name of this tribe. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians and the Visigoths, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, including a large number of common words like ''haïr'' ‘to hate’, ''bateau'' ‘boat’, and ''hache'' ‘axe’. It has been suggested that the ''passé composé'' and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences.

Other Germanic words in Old French appeared as a result of Norman, i.e. Viking, settlements in Normandy during the 10th century. The settlers spoke Old Norse and their settlement was legitimised and made permanent in 911 under Rollo of Normandy.

Earliest written Old French

At the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language (either Romance or Germanic), since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin.

The earliest documents said to be written in French after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842):

The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling.

The royal House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated the development of northern French culture in and around Ile-de-France, which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa (Toulouse). The Capetians' Langue d'oïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of the entire nation of France, however, until after the French Revolution.

Phonology

Old French was constantly changing and evolving. However, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for ''s'' preceding non-stop consonants and ''t'' in ''et'', and final ''e'' was pronounced . The phonological system can be summarised as follows:

Consonants

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Old French consonants |- ! ! Bilabial ! Labio-dental ! Dental/alveolar ! Postalveolar/palatal ! Velar ! Glottal |- ! Nasal |      | |      |      | | |- ! Plosive |   | |   | |   | |- ! Fricative | |   |   | | | () |- ! Affricate | | |   |   | | |- ! Lateral | | | | | | |- ! Trill | | | | | | |}

Notes:

The affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ became fricatives ([s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]) in Middle French. /ts/ was written as ''c'', ''ç'', ''-z'', as in ''cent'', ''chançon'', ''priz'' ("a hundred, song, price"). /dz/ was written as ''-z-'', as in ''doze'' "twelve".

/ʎ/ (''l mouillé''), as in ''conseil'', ''travaillier'' ("advice, to work"), became /j/ in Modern French.

/ɲ/ appeared not only in the middle of a word, but also at the end, as in ''poing'' "hand". At the end of a word, /ɲ/ was later lost, leaving a nasalized vowel.

/h/ was found only in Germanic loanwords and was later lost. In native Latin words, /h/ was lost early on, as in ''om'', ''uem'', from Latin ''homō''.

Vowels

In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes, but occurred as allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. This nasal consonant was fully pronounced; thus ''bon'' was pronounced /bõn/ (Modern French [bɔ̃]). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals, where Modern French has oral vowels, as in ''bone'' /bõnə/ (Modern French ''bonne'' [bɔn]).

Monophthongs

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Old French vowels |- !colspan=2|   ! Front || Central || Back |- |- !rowspan=2| Close !oral |   ||rowspan=2|   || |- !nasal | ||   |- !rowspan=2| Close-mid !oral | ||rowspan=2| ||   |- !nasal | ||| |- !colspan=2| Open-mid | ||   || |- !rowspan=2| Open !oral | ||rowspan=2|   ||rowspan=2|   |- !nasal | |}

Notes: /o/ had formerly existed, but closed to /u/; it would later appear again when /aw/ monophthongized, and also when closed in certain positions (e.g. when followed by original /s/ or /z/, but not by /ts/, which later became /s/).

Diphthongs and triphthongs

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Late Old French diphthongs and triphthongs |- !   ! IPA || Example || Meaning |- !colspan=4| f a l l i n g |- !rowspan=4| Oral || || chevaus || horse |- | || toit || roof |- | || coup || blow |- | ~ || neveu || nephew |- !rowspan=2| Nasal | || plein || full |- | || loing || far |- !colspan=4| r i s i n g |- !rowspan=3| Oral | || pié || foot |- | || fruit || fruit |- | ~ || cuer || heart |- !rowspan=3| Nasal | || bien || well |- | || juignet || July |- | || cuens || count (nom. sg.) |- !colspan=4| t r i p h t h o n g sstress always falls on middle vowel |- !rowspan=3| Oral | || beaus || beautiful |- | || dieu || god |- | || jueu || Jew |}

Notes: In Early Old French (up to about the mid-12th century), the spelling ‹ai› represented a diphthong , instead of the later monophthong , and ‹ei› represented the diphthong , which became /oj/ in Late Old French. In Early Old French the diphthongs described above as "rising" may have been falling diphthongs (/ie̯/, /yj/, /ue̯/). In earlier works with vowel assonance, the diphthong written ‹ie› did not assonate with any pure vowels, suggesting that it cannot have simply been . The pronunciation of the vowels written ‹ue› and ‹eu› is debated. In very early Old French, they represented (and were written as) , and by Middle French, they had both merged as , but it is unclear what the transitional pronunciations were.

Grammar

Nouns

Old French maintained a two-case system, with a nominative case and an oblique case, for longer than did some other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian). Case distinctions, at least in the masculine gender, were marked on both the definite article and on the noun itself. Thus, the masculine noun ''li voisins'', "the neighbour" (Latin VICÍNU(S) > Proto-Romance */veˈtsinu(s)/ > OF ''voisins'' ; Modern French ''le voisin'') was declined as follows:

{|class="wikitable" ! colspan=2| !! Latin !! Old French |- ! rowspan=2|Singular !! Nominative | || li voisins |- ! Oblique | || le voisin |- ! rowspan=2|Plural !! Nominative | || li voisin |- ! Oblique | || les voisins |- |}

In later Old French, these distinctions became moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the modern French form: ''l'enfant'' (the child) represents the old oblique; the OF nominative was ''li enfes''. But in some cases where there were significant differences between nominative and oblique forms, the nominative form survives, or sometimes both forms survive with different meanings:

Both ''li sire'' (nominative, Latin SÉNIOR) and ''le seigneur'' (oblique, Latin SENIÓRE(M)) survive in the vocabulary of later French as different ways to refer to a feudal lord.

Modern French ''sœur'' "sister" is the nominative form (OF ''suer'' < Latin nominative SÓROR); the OF oblique form ''seror'' (< Latin nominative SORÓREM), no longer survives.

Modern French ''prêtre'' "priest" is the nominative form (OF ''prestre'' < ); the OF oblique form ''prevoire'', later ''provoire'' (< ) survives only in the Paris street name ''Rue des Prouvaires''. Modern French indefinite pronoun ''on'' "one" continues OF nominative ''om'' "man" (< ); ''homme'' "man" continues the oblique form (OF ''ome'' < ).

In a few cases where the only distinction between forms was the nominative ''-s'' ending, the ''-s'' was preserved in spelling to distinguish otherwise homonymous words. An example is ''fils'' "son" (< Latin nominative FILIUS), spelled as such to distinguish it from ''fil'' "wire". In this case, a later spelling pronunciation has resulted in the modern pronunciation (earlier ).

As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals were re-analysed as feminine singulars, though; for example, Latin GAUDIU(M) was more widely used in the plural form GAUDIA, which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin, and ultimately led to modern French ''la joie'', "joy" (feminine singular).

Nouns were declined in the following declensions:

la citéz la cité rowspan="2"

		Class I (feminine)	Class II (masculine)
		!Class I normal	Class Ia	Class I normal	!Class IIa
colspan="2"	meaning	! "woman" !! "thing" !! "city" !! "neighbor" !! "servant" !! "father"
sg.	!nominative	rowspan="2"	la fame	la riens	|	li voisins	li sergenz	li pere
!oblique	la rien	|	le voisin	le sergent	le pere
pl.	!nominative	rowspan="2">les fames	les riens ||	les citéz	li voisin	li sergent	li pere
!oblique	les voisins	les sergenz

la none le baron li baron les barons

	Class III (both)
	!Class IIIa	!Class IIIb	!Class IIIc	Class IIId
meaning	"singer" !! "baron" !! "nun" !! "sister" !! "child" !! "priest" !! "lord" !! "count"
sg.	!nominative	li chantere	li ber	|	la suer	li enfes	li prestre	li sire	li cuens
!oblique	le chanteor	|	la nonain	la seror	l'enfant	le prevoire	le seigneur	le conte
pl.	!nominative	li chanteor	|	les nones	les serors	li enfant	li prevoire	li seigneur	li conte
!oblique	les chanteors	|	les nonains	les serors	les enfanz	les prevoires	les seigneurs	les contes

Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from feminine third-declension nouns in Latin. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in -ER and from third-declension masculine nouns; note that in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in -S, and this is preserved in Old French.

Those classes show various analogical developments, like ''-es'' from the accusative instead of ''-Ø'' (''-e'' after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural (Latin ''-ae''), ''li pere'' instead of ''*li peres'' (Latin ''illi patres'') in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.

Class III nouns show a separate form in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms. IIIa nouns ended in -ÁTOR, -ATÓREM in Latin, and preserve the stress shift; IIIb nouns likewise had a stress shift from -O to -ÓNEM. IIIc nouns are an Old French creation and have no clear Latin antecedent. IIId nouns represent various other types of third-declension Latin nouns with stress shift or irregular masculine singular (SÓROR, SORÓREM; ÍNFANS, INFÁNTEM; PRÉSBYTER, PRESBÝTEREM; SÉNIOR, SENIÓREM; CÓMES, CÓMITEM).

Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an 'e' to the masculine stem, apart from when the masculine stem already ends in e. For example ''bergier'' (shepherd) becomes ''bergiere'' (Modern French ''berger'' and ''bergère'').

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun they are qualifying. Thus a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and in the nominative case. For example, in ''femes riches'', ''riche'' has to be in the feminine plural form.

Adjectives can be divided into three declensional classes:

Class I corresponding roughly to Latin 1st and 2nd declension adjectives

Class II corresponding roughly to Latin 3rd declension adjectives

Class III containing primarily the descendants of Latin synthetic comparative forms in ''-ior, -iōrem''.

Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in ''-e''. This class can be further subdivided into two subclasses based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in ''-s'': :E.g. ''bon'' "good" (< Latin ''bonus'', > modern French ''bon'') :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | bons || bon | rowspan="2" | bone || rowspan="2" | bones | bon |- ! Oblique | bon || bons || — |} For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in ''-e'', like the feminine. This subclass contains descendants of Latin 2nd and 3rd declension adjectives ending in ''-er'' in the nominative singular. :E.g. ''aspre'' "harsh" (< Latin ''asper'', > modern French ''âpre'') :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | rowspan="2" | aspre | aspre | rowspan="2" | aspre || rowspan="2" | aspres | aspre |- ! Oblique | aspres || — |}

For Class II adjectives, the feminine singular is not marked by the ending ''-e''. :E.g. ''granz'' "big, great" (< Latin ''grandis'', > modern French ''grand'') :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | granz || grant | granz/grant || rowspan="2" | granz | grant |- ! Oblique | grant || granz || grant || — |} An important subgroup of Class II adjectives are the present participial forms in ''-ant''.

Class III adjectives exhibit stem alternation resulting from stress shift in the Latin imparisyllabic declension, and a distinct neuter form: :E.g. ''mieudre'' "better" (< Latin ''melior'', > modern French ''meilleur'') :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | mieudre(s) || meillor | mieudre || rowspan="2" | meillors | mieuz |- ! Oblique | meillor || meillors || meillor || — |}

Verbs

Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words. Morphologically, however, Old French verbs are extremely conservative, preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in Proto-Romance. Old French has much less analogical reformation than in Modern French, and significantly less than the oldest stages of other languages (e.g. Old Spanish), despite the fact that the various phonological developments in Gallo-Romance and Proto-French led to complex alternations in the majority of commonly-used verbs.

For example, the Old French verb ''laver'' "to wash" is conjugated ''je lef, tu leves, il leve'' in the present indicative and ''je lef, tu les, il let'' in the present subjunctive, in both cases regular phonological developments from Latin indicative and subjunctive . This paradigm is typical in showing the phonologically regular but morphologically irregular alternations of most paradigms:

The alternation ''je lef'' ~ ''tu leves'' is a regular result of final devoicing, triggered by loss of final /o/ but not /a/.

The alternation ''laver'' ~ ''tu leves'' is a regular result of the diphthongization of stressed (but not unstressed) open syllable /a/ into /ae/ > > .

The alternation ''je lef'' ~ ''tu les'' ~ ''il let'' in the subjunctive is a regular result of the simplification of the final clusters /fs/,/ft/ resulting from loss of /e/ in final syllables.

Modern French, on the other hand, has ''je lave, tu laves, il lave'' in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/; analogical ''-e'' in the first singular (from verbs like ''j'entre'', where the ''-e'' is regular); and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modeled on ''-ir/-oir/-re'' verbs. All of these serve to eliminate the various alternations in the Old French verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, Old French ''je vif, tu vis, il vit'' (''vivre'' "to live") has yielded to modern ''je vis, tu vis, il vit'', eliminating the "unpredictable" ''-f'' in the first-person singular.

The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French as compared with Old French.

The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as ''avret'' (< Latin ), ''voldret'' (< Latin ), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the ''-ra'' imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).

Verb alternations

In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the length of those syllables. This resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in "I think", the first syllable was stressed, while in "we think", the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances, but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: e.g. Spanish ''pienso'' "I think" vs. ''pensamos'' "we think" (''pensar'' "to think"), or ''cuento'' "I tell" vs. ''contamos'' "we tell" (''contar'' "to tell").

In the development of French, no fewer than five vowels diphthongized in stressed, open syllables. Combined with other stress-dependent developments, this yielded 15 or so types of alternations in so-called strong verbs in Old French. For example, /a/ diphthongized to /ai/ before nasal consonants in stressed, open syllables, but not in unstressed syllables, yielding ''aim'' "I love" (Latin ) but ''amons'' "we love" (Latin ).

The different types are as follows: {|class="wikitable" |+Vowel alternations in Old French verbs |- ! colspan=2|Vowel alternation !! rowspan=2|Environment !! colspan=4|Example (''-er'' conjugation) !! colspan=4|Example (other conjugation) |- ! Stressed !! Unstressed !! Latin etymon !! 3rd singularpres. ind. !! Infinitive !! meaning !! Latin etymon !! 3rd singularpres. ind. !! Infinitive/ Other Form !! meaning |- | /e/ || /a/ || free /a/ || || ''leve'' || ''laver'' || "to wash" || > || ''pert'' || ''parir'' || "to give birth" |- | /ãj̃/ || /ã/ || free /a/ + nasal || || ''aime'' || ''amer'' || "to love" || || ''maint'' || ''manoir'' || "to remain" |- | /je/ || /e/ || palatal + free /a/ || || ''achieve'' || ''achever'' || "to achieve" || colspan=4| |- | /i/ || /e/ || palatal + /a/ + palatal || || ''conchie'' || ''concheer'' || "to shit out?" || || ''gist'' || ''gesir'' || "to lie (down)" |- | /a/ || /e/ || palatal + blocked /a/ || || ''achate'' || ''acheter'' || "to buy" || > || ''chiet'' || ''cheoir'' || "to fall" |- | /a/ || /e/ || intertonic /a/ + palatal? || || ''travaille'' || ''traveillier'' || "to work" || colspan=4| |- | /je/ || /e/ || free || || ''lieve'' || ''lever'' || "to raise" || || ''siet'' || ''seoir'' || "to sit" |- | /jẽ/ || /ẽ/ || free + nasal ||colspan=4| || || ''crient'' || ''cremant'' || "to fear" |- | /i/ || /oj/ || + palatal || || ''prise'' || ''proisier'' || "to value" || || ''ist'' || ''oissir'' || "to go out" |- | /ɛ/ || /e/ || intertonic + double cons. || || ''apele'' || ''apeler'' || "to call" || colspan=4| |- | /oj/ || /e/ || free || > || ''adoise'' || ''adeser'' || "to touch" || colspan=4| |- | /ẽj̃/ || /ẽ/ || free + nasal || || ''meine'' || ''mener'' || "to lead" || colspan=4| |- | /i/ || /e/ || palatal + free || colspan=4| || colspan=4| |- | /oj/ || /i/ || intertonic + palatal || || ''charroie'' || ''charrier'' || "?" || colspan=4| |- | /we/ || /u/ || free || || ''trueve'' || ''trouver'' || "to find" || > || ''muert'' || ''mourir'' || "to die" |- | /uj/ || /oj/ || + palatal || || ''apuie'' || ''apoiier'' || "to lean" || colspan=4| |- | /ew/ || /u/ || free || || ''demeure'' || ''demourer'' || "to stay" || > || ''queust'' || ''cousdre'' || "to sew" |- | /u/ || /e/ || intertonic blocked || || ''courouce'' || ''courecier'' || "to get angry" || colspan=4| |- | /ũ/ || /ã/ || intertonic blocked + nasal || || ''chalonge'' || ''chalengier'' || "to challenge" || colspan=4| |- |}

In Modern French the verbs in the ''-er'' class have been systematically leveled. Generally the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (e.g. modern ''aimer/nous aimons''). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like ''acheter/j'achète'' and ''jeter/je jette'', where unstressed alternates with stressed , and in (largely learned) verbs like ''adhérer/j'adhère'', where unstressed alternates with stressed . Many of the non-''er'' verbs have become obsolete and many of the remaining verbs have been leveled. A few alternations remain, however, in what are now known as irregular verbs, such as ''je tiens, nous tenons'' or ''je meurs, nous mourons''.

Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer stressed stem alternating with a shorter unstressed stem. This was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when stressed: ''j'aiu/aidier'' "help" < ''j'araison/araisnier'' "speak to" < ''je deraison/deraisnier'' "argue" < ''je desjun/disner'' "dine" < ''je manju/mangier'' "eat" < ''je parol/parler'' "speak" <

The alternation of ''je desjun, disner'' is particularly complicated; it appears that > Italo-Western Romance > (preliminary intertonic loss) > (triphthong reduction) > (metaphony) > (further intertonic loss and other proto-French developments). Note the both of the stems have become full verbs in modern French, ''déjeuner'' "to have lunch" and ''dîner'' "to dine". Furthermore, ''déjeuner'' does not derive directly from ''je desjun'' (< with total loss of unstressed ). Instead, it comes from Old French , based on the alternative form ''je desjeün'' (< with loss only of , likely influenced by ''jeûner'' "to fast" < Old French ''jeüner'' < ''je jeün'' "I fast" < , where is an initial rather than intertonic syllable and hence the vowel cannot disappear).

Example of a regular ''-er'' verb

Imperfect dur dures dure durons durez durent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	durai	duroie	durerai	dur	durasse	dureroie
tu	|	duras	durois	dureras	durs	durasses	durerois	dure
il	|	dura	duroit	durera	durt	durast	dureroit
nous	|	durames	duriiens/-ïons	durerons	durons	durissons/-issiens	dureriions/-ïons	durons
vous	|	durastes	duriiez	dureroiz/-ez	durez	durissoiz/-issez/-issiez	dureriiez/-ïez	durez
ils	|	durerent	duroient	dureront	durent	durassent	dureroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: durer

Present participle: durant

Past Participle: duré

Auxiliary verb: ''avoir''

Example of a regular ''-ir'' verb

Imperfect fenis fenis fenist fenissons fenissez fenissent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	feni	fenissoie	fenirai	fenisse	fenisse	feniroie
tu	|	fenis	fenissoies	feniras	fenisses	fenisses	fenirois	fenis
il	|	feni(t)	fenissoit	fenira	fenisse(t)	fenist	feniroit
nous	|	fenimes	fenissiiens	fenirons	fenissons	feniss-ons/-iens	feniriiens	fenissons
vous	|	fenistes	fenissiiez	fenir-oiz/-ez	fenissez	feniss-oiz/-ez/-iez	feniriiez	fenissez
ils	|	fenirent	fenissoient	feniront	fenissent	fenissent	feniroient

Non-finite forms: Infinitive: fenir

Present participle: fenissant

Past Participle: feni(t)

Auxiliary verb: ''avoir''

Example of a regular ''-re'' verb

Imperfect cor cors cort corons corez corent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	corui	coroie	corrai	core	corusse	corroie
tu	|	corus	coroies	corras	cores	corusses	corroies	cor
il	|	coru(t)	coroit	corra	core(t)	corust	corroit
nous	|	corumes	coriiens	corrons	corons	coruss-ons/-iens	corriiens	corons
vous	|	corustes	coriiez	corr-oiz/-ez	corez	coruss-oiz/-ez/-iez	corriiez	corez
ils	|	corurent	coroient	corront	corent	corussent	corroient

Non-finite forms: Infinitive: corre

Present participle: corant

Past Participle: coru(t)

Auxiliary verb: ''estre''

Examples of the auxiliary verbs

avoir (to have)

Imperfect ai ais (later ''as'') ai (later ''a'') avons avez ont

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	eus	avoie	aurai	ai	eusse	auroie
tu	|	eus	avois	auras	ais	eusses	aurois	ave
il	|	eut	avoit	aura	ai	eusst	auroit
nous	|	eumes	aviens/-ïons	aurons	aions	eussons/-issiens	auravons/-ïons	avons
vous	|	eustes	aviez	auroiz/-ez	aiez	eussoiz/-issez/-issiez	auravez/-ïez	avez
ils	|	eurent	avoient	auront	ont	eussent	auroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: avoir (earlier ''aveir'')

Present participle: aiant

Past Participle: eut

Auxiliary verb: ''avoir''

estre (to be)

Imperfect suis es, ies est somes, esmes estes sont

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	fui	(i)ere ; esteie > estoie	(i)er; serai; estrai	seie > soie	fusse	soi	sereie > seroie; estreie > estroie
tu	|	fus	(i)eres ; esteies > estoies	(i)ers; seras; estras	seies > soies	fusses	sereies > seroies; estreies > estroies	seies > soies
il	|	fu(t)	(i)ere(t), (i)ert ; esteit > estoit	(i)ert; sera(t); estra(t)	seit > soit	fust	sereit > seroit; estreit > estroit
nous	|	fumes	eriiens, erions ; estiiens, estions	(i)ermes; serons; estrons	seiiens, seions > soiiens, soions	fuss-ons/-iens	seriiens, serions; estriiens, estrions	seiiens > soiiens, seions > soions
vous	|	fustes	eriiez ; estiiez	--; sere(i)z; estre(i)z	seiiez > soiiez	fuss-eiz/-ez/-iez	seriiez; estriiez	seiiez > soiiez
ils	|	furent	(i)erent ; esteient > estoient	(i)erent; seront; estront	seient > soient	fussent	sereient > seroient; estreient > estroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: estre

Present participle: estant

Past Participle: esté(t)

auxiliary verb: ''avoir''

Other parts of speech

Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. One notable exception being the adverb ''tot'' (same as modern French ''tout''; all, every).

Dialects

Since Old French did not consist of a single standard, competing administrative varieties were propagated by the provincial courts and chanceries.

The French of Paris was one of a number of standards, including:

the Burgundian of Burgundy, then an independent duchy whose capital was at Dijon;

the Picard language of Picardy, whose principal cities were Calais and Lille. It was said that the Picard language began at the east door of Notre-Dame de Paris, so far-reaching was its influence;

Old Norman, spoken in Normandy, whose principal cities were Caen and Rouen. The Norman conquest of England brought many Norman-speaking aristocrats into the British Isles. Most of the older Norman (sometimes called "French") words in the English language reflect the influence of this variety of Oïl language which became a conduit for the introduction into the Anglo-Norman realm, as did Anglo-Norman control of Anjou and Gascony and other continental possessions. The Anglo-Norman language reflected a shared culture on both sides of the English Channel. Ultimately, this language declined and fell, becoming Law French, a jargon spoken by lawyers, which was used in English law until the reign of Charles II. Norman, however, still survives in Normandy and the Channel Islands as a regional language;

the Walloon language, centered around Namur in present-day Wallonia;

the Gallo language of Brittany, the Romance language of the Duchy of Brittany;

the Lorrain, the Romance language of the Duchy of Lorraine.

Derived languages

This Oïl language is the ancestor of several languages spoken today, including:

Berrichon

Bourguignon-Morvandiau

Champenois

Franc-Comtois

French

**French-based creole languages

*Acadian French

*Belgian French

*Cajun French

*Metropolitan French (Metropolitan France)

*Quebec French

*Swiss French

Gallo language

Lorrain

Norman

*Dgèrnésiais

*Jèrriais

Picard

Poitevin

Saintongeais

Walloon

Literature

See also

History of French

Languages of France

Anglo-Norman literature

History of the English language

Bartsch's law

Notes

References

External links

Old French on the Web- Old French on the Web

Old French Online from the University of Texas at Austin

Dictionnaire mediéval - a wiki dictionary for Middle French words and phrases

GdfEdic, GdfCEdic, GdfLexEdic - an electronic version of dictionary of the Old French of Frédéric Godefroy: Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française.

Category:French language French, Old Category:Old French

cs:Starofrancouzština de:Altfranzösische Sprache eo:Malnovfranca lingvo fr:Ancien français is:Fornfranska it:Antico francese la:Lingua Francogallica antiqua li:Aajdfrans mk:Старофранцуски јазик nl:Oudfrans ja:古フランス語 no:Gammelfransk nds:Ooltfranzöösch pl:Język starofrancuski pt:Francês antigo ru:Старофранцузский язык simple:Old French sv:Fornfranska wa:Vî lingaedje d' oyi zh:古法語

Native name	''Mandat français en Syrie et au Liban''
Conventional long name	French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon
Common name	Syria
Continent	moved from Category:Asia to the Middle East
Region	the Middle East
Country	Syria, Lebanon
Era	Interwar period
Status	League of Nations Mandate
Empire	France
Year start	1920
Year end	1946
Event start	Mandate granted
Date start	April 25
Event end	Independence
Date end	April 17
Event1	Battle of Maysalun
Date event1	July 23, 1920
Event2	Federation established
Date event2	June, 1922
Event3	Unification of Damascus and Aleppo
Date event3	December 1, 1924
Event4	Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence
Date event4	March–September, 1936
Event5	Addition of Jabal el Druze
Year event5	1943
Event6	Addition of Alawite State
Year event6	1937
Event7	Alexandretta given to Turkey
Year event7	1939
P1	Ottoman Syria
Flag p1	Ottoman Flag.svg
P2	Arab Kingdom of Syria
Flag p2	Flag of Kingdom of Syria (1920-03-08 to 1920-07-24).svg
S1	Syrian Republic (1930-1958)
Flag s1	Syria-flag 1932-58 1961-63.svg
S2	Lebanon
Flag s2	Flag of Lebanon.svg
S3	Hatay State
Flag s3	Flag of Turkey.svg
Flag type	Flag of the French Mandate of Syria (1920-1922)
Capital	Beirut
Currency	Syrian pound
Common languages	Arabic, French
Today	}}

Officially the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (also known as the French Mandate of Syria) was a League of Nations mandate founded after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. During the two years that followed the end of the war in 1918, and in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement that was signed between Britain and France during the war, the British held control of most Ottoman Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and the southern part of the Ottoman Syria (Palestine and Jordan), while the French controlled the rest of Ottoman Syria (modern Syria, Lebanon, Alexandretta and other portions of southeastern Turkey).

During the first years of the 1920s, the British and French control of these territories became formalized by the League of Nations' mandate system, and France was assigned the mandate of Syria on September 29, 1923, which included modern Lebanon and Alexandretta (Hatay) in addition to modern Syria.

The French mandate of Syria lasted until 1943, when two independent countries emerged from the mandate period, Syria and Lebanon, in addition to Hatay which had joined Turkey in 1939. French troops left Syria and Lebanon finally in 1946.

The Arab Kingdom of Syria

With the defeat of Ottomans in Syria, British troops under Marshal Edmund Henry Allenby entered Damascus in 1918 accompanied by troops of the Arab Revolt led by Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca.

Faisal established the first Arab government in Damascus in October 1918, and named Ali Rida Pasha ar-Rikabi a military governor. The new Arab administration formed local governments in the major Syrian cities, and the Pan-Arab flag was raised all over Syria. The Arabs hoped, with faith in earlier British promises, that the new Arab state would include all the Arab lands stretching from Aleppo in northern Syria to Aden in southern Yemen.

However, General Allenby, and in accordance with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France, assigned to the Arab administration only the interior regions of Syria (the eastern zone). Palestine (the southern zone) was reserved for the British, and on October 8, French troops disembarked in Beirut and occupied all the Lebanese coastal region until Naqoura (the western zone) replacing British troops there. The French immediately dissolved the local Arab governments in the region.

The French demanded full implementation of the Sykes–Picot Agreement and the placement of Syria under their influence. On November 26, 1919, the British withdrew from Damascus to avoid confrontation with the French, leaving the Arab government face to face with the French.

Faisal had voyaged several times in Europe, beginning in November 1918, trying to convince Paris and London to change their positions, but without success. Signifying the determination of France on its intervention in Syria was the naming of General Henri Gouraud as a high commissioner in Syria-Cilicia.

At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal found himself in an even weaker position when the European powers decided to ignore the Arab demands.

In June 1919, the American King-Crane Commission arrived in Syria to inquire about the local public opinion regarding the future of the country. The commission's workspace extended from Aleppo to Beersheba. They visited 36 major cities, met with over than 2000 delegations from more than 300 villages, and received more than 3000 petitions. Their conclusions confirmed the opposition of Syrians to the mandate in their country as well as to the Balfour declaration, and their demand of a unified Greater Syria encompassing Palestine. The conclusions of the commission were rejected by France and ignored by Britain.

In May 1919, elections were held for the Syrian National Congress. 80% of seats went to conservatives. However, the minority included dynamic Arab nationalist figures such as Jamil Mardam-Bey, Shukri al-Kuwatli, Ahmad al-Qadri, Ibrahim Hanano, and Riyad as-Solh.

Unrest erupted in Syria when Faisal accepted a compromise with the French Prime Minister Clemenceau and with the Zionist leader Weizmann over the issue of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Anti-Hashemite manifestations broke out, and Muslim inhabitants in and around Mount Lebanon revolted with fear of being incorporated into a new, mainly Christian, state of Greater Lebanon.

In March 1920, the Syrian national congress in Damascus, headed by Hashim al-Atassi, adopted a resolution rejecting the Faisal-Clemenceau accords. The congress declared the independence of Syria in her natural borders (including Palestine), and proclaimed Faisal the king of Arabs. The congress also proclaimed political and economic union with neighboring Iraq and demanded its independence as well. A new government headed by Ali Rida ar-Rikabi was formed on May 9, 1920.

On April 25, and in the course of the Treaty of Sevres, the supreme inter-allied council granted France the mandate of Syria (including Lebanon), and granted the UK the mandate of Palestine (including Jordan) and Iraq. Syrians reacted with violent demonstrations, and with the formation of a new government under Hashim al-Atassi on May 7, 1920. The new government decided to organize general conscription and began financing an army.

These decisions provoked adverse reactions by the French as well as by the Maronite patriarchate of Mount Lebanon, which denounced the decisions as a "coup d'état." In Beirut, the Christian press expressed its hostility to the decisions of Faisal's government. Lebanese nationalists profited of the crisis to convene a council of Christian figures in Baabda on March 22, 1920, that proclaimed the independence of Lebanon.

On July 14, 1920, General Gouraud issued an ultimatum to Faisal giving him the choice between submission or abdication. Realizing that the power balance was not in his favor, Faisal chose to cooperate. However, the young minister of war, Youssef al-Azmeh, refused to comply and, during the Franco-Syrian War faced the French at the Battle of Maysaloun. This battle was won by the French under General Mariano Goybet in less than a day and Azmeh died on the battlefield along with most of those who were with him. General Goybet entered Damascus on July 24, 1920.

When first arriving in Lebanon, the French were received as liberators by the Christian community, but as they were entering Syria they were faced with a strong resistance. It took France three years from 1920 to 1923 to hold full control over Syria and to quell all the insurgencies that broke out, notably in the Alawite territories, Mount Druze and Aleppo.

The Mandate

Following the San Remo conference and the defeat of King Faisal's short-lived monarchy in Syria at the Battle of Maysalun, the French general Henri Gouraud subdivided the mandate of Syria into six states. They were the states of Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawites (1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day Hatay), and the State of Greater Lebanon (1920) which became later the modern country of Lebanon.

In July 1922, France established a loose federation between three of the states: Damascus, Aleppo, and the Alawite under the name of the Syrian Federation (Fédération syrienne). Jabal Druze, Sanjak of Alexandretta, and Greater Lebanon were not parts of this federation, which adopted a new federal flag (green-white-green with French canton). On December 1, 1924, the Alawite state seceded from the federation when the states of Aleppo and Damascus were united into the State of Syria.

In 1925, a revolt in Jabal Druze led by Sultan Pasha el Atrash spread to other Syrian states and became a general rebellion in Syria. France tried to retaliate by having the parliament of Aleppo declare secession from the union with Damascus, but the voting was foiled by Syrian patriots.

On May 14, 1930, the State of Syria was declared the Republic of Syria and a new constitution was drafted. Two years later, in 1932, a new flag for the republic was adopted. The flag carried three red stars that represented the three districts of the republic (Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir ez Zor).

In 1936, the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence was signed, a treaty that would not be ratified by the French legislature. However, the treaty allowed Jabal Druze, the Alawite (now called Latakia), and Alexandretta to be incorporated into the Syrian republic within the following two years. Greater Lebanon (now the Lebanese Republic) was the only state that did not join the Syrian Republic. Hashim al-Atassi, who was Prime Minister under King Faisal's brief reign (1918–1920), was the first president to be elected under a new constitution adopted after the independence treaty.

In September 1938, France again separated the Syrian district of Alexandretta and transformed it into the Republic of Hatay. The Republic of Hatay joined Turkey in the following year, in June 1939. Syria did not recognize the incorporation of Hatay into Turkey and the issue is still disputed until the present time.

With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of the Vichy Government until the British and Free French invaded and occupied the country in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence again in 1941 but it wasn't until January 1, 1944, that it was recognized as an independent republic.

On May 29, 1945, France bombed Damascus and tried to arrest its democratically elected leaders. While French planes were bombing Damascus, Prime Minister Faris al-Khoury was at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, presenting Syria’s claim for independence from the French Mandate. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalist groups and British pressure forced the French to evacuate their last troops on April 17, 1946.

In the 1940s, Britain secretly advocated the creation of a Greater Syrian state that would secure Britain preferential status in military, economic and cultural matters, in return for putting a complete halt to Jewish ambition in Palestine. France and the United states opposed British hegemony in the region, which eventually led to the creation of Israel.

Post World War II status and the founding of the UN

On September 27, 1941, France proclaimed, by virtue of, and within the framework of the Mandate, the independence and sovereignty of the Syrian State. The proclamation said "the independence and sovereignty of Syria and Lebanon will not affect the juridical situation as it results from the Mandate Act. Indeed, this situation could be changed only with the agreement of the Council of the League of Nations, with the consent of the Government of the United States, a signatory of the Franco-American Convention of April 4, 1924, and only after the conclusion between the French Government and the Syrian and Lebanese Governments of treaties duly ratified in accordance with the laws of the French Republic.

Benqt Broms said that it was important to note that there were several founding members of the United Nations whose statehood was doubtful at the time of the San Francisco Conference and that the Government of France still considered Syria and Lebanon to be mandates.

Duncan Hall said "Thus, the Syrian mandate may be said to have been terminated without any formal action on the part of the League or its successor. The mandate was terminated by the declaration of the mandatory power, and of the new states themselves, of their independence, followed by a process of piecemeal unconditional recognition by other powers, culminating in formal admission to the United Nations. Article 78 of the Charter ended the status of tutelage for any member state: 'The trusteeship system shall not apply to territories which have become Members of the United Nations, relationship among which shall be based on respect for the principle of sovereign equality.'"

States created during the French Mandate

During the French mandate, several states were created in the once united Greater Syria. The drawing of those states was based primarily on exploiting the diverse sectarian make up of Syria. However, nearly all the Syrian sects were hostile to the French mandate and to the division it created. This was best demonstrated by the numerous revolts that the French encountered in all of the Syrian states.

Maronite Christians of Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, were a community with a dream of independence that was being realized under the French; therefore, Lebanon was the exception to the newly formed states.

State of Greater Lebanon

On September 1, 1920, General Gouraud proclaimed the establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon (French: État de Grand Liban) (Arabic: دولة لبنان الكبير).

Greater Lebanon was created by France to be a "safe haven" for the Maronite population of the Mutasarrifia (Ottoman administrative unit) of Mount Lebanon. Mt. Lebanon, an area with a Maronite majority, had enjoyed variable degrees of unofficial autonomy during the Ottoman era. However, Greater Lebanon included in addition to Mount Lebanon other mainly Muslim regions that were not part of the Maronite Mutasarrifia, and hence the word "greater." Those regions correspond today to north Lebanon, south Lebanon, Biqa' valley, and Beirut.

The capital of Greater Lebanon was Beirut. The new state was granted a flag merging the French flag with the cedar of Mt. Lebanon.

Muslims in Greater Lebanon rejected the new state upon its creation. They boycotted the general census in 1922, and refused to receive new identity cards before General Gouraud agreed to remove from the cards the part stating Lebanese citizenship. The Muslim continuous demand for reunification with Syria eventually brought about an armed conflict between Muslims and Christians in 1958 when Muslim Lebanese wanted to join the newly proclaimed United Arab Republic, while Christians were strongly opposed.

Although most of the Lebanese sects were not enthusiastic for the new state, Maronites were the majority and managed to preserve its independence; an independence that created a unique precedent in the Arab world as Lebanon was the first Arab country in which Christians were not a minority.

The State of Greater Lebanon existed until May 23, 1926, after which it became the Lebanese Republic.

State of Alawites

The State of Alawites (French: État des Alaouites) (Arabic: دولة العلويين) was located on the Syrian coast and incorporated a majority of Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam. The port city of Latakia was the capital of this state.

Initially it was an autonomous territory under French rule known as ''the Alawite Territories.'' It became part of the Syrian Federation in 1922, but left the federation again in 1924 and became the ''State of Alawites.'' On September 22, 1930, it was renamed the ''Independent Government of Latakia.'' The population at this time was 278,000. The government of Latakia finally joined the Syrian Republic on December 5, 1936.

This state witnessed several rebellions against the French. The most prominent of which were under Salih al-Ali, an Alawite anti-French figure.

State of Jabal Druze

Jabal Druze was a French mandate from 1921 to 1936 created for the Druze population of southern Syria. It had a population of some 50,000 and had its capital in As Suwayda.

State of Aleppo

The State of Aleppo (1920–1925) (French: État d'Alep) (Arabic: دولة حلب‎) included a majority of Sunni Muslims. It covered northern Syria in addition to the entire fertile basin of river Euphrates of eastern Syria. These regions represented much of the agricultural and mineral wealth of Syria. The autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta was added to the state of Aleppo in 1923.

The capital was the northern city of Aleppo, which had large Christian and Jewish communities in addition to the Sunni Muslims. The state also incorporated minorities of Shiites and Alawites. Ethnic Kurds, Syriacs, and Assyrians inhabited the eastern regions alongside the Arabs.

The primarily Sunni population of the state of Aleppo was strongly opposed to the division of Syria. This resulted in its quick end in 1925, when France united the states of Aleppo and Damascus into the State of Syria.

State of Damascus

The State of Damascus was a French mandate from 1920 to 1925. The capital was Damascus.

Sanjak of Alexandretta

The Sanjak of Alexandretta was autonomous from 1921 to 1923, under the French-Turkish treaty of October 20, 1921, due to the presence of an important Turkish community along with Arabs of various religious denominations: Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Maronites. There were also communities of Jews, Assyrians, Kurds, Armenians and Greeks. In 1923 Alexandretta was attached to the State of Aleppo, and in 1925 it was directly attached to the French mandate of Syria, still with special administrative status.

The 1936 elections in the sanjak returned two MPs favoring the independence of Syria from France, and this prompted communal riots as well as passionate articles in the Turkish and Syrian press. This then became the subject of a complaint to the League of Nations by the Turkish government under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk concerning alleged mistreatment of the area's Turkish populations. Atatürk demanded that Alexandretta become part of Turkey, claiming that the majority of its inhabitants were Turks. The sanjak was given autonomy in November 1937 in an arrangement brokered by the League. Under its new statute, the sanjak became 'distinct but not separated' from the French Mandate of Syria on the diplomatic level, linked to both France and Turkey for defence matters.

In 1938 the Turkish military went into the Syrian province and expelled most of its Arab and Armenian inhabitants. Before this, Alawi Arabs and Armenians were the majority of Alexandrettas population.

The allocation of seats in the sanjak assembly was based on the 1938 census held by the French authorities under international supervision: out of 40 seats, 22 were given to the Turks, nine for Alawi Arabs, five for Armenians, two for Sunni Arabs, and two for Christian Arabs. The assembly was appointed in the summer of 1938 and the French-Turkish treaty settling the status of the Sanjak was signed on July 4, 1938.

On September 2, 1938, the assembly proclaimed the Sanjak of Alexandretta as the Republic of Hatay, taking as an excuse that rioting had broken out between Turks and Arabs. The Republic lasted for one year under joint French and Turkish military supervision. The name "Hatay" itself was proposed by Atatürk and the government was under Turkish control. The president Tayfur Sökmen was a member of Turkish parliament elected in 1935 (representing Antakya (Greek: Αντιόχεια) and the prime minister Dr. Abdurrahman Melek, was also elected to the Turkish parliament (representing Gaziantep) in 1939 while still holding the prime-ministerial post.

In 1939, following a popular referendum, the Republic of Hatay became a Turkish province. For the referendum, Turkey had crossed tens of thousands of Turks into Alexandretta to vote. This referendum has been labeled both "phoney" and "rigged", and that it was a way for the French to let Turks take over the area, hoping that they would turn on Hitler.

See also

Sykes-Picot Agreement

History of Syria

Ottoman Syria

Roman Syria

French colonial flags

French Colonial Empire

List of French possessions and colonies

References

Mandat Syria-Liban ... (1920-146)

La Syrie et le mandat français (1920-1946)

Les Relations franco-libanaises dans le cadre des relations Internationales

Mandat français au Proche-Orient

External references

Category:1946 disestablishments Syria Category:Former countries in the Middle East Category:States and territories established in 1920 Category:States and territories disestablished in 1946

ar:انتداب فرنسي على سوريا da:Mandatområdet i Libanon de:Völkerbundmandat für Syrien und Libanon es:Mandato Francés de Siria eu:Siriako Frantziar Agintea fr:Syrie mandataire it:Mandato francese della Siria nl:Frans Mandaat Syrië ja:フランス委任統治領シリア pl:Syria i Liban (mandat) pt:Mandato Francês da Síria ro:Mandatul francez pentru Siria ru:Французский мандат в Сирии и Ливане tr:Fransa Suriye Mandası uk:Французький мандат у Сирії і Лівані yi:פראנצויזישער מאנדאט zh:法屬敘利亞託管地

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns () (9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for ''The Carnival of the Animals'', ''Danse macabre'', ''Samson and Delilah'', Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, ''Havanaise'', ''Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso'', and his Symphony No. 3 (''Organ Symphony'').

Early years

Saint-Saëns was born in Paris, France on 9 October 1835. His father, a government clerk, died three months after his birth. He was raised by his mother, Clémence, with the assistance of her aunt, Charlotte Masson, who moved in. Masson introduced Saint-Saëns to the piano, and began giving him lessons on the instrument. At about this time, age two, Saint-Saëns was found to possess perfect pitch. His first composition, a little piece for the piano dated 22 March 1839, is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Saint-Saëns's precocity was not limited to music. He learned to read and write by age three, and had some mastery of Latin by the age of seven. His first public concert appearance occurred when he was five years old, when he accompanied a Beethoven violin sonata. He went on to begin in-depth study of the full score of ''Don Giovanni''. In 1842, Saint-Saëns began piano lessons with Camille-Marie Stamaty, a pupil of Friedrich Kalkbrenner, who had his students play the piano while resting their forearms on a bar situated in front of the keyboard, so that all the pianist's power came from the hands and fingers but not the arms. At ten years of age, Saint-Saëns gave his debut public recital at the Salle Pleyel, with a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 in B-flat major (K. 450), and various pieces by Handel, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, and Bach. As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas from memory. Word of this incredible concert spread across Europe, and as far as the United States with an article in a Boston newspaper.

He then studied composition under Fromental Halévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. Saint-Saëns won many top prizes and gained a reputation that resulted in his introduction to Franz Liszt, who would become one of his closest friends. At the age of sixteen, Saint-Saëns wrote his first symphony; his second, published as ''Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major'', was performed in 1853 to the astonishment of many critics and fellow composers. Hector Berlioz, who also became a good friend, famously remarked, ''Il sait tout, mais il manque d'inexpérience'' ("He knows everything, but lacks inexperience").

Middle years

For income, Saint-Saëns played the organ at various churches in Paris, with his first appointment being at the Saint-Merri in the Beaubourg area. In 1857, he replaced Lefébure-Wely at the eminent position of organist at the Église de la Madeleine, which he kept until 1877. His weekly improvisations stunned the Parisian public and earned Liszt's 1866 observation that Saint-Saëns was the greatest organist in the world. He also composed a famous piece called ''Danse Macabre'' at this time.

From 1861 to 1865, Saint-Saëns held his only teaching position as professor of piano at the École Niedermeyer, where he raised eyebrows by including contemporary music—Liszt, Gounod, Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner—along with the school's otherwise conservative curriculum of Bach and Mozart. His most successful students at the Niedermeyer were André Messager and Gabriel Fauré, who was Saint-Saëns's favourite pupil and soon his closest friend.

Saint-Saëns was a multi-faceted intellectual. From an early age, he studied geology, archaeology, botany, and lepidoptery. He was an expert at mathematics. Later, in addition to composing, performing, and writing musical criticism, he held discussions with Europe's finest scientists and wrote scholarly articles on acoustics, occult sciences, Roman theatre decoration, and ancient instruments. He wrote a philosophical work, ''Problèmes et mystères'', which spoke of science and art replacing religion; Saint-Saëns's pessimistic and atheistic ideas foreshadowed Existentialism. Other literary achievements included ''Rimes familières'', a volume of poetry, and ''La crampe des écrivains'', a successful farcical play. He was also a member of the Astronomical Society of France; he gave lectures on mirages, had a telescope made to his own specifications, and even planned concerts to correspond to astronomical events such as solar eclipses.

In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War, despite being over in barely six months, left an indelible mark on the composer. He was relieved from fighting duty as one of the favourites of a relative of emperor Napoleon III, but fled nonetheless to London for several months when the Paris Commune broke out in the besieged Paris of winter 1871, his fame and societal status posing a threat to his survival. In the same year, he co-founded with Romain Bussine the Société Nationale de Musique in order to promote a new and specifically French music. After the fall of the Paris Commune, the Society premiered works by members such as Fauré, César Franck, Édouard Lalo, and Saint-Saëns himself, who served as the society's co-president. In this way, Saint-Saëns became a powerful figure in shaping the future of French music.

In 1875, nearing forty, Saint-Saëns married Marie Laure Emile Truffot, who was just 19. They had two sons, both of whom died in 1878, within six weeks of each other, one from an illness, the other upon falling out of a fourth-story window. For the latter death Saint-Saëns blamed his wife, and when they went on vacation together in 1881 he simply disappeared one day. A separation order was enacted, but they never divorced.

From 1877 to 1889, he lived at 14, rue de la Monsieur-de-Prince, and the apartment house is marked by a plaque.Photo of the plaque

Later years

In 1886 Saint-Saëns debuted two of his most renowned compositions: ''The Carnival of the Animals'' and Symphony No. 3, dedicated to Franz Liszt, who died that year. That same year, however, Vincent d'Indy and his allies had Saint-Saëns removed from the Société Nationale de Musique. Two years later, Saint-Saëns's mother died, driving the mourning composer away from France to the Canary Islands under the alias "Sannois". Over the next several years he travelled around the world, visiting exotic locations in Europe, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Saint-Saëns chronicled his travels in many popular books using his ''nom de plume'', Sannois.

In 1908, he had the distinction of being the first celebrated composer to write a musical score to a motion picture, ''The Assassination of the Duke of Guise'' (''L'assassinat du duc de Guise''), directed by Charles Le Bargy and André Calmettes, adapted by Henri Lavedan, featuring actors of the Comédie Française. It was 18 minutes long, a considerable run time for the day.

In 1915, Saint-Saëns traveled to San Francisco and guest conducted the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, one of two world's fairs celebrating the completion of the Panama Canal.

Saint-Saëns continued to write on musical, scientific and historical topics, travelling frequently before spending his last years in Algiers, Algeria. In recognition of his accomplishments, the government of France awarded him the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur. A street in Paris and in Marseilles is named in his honor.

Saint-Saëns died of pneumonia on 16 December 1921 at the Hôtel de l'Oasis in Algiers. His body was repatriated to Paris, honoured by state funeral at La Madeleine, and interred at Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

Relationships with other composers

Saint-Saëns was either friend or enemy to some of Europe's most distinguished musicians. He stayed close to Franz Liszt and maintained a fast friendship with his pupil Gabriel Fauré, who replaced him as organist and choirmaster when he retired. Additionally, he was a teacher and friend to Isidor Philipp, who headed the piano department at the Paris Conservatory for several decades and was a composer and editor of the music of many composers. But despite his strong advocacy of French music, Saint-Saëns openly despised many of his fellow-composers in France such as Franck and d'Indy, and while he praises the musical genius of Jules Massenet in his 1919 book ''Musical Memories'', he also states pointedly in the same chapter that he had no use for Massenet personally. Saint-Saëns also hated the music of Claude Debussy; he is reported to have told Pierre Lalo, music critic, and son of composer Édouard Lalo, "I have stayed in Paris to speak ill of ''Pelléas et Mélisande''." The personal animosity was mutual; Debussy quipped: "I have a horror of sentimentality, and I cannot forget that its name is Saint-Saëns." On other occasions, however, Debussy acknowledged an admiration for Saint-Saëns's musical talents.

Saint-Saëns had been an early champion of Richard Wagner's music in France, teaching his pieces during his tenure at the École Niedermeyer and premiering the March from ''Tannhäuser''. He had stunned even Wagner himself when he sight-read the entire orchestral scores of ''Lohengrin'', ''Tristan und Isolde'', and ''Siegfried'', prompting Hans von Bülow to refer to him as "the greatest musical mind" of the era. However, despite admitting appreciation for the power of Wagner's work, Saint-Saëns defiantly stated that he was not an aficionado. In 1886, Saint-Saëns was punished for some particularly harsh and anti-German comments on the Paris production of ''Lohengrin'' by losing engagements and receiving negative reviews throughout Germany. Later, after World War I, Saint-Saëns angered both French and Germans with his inflammatory articles entitled ''Germanophilie'', which ruthlessly attacked Wagner.

Saint-Saëns edited Jean-Philippe Rameau's ''Pièces de clavecin'', and published them in 1895 through Durand in Paris (re-printed by Dover in 1993).

According to an unconfirmed anecdote, Saint-Saëns stormed out of the première of Igor Stravinsky's ''Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)'' on 29 May 1913, allegedly infuriated over what he considered the misuse of the bassoon in the ballet's opening bars.

Reputation

Saint-Saëns began his musical career as a musical pioneer, introducing to France the symphonic poem and championing the radical works of Liszt and Wagner at a time when Bach and Mozart were the norms. By the dawn of the 20th century, Saint-Saëns was an ultra-conservative, fighting the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss. This is hardly surprising—Saint-Saëns's career began while Chopin and Mendelssohn were in their prime, and ended at the commencement of the Jazz Age; but his image endured for years after his death.

As a composer, Saint-Saëns was often criticized for his refusal to embrace romanticism and at the same time, rather paradoxically, for his adherence to the conventions of 19th-century musical language. He is remembered chiefly for works such as ''The Carnival of the Animals'', which was not published in full until after his death – reportedly because Saint-Saëns feared it would affect his reputation as a serious composer; the ''Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso'' for violin and orchestra, the operas ''Samson and Delilah'' and ''Henry VIII'' (of which only the first is frequently performed today), the ''Symphony No. 3''; the second, fourth and fifth piano concertos; the third violin concerto; the first cello concerto; and the first violin sonata.

Music

Style

Saint-Saëns' concertos and many of his chamber music works are both technically difficult and transparent, requiring the skills of a virtuoso. The later chamber music pieces, such as the second violin sonata, the second cello sonata, and the second piano trio, are less accessible to a listener than earlier pieces in the same form. They were composed and performed when Saint-Saëns was already slipping out of popularity and, as a result, they are little known. They show a willingness to experiment with more progressive musical language and to abandon lyricism and charm for more profound expression.

The piano music, while not as deep or as challenging as that of some of his contemporaries, occupies the stylistic ground between Liszt and Ravel. At times brilliant, transparent and idiomatic, the music for two pianos includes the ''Variations on a Theme by Beethoven'', the ''Scherzo'', a palindromic piece that uses a blend of modern tonalities and conventional gestures, and the ''Caprice arabe'', a rhythmically inventive fantasy that pays homage to the music of northern Africa. Although Saint-Saëns was considered old-fashioned in later life, he explored many new forms and reinvigorated some older ones. His compositional approach was inspired by French classicism, which makes him an important forerunner of the neoclassicism of Ravel and others.

In performance, Saint-Saëns is said to have been "unequalled on the organ", and rivaled by only a few on the piano. However, Saint-Saëns's concert style was restrained, subtle, and cool; he sat unmoving at the piano. His playing was marked by extraordinarily even scales and passagework, great speed, and aristocratic refinement. The recordings he left at the end of his life give glimpses of these traits. He was often charged with being unemotional and business-like, less memorable than other more charismatic performers. He was probably the first pianist to publicly perform a cycle of all the Mozart piano concertos. In some cases these influenced his own piano concertos; for example, the first movement of his 4th Piano Concerto in C minor strongly resembles the last movement of Mozart's 24th Concerto, which is in the same key. In turn, his own concertos appear to have influenced those of Sergei Rachmaninoff and other later Romantic composers. Throughout his life, Saint-Saëns continued to play with the technique taught to him by Stamaty, using the strength of the hand rather than the arm. Claudio Arrau never forgot the ease with which Saint-Saëns played (he cites Chopin's fourth scherzo as an example).

Musical works

Saint-Saëns's early start and his long life provided him with time to write hundreds of compositions; during his career, he wrote many dramatic works, including four symphonic poems, and thirteen operas, of which ''Samson et Dalila'' and the symphonic poem ''Danse macabre'' are among his most famous. In all, he composed over 300 works and was the first major composer to write music specifically for the cinema, for Henri Lavedan's film ''The Assassination of the Duke of Guise'' (Op. 128, 1908).

Saint-Saëns wrote five symphonies, although only three of these are numbered. He withdrew the first, written for a Mozartian-scale orchestra, and the third, a competition piece. His symphonies are a significant contribution to the genre during a period when the French symphonic tradition was otherwise in decline. Saint-Saëns also contributed voluminously to the French concertante literature; he wrote five piano concertos, three violin concertos, two cello concertos, and about twenty smaller concertante works for soloist and orchestra, including a colorfully orchestrated piano fantasy, ''Africa''; the ''Havanaise'' and the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso for violin and orchestra; and the ''Morceau de concert'' for harp and orchestra. Of the concertos, the Second Piano concerto is one of the most popular of virtuoso piano concertos, and the Third Violin Concerto and First Cello Concerto also remain popular.

In 1886 he wrote his final symphony, the Symphony No. 3, ''avec orgue'' (with organ), one of his best-known works. The motif of the third became the inspiration for the 1978 song If I Had Words by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley. Aided by the monumental symphonic organs built in France by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, at that time the world's foremost organ builder, this work demonstrates the spirit of "gigantism" and the confidence of France in the ''Belle Époque'' at the end of the 19th century, a period that produced the Eiffel Tower, the Universal Exposition at Paris. The confident ''Maestoso'' fourth movement perhaps reflects the confidence of Europe in its technology, its science, its "age of reason". He was frequently named as "the most German of all the French composers", perhaps due to his use of counterpoint.

In 1886, Saint-Saëns also completed ''The Carnival of the Animals'', which was first performed privately on 9 March. In contrast with the work's later popularity, Saint-Saëns forbade complete performances of it shortly after its première, allowing only one movement, ''Le cygne'' (The Swan) for cello and two pianos, to be published in his lifetime. ''Carnival'' was written as a musical jest, and Saint-Saëns believed it would damage his reputation as a serious composer. In fact, since its posthumous publication, this work's imagination and musical brilliance have impressed listeners and critics.

Saint-Saëns also wrote six preludes and fugues for organ, three in Op. 99 and three in Op. 109, of which Op. 99, no. 3 in E flat major is most often performed.

The opera ''Hélène'' was composed by Saint-Saëns for the great Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba, in 1904. Unstaged after its premiere in Monaco, it was performed in the soprano's home city (Melbourne) during January 2008.

One of Saint-Saëns's symphonic poems, ''Le rouet d'Omphale'', Op. 31, became famous to a new generation of listeners beginning in 1937 through its use of the ominous middle section of it as the theme to the long-running radio program, ''The Shadow''.

Controversies

Saint-Saëns was thought to have ethnically Jewish traits, especially in his youth. For this reason, some contemporaries and historians believed he was of Jewish descent. He said that a person called "Saint-Saëns" could not possibly be a Jew, but his close friend Leopold Godowsky said he had taken his mother's (instead of his father's) name. (The name ''Saëns'' is derived from the Latin ''Sidonius''; a monastery near Rouen, founded by a seventh-century monk of that name, was afterwards known as Saint-Saëns.) Adolphe Boschot said that Saint-Saëns could not be of Jewish origin because his uncle was a priest, and Jacques Hanschin also tried to disprove such an origin. W. L. Hubbard simply lists Saint-Saëns as being of Jewish descent.

He was also rumoured to be homosexual.

Media

References

Further reading

Michael Stegemann: ''Camille Saint-Saëns and the French Solo Concerto from 1850 to 1920.'' Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1991. ISBN 0-931340-35-7

External links

Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)

Saint-Saens playing his own Piano Concerto No. 2 (opening)

Saint-Saens playing Valse Nonchalente Op.110

Saint-Saens playing Rhapsodie d'Auvergne Op.73

Category:1835 births Category:1921 deaths Category:Musicians from Paris Category:Child classical musicians Category:Composers for violin Category:Composers for pipe organ Category:French classical pianists Category:French composers Category:French Roman Catholics Category:French classical organists Category:Opera composers Category:Romantic composers Category:French military personnel of the Franco-Prussian War Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Category:Alumni of the Conservatoire de Paris Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Camille Saint-Saens Category:Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur Category:French expatriates in Algeria

af:Camille Saint-Saëns bs:Camille Saint-Saëns bg:Камий Сен-Санс ca:Camille Saint-Saëns cs:Camille Saint-Saëns cy:Camille Saint-Saëns da:Camille Saint-Saëns de:Camille Saint-Saëns et:Camille Saint-Saëns el:Καμίγ Σαιν-Σανς es:Camille Saint-Saëns eo:Camille Saint-Saëns fa:کامی سن سانس fr:Camille Saint-Saëns gl:Camille Saint-Saëns ko:카미유 생상스 hy:Քամիլ Սեն-Սանս hr:Camille Saint-Saëns id:Camille Saint-Saëns it:Camille Saint-Saëns he:קאמי סן-סנס ka:კამილ სენ-სანსი sw:Camille Saint-Saëns la:Camillus Saint-Saëns lv:Kamijs Sensānss lt:Camille Saint-Saëns hu:Camille Saint-Saëns nl:Camille Saint-Saëns ja:カミーユ・サン＝サーンス no:Camille Saint-Saëns nn:Camille Saint-Saëns oc:Camille Saint-Saëns pl:Camille Saint-Saëns pt:Camille Saint-Saëns ro:Camille Saint-Saëns ru:Сен-Санс, Камиль simple:Camille Saint-Saëns sk:Camille Saint-Saëns sl:Camille Saint-Saëns sr:Камиј Сен-Санс fi:Camille Saint-Saëns sv:Camille Saint-Saëns th:กามีย์ แซ็ง-ซ็องส์ tr:Camille Saint-Saëns uk:Каміль Сен-Санс zh:卡米爾·聖桑

name	10 Years
background	group_or_band
origin	Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
genre	Alternative metal, post-grunge
years active	1999–present
label	Universal Records, Palehorse Records/ILG (Warner Music Group)
| website	www.10yearsmusic.com
current members	Jesse HasekRyan "Tater" JohnsonLewis "Big Lew" CosbyBrian VodinhMatt Brown
past members	Mike UnderdownAndy ParksMatt Wantland }}

10 Years is an American alternative metal band, formed in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1999.

History

Early Years, ''Into the Half Moon'' (1999–2001)

10 Years was initially formed in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1999 with singer Mike Underdown, drummer Brian Vodinh, bassist Lewis Cosby, and guitarists Ryan "Tater" Johnson (also of The American Plague) and Matt Wantland. In 2001, Cosby left and the band recruited Andy Parks on bass. They independently recorded ''Into the Half Moon'' the same year.

''Killing All That Holds You'', ''The Autumn Effect'' (2002–2006)

Lead vocalist Mike Underdown left the band to pursue a career in acting. 10 Years soon recruited current vocalist Jesse Hasek from another local band. In 2002, Parks decided to leave the band and Cosby returned. The band then released their independent album ''Killing All That Holds You'' in 2004.

10 Years was then signed to Universal Records in 2005 and released their major label debut, ''The Autumn Effect'' on August 16, 2005 with the songs "Wasteland" and "Through the Iris" picking up regional radio play. Their first single, "Wasteland" spent over 12 months on the rock charts, finally reaching #1 at active rock radio in December 2005.

That same summer, the band toured with Disturbed and Ill Niño. In the fall of 2005, they toured with Breaking Benjamin and Smile Empty Soul, then followed up with the Masters of Horror tour with Mudvayne and Sevendust. They opened for Korn and Mudvayne on Korn's ''See You on the Other Side'' tour. They also toured with Korn and Deftones on the Family Values Tour, which started in late July 2006.

In mid February 2006, "Wasteland" reached #1 on the ''Billboard'' Alternative Songs chart. "Wasteland" has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

In mid-2006, the band toured Australia in a lineup which included Hatebreed, Disturbed and Korn.

Their first music video, "Wasteland", addresses the social problem of human rights as well as addiction around the world. The video received a nomination for Best Direction and Best Art Direction at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, but did not win either.

On March 27, 2006, an EP was released on iTunes containing acoustic versions of "Wasteland" and other tracks from ''The Autumn Effect''.

''Division'' (2006–2008)

On November 19, 2006, 10 Years unveiled and confirmed the title ''Division'' for their second album. The band would begin recording Division in late June 2007 after spending the better part of a year writing.

Lewis told in an interview that the album is "so different from the first one [The Autumn Effect], but it's still 10 Years," and, "It just sounds like [the songs] would be from a totally different album, which was, you know, the goal." It was also revealed that the track titled "Focus" was co-written with Stone Temple Pilots and former Army of Anyone guitarist Dean DeLeo.

On May 21, 2007 a demo song titled "All Your Lies" from ''Division'' was released onto their MySpace along with a post stating the band had chosen producer Rick Parasher to produce the new album. On September 7, the band announced on their MySpace that the album was finished and would be released in 2008, following a tour with Dir En Grey, Sevendust, Operator, Thousand Foot Krutch and Chevelle.

On January 29, 2008, "Beautiful," the new single from Division, was released to iTunes and a snippet was also posted on the band's MySpace page. ''Division'' was released on May 13, 2008 after being pushed back due to finalization of the album's artwork.

10 Years was featured on the Revolution Stage of Linkin Park's Summer Projekt Revolution 2008 tour with Atreyu, Hawthorne Heights and Armor For Sleep.

They went on tour with Mudvayne until mid December 2008.

''Feeding the Wolves'' (2009–2011)

10 Years announced that their upcoming third major label album would be entitled ''Feeding the Wolves''. The album was produced by Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson and mixed by Chris "Lord" Alge. The band has mentioned the album is of their heaviest material to date and "very similar to some of their early songs."

Throughout the first half of 2010, the band went back and forth between putting on live shows and working in the studio. Before the album was released, the band debuted new songs at live performances such as "Dead in the Water", "Now is the Time", and the new album's first single ""Shoot It Out" ".

On June 12, 2010, ""Shoot It Out" " was featured on Sirius/XM Radio. The track was released to radio later that month, and was made available for download on iTunes July 6. ''Feeding the Wolves'' was released on August 31, 2010.

To promote the album's release, the band opened Shinedown's 2010 Carnival of Madness summer tour alongside Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd, and Sevendust. In the fall they joined Sevendust again on the Hard Drive Live tour with support from Since October and Anew Revolution.

In December, the band went on a mini-headline tour, where they played some older songs that they had not played in some time. February 2011, their new single "Fix Me" releases to radio while they headline a spring tour with Hollywood Undead.

On June 17 and 18 the band shot a music video for "Fix Me" in Columbus, Ohio with production company Thunder Down Country. The video was released via YouTube on August 9, 2011.

''Minus The Machine'' Palehorse Records (2012-present)

On twitter the band has shown pictures of Brian Vodinh's home basement turned studio for future workings on their next album.

On April 2nd, 2012, the band announced on Facebook that their upcoming record, "Minus The Machine," is to be released on July 17th on their own independent label, Palehorse Records, which the band stated is a part of Warner Music Group's Independent Label Group. They also announced a 4-week headlining tour to support the record, which begins on June 27th in New Orleans.

Band members

Current

Jesse Hasek – Vocals (2002–present)

Ryan "Tater" Johnson – Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals (1999–present)

Lewis "Big Lew" Cosby – Bass (1999–2001, 2002-present)

Brian Vodinh – Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals (2009–present) Drums (1999–present)

Live

Matt Brown – Drums (2010-present)

Sam Anderson – Drums (2010)

Kyle Mayer – Drums (2010)

Former

Mike Underdown – Vocals (1999–2001)

Andy Parks - Bass (2001–2002)

Matt Wantland – Guitar (1999–2009)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions
		!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"
	''Into the Half Moon''	* Released: August 13, 2001	Compact Disc>CD
	''Killing All That Holds You''	* Released: March 22, 2004	* Format: CD
	''The Autumn Effect''	* Released: August 16, 2005	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD
		* Released: May 13, 2008	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD
		* Released: August 31, 2010	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD
	''Minus the Machine''	* Released: July 17, 2012	* Label: Palehorse	* Format: CD

Extended plays

2006: ''Acoustic EP''

Singles

Year	Song	Peak chart positions	Album
!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"
	"Through the Iris"
"Waking Up"
	"Actions & Motives"
	"Fix Me"
"Now Is the Time (Ravenous)"

References

External links

Official Site

Category:American post-grunge musical groups Category:Musical groups from Knoxville, Tennessee Category:Musical groups established in 1999 Category:Rock music groups from Tennessee Category:Musical quartets

de:10 Years es:10 Years fr:10 Years (groupe) it:10 Years lt:10 Years pl:10 Years pt:10 Years ru:10 Years

name	Édith Piaf
background	solo_singer
birth name	Édith Giovanna Gassion
alias	La Môme Piaf(''The Little Sparrow'')
born	December 19, 1915Belleville, Paris, France
died	Plascassier, France
instrument	Voice
genre	CabaretTorch songsChanson
occupation	Singer, songwriter, actress
years active	1935–1963
label	Pathé Records, Pathé-Marconi
associated acts	}}

Édith Piaf (, ; ; 1915–1963), born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads. Among her songs are "La Vie en rose" (1946), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (1960), "Hymne à l'amour" (1949), "Milord" (1959), "La Foule" (1957), "l'Accordéoniste" (1955), and "Padam... Padam..." (1951).

Early life

Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is shrouded in mystery. She was born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, Paris. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of ''Rue de Belleville 72'', but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon, the hospital for the 20th arrondissement of which Belleville is part.

She was named Edith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity. Piaf—an ''argot'' colloquialism for "sparrow"—was a nickname she would receive 20 years later.

Her mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1895–1945), was of French descent on her father's side and of Italian and Berber origin on her mother's. She was a native of Livorno, a port city on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. She worked as a café singer under the name ''Line Marsa''.

Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), Édith's father, was a Norman street acrobat with a past in the theatre. Édith's parents soon abandoned her, and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha) Saïd ben Mohammed (1876–1930). Before he enlisted with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, her father took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.

From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring ''Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux'', which the author claims resulted in a miraculous healing.

In 1929, at 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public.

She took a room at Grand Hôtel de Clermont (18 rue Veron, Paris 18ème) and separated from him, going her own way as a street singer in Pigalle, Ménilmontant, and the Paris suburbs (cf. the song "''Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle''").

She joined her friend Simone Berteaut ("Mômone") in this endeavor, and the two became lifelong partners in mischief. She was about 16 when she fell in love with Louis Dupont, a delivery boy.

At 17, she had her only child, a girl named Marcelle, who died of meningitis at age two. Like her mother, Piaf found it difficult to care for a child while living a life of the streets, so she often left Marcelle behind while she was away, and Dupont raised her until her death.

Singing career

In 1935 Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club ''Le Gerny'' off the Champs-Élysées was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness, which, combined with her height of only , inspired him to give her the nickname that would stay with her for the rest of her life and serve as her stage name, ''La Môme Piaf'' (''Parigot'' translatable as "The Waif Sparrow", "The Little Sparrow", or "Kid Sparrow"). Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, later to become her trademark apparel. Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including actor Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year, with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life.

On 6 April 1936, Leplée was murdered and Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory, but was acquitted. Leplée had been killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf. A barrage of negative media attention now threatened her career. To rehabilitate her image, she recruited Raymond Asso, with whom she would become romantically involved. He changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf", barred undesirable acquaintances from seeing her, and commissioned Monnot to write songs that reflected or alluded to Piaf's previous life on the streets.

In 1940, Édith co-starred in Jean Cocteau's successful one-act play ''Le Bel Indifférent''. She began forming friendships with prominent people, including Chevalier and poet Jacques Borgeat. She wrote the lyrics of many of her songs and collaborated with composers on the tunes. In 1944, she discovered Yves Montand in Paris, made him part of her act, and became his mentor and lover. Within a year, he became one of the most famous singers in France, and she broke off their relationship when he had become almost as popular as she was.

During this time she was in great demand and very successful in Paris as France's most popular entertainer. After the war, she became known internationally, touring Europe, the United States, and South America. In Paris, she gave Atahualpa Yupanqui (Héctor Roberto Chavero)—the most important Argentine musician of folklore—the opportunity to share the scene, making his debut in July 1950. She helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour in the early 1950s, taking him on tour with her in France and the United States and recording some of his songs. At first she met with little success with U.S. audiences, who regarded her as downcast. After a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, however, her popularity grew, to the point where she eventually appeared on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' eight times and at Carnegie Hall twice (1956 and 1957).

Édith Piaf's signature song "La vie en rose" was written in 1945 and was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.

Bruno Coquatrix's famous Paris Olympia music hall is where Piaf achieved lasting fame, giving several series of concerts at the hall, the most famous venue in Paris, between January 1955 and October 1962. Excerpts from five of these concerts (1955, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962) were issued on record and CD and have never been out of print. The 1961 concerts were promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy and where she debuted her song "Non, je ne regrette rien". In April 1963, Piaf recorded her last song, "L'homme de Berlin".

World War II

During World War II, she was a frequent performer at German Forces social gatherings in occupied France, and many considered her a traitor; following the war she stated that she had been working for the French Resistance. While there is no evidence of this, it does seem to be true that she was instrumental in helping a number of individuals (including at least one Jew) escape Nazi persecution. Throughout it all, she remained a national and international favorite. Piaf dated a Jewish pianist during this time and co-wrote a subtle protest song with Monnot. According to one story, singing for high-ranking Germans at the ''One Two Two Club'' earned Piaf the right to pose for photographs with French prisoners of war, to boost their morale. The Frenchmen were supposedly able to cut out their photos and use them as forged passport photos.

Personal life

The love of Piaf's life, the married boxer Marcel Cerdan, died in a plane crash in October 1949, while flying from Paris to New York City to meet her. Cerdan's Air France flight, flown on a Lockheed Constellation, went down in the Azores, killing everyone on board, including noted violinist Ginette Neveu. Piaf and Cerdan's affair made international headlines, as Cerdan was the former middleweight champion of the world and a legend in France in his own right.

In 1951, Piaf was seriously injured in a car crash along with Charles Aznavour, breaking her arm and two ribs, and thereafter had serious difficulties arising from morphine and alcohol addictions. Two more near fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation. Jacques Pills, a singer, took her into rehabilitation on three different occasions to no avail.

Piaf married Jacques Pills in 1952 (her matron of honour was Marlene Dietrich) and divorced him in 1956. In 1962, she wed Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser-turned-singer and actor who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.

Death and legacy

Piaf died of liver cancer aged 47 at Plascassier, on the French Riviera, on 11 October 1963 (according to some, 10 October in Paris). She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several months. It is said that Sarapo drove her body back to Paris secretly so that fans would think she had died in her hometown. She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris next to her daughter Marcelle, where her grave is among the most visited.

Although she was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris because of her lifestyle, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans. Charles Aznavour recalled that Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop.

In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf (5 rue Crespin du Gast).

In popular culture

Films

The film ''Piaf'' (1974) depicted her early years, and starred Brigitte Ariel, with early Piaf songs performed by Betty Mars.

Piaf's relationship with Cerdan was also depicted in film by Claude Lelouch in the movie ''Édith et Marcel'' (1983), with Marcel Cerdan Jr. in the role of his father and Évelyne Bouix portraying Piaf.

''Piaf...Her Story...Her Songs'' (2003) is a film starring Raquel Bitton in her performance tribute to Edith Piaf. Bitton performs Piaf's most famous songs and describes her tempestuous life. Woven into the filmed concert is a luncheon in Paris, hosted by Bitton, in which some of Piaf's composers, friends, lovers, and family share their memories. These include Michel Rivgauche and Francis Lai, two of Piaf's composers, as well as Marcel Cerdan, Jr., son of the boxing champion who was her greatest love.

''La Vie en rose'' (2007), a film about her life directed by Olivier Dahan, debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2007. Titled ''La Môme'' in France, the film stars Marion Cotillard in the role that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (Oscar), as Piaf. Dahan's film follows Piaf's life from early childhood to her death in 1963. David Bret's 1988 biography, ''Piaf, A Passionate Life'', was re-released by JR Books to coincide with the film's release.

Plays

''Piaf'' (1978), by Pam Gems

''Piaf Piaf'' (1988), by Juha Siltanen and Jorma Uotinen

''The Sparrow and the Birdman'' By Raquel Bitton (1999)

''Edith and Simone'' (2000 and 2006), by Ronny Verheyen

''Pure Piaf'' (2006), by Alex Ryer

''No Regrets'' (2009), by Scotti Sween (TheatreVision/Off-Off-Broadway)

''Piaf de Musical'' (1999 and 2009), a Dutch musical

''Edith, het legendarische verhaal van Edith Piaf''(2009), by Yves Caspar

Other

The minor planet of 3772 Piaf, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1982, is named after her.

Songs

;1925

;1933

;1934

;1935

;1936 (from the movie ''La Garçonne'')

;1937

;1938

;1939

;1940

;1941 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')

;1942 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')

;1943 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')

;1944

;1945

;1946 (with Les Compagnons de la chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson)

;1947 (from the movie ''Neuf Garçons, Un Cœur'') (from the movie ''Neuf Garçons, Un Cœur'')

;1948

;1949 (from the movie ''L'Homme aux Mains d'Argile'')

;1950

Hymn to Love

Autumn Leaves

The Three Bells

Simply a Waltz

(English version)

;1951 (with Eddie Constantine) (with Eddie Constantine) (with M. Jiteau)

;1952 (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'') (with Jacques Pills) (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'')

;1953 (with Jacques Pills) (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'')

;1954 (from the movie ''Si Versailles M'Était Conté'') (from the movie ''French Cancan'')

;1955

;1956

Heaven Have Mercy

One Little Man

'Cause I Love You

(English)

Don't Cry

I Shouldn't Care

My Lost Melody

;1957

;1958

;1959

;1960

;1961

No Regrets

;1962 (with Théo Sarapo) (with Charles Dumont) (with Mikis Theodorakis/Jacques Plante) (with Théo Sarapo)

;1963 (her last recording)

Filmography

''La garçonne'' (1936), Jean de Limur

''Montmartre-sur-Seine'' (1941), Georges Lacombe

''Étoile sans lumière'' (1946), Marcel Blistène

''Neuf garçons, un cœur'' (1947), Georges Freedland

''Si Versailles m'était conté'' (1954), Sacha Guitry

''French Cancan'' (1954), Jean Renoir

''Música de Siempre'' (1958), sang La vida en rosa, the Spanish version of "La Vie en rose".

''Les Amants de demain'' (1959), Marcel Blistène

Theatre credit

''Le Bel Indifférent'' (1940), Jean Cocteau

Discography

The following titles are compilations of Édith Piaf's songs, and not reissues of the titles released while Édith Piaf was active.

''The Voice of the Sparrow: The Very Best of Édith Piaf'', original release date: June 1991

''Édith Piaf: 30th Anniversaire'', original release date: 5 April 1994

''Édith Piaf: Her Greatest Recordings 1935–1943'', original release date: 15 July 1995

''The Early Years: 1938–1945, Vol. 3'', original release date: 15 October 1996

''Hymn to Love: All Her Greatest Songs in English'', original release date: 4 November 1996

''Gold Collection'', original release date: 9 January 1998

''The Rare Piaf 1950–1962'' (28 April 1998)

''La Vie en rose'', original release date: 26 January 1999

''Montmartre Sur Seine'' (soundtrack import), original release date: 19 September 2000

''Éternelle: The Best Of'' (29 January 2002)

''Love and Passion'' (boxed set), original release date: 8 April 2002

''The Very Best of Édith Piaf'' (import), original release date: 29 October 2002

''75 Chansons'' (Box set/import), original release date: 22 September 2005

''48 Titres Originaux'' (import), (09/01/2006)

''Édith Piaf: L'Intégrale/Complete 20 CD/413 Chansons,'' original release date: 27 February 2007

There are in excess of 80 albums of Édith Piaf's songs available on online music stores.

Édith Piaf on DVD

''Édith Piaf – A Passionate Life'' (24 May 2004)

''Édith Piaf : Eternal Hymn'' (''Éternelle, l'hymne à la môme'', Non-US Format, Pal, Region 2, import)

''Piaf – Her Story, Her Songs'' (June 2006)

''Piaf: La Môme'' (2007)

''La Vie en rose'' (biopic, 2008)

''Édith Piaf – The Perfect Concert'' and ''Piaf The Documentary'' (February 2009)

Books on Édith Piaf

''The Wheel Of Fortune: The Autobiography of Édith Piaf'' by Édith Piaf (originally written in 1958, 5 years before her death), Peter Owen Publishers; ISBN 0720612284

''Édith Piaf'', by Édith Piaf and Simone Berteaut, published January 1982; ISBN 2904106014

memoirs, written by stepsister

''The Piaf Legend'', by David Bret, Robson Books,1988.

''Piaf: A Passionate Life'', by David Bret, Robson Books, 1998, revised JR Books, 2007

"The Sparrow – Edith Piaf," chapter in ''Singers & The Song'' (pp. 23–43), by Gene Lees, Oxford University Press, 1987, insightful critique of Piaf's biography and music.

''Marlene, My Friend'', by David Bret, Robson Books, 1993. Dietrich dedicates a whole chapter to her friendship with Piaf.

''Oh! Père Lachaise'', by Jim Yates, Édition d'Amèlie 2007, ISBN 978-0-9555836-0-5. Piaf and Oscar Wilde meet in a pink tinted Parisian Purgatory.

''No Regrets. The Life of Edith Piaf'', by Carolyn Burke, Alfred A. Knopf 2011, ISBN 978-0-307-26801-3. An in depth and insightful look at Piaf's life.

Édith Piaf in contemporary music and popular media

Barbara Feldon sings Édith Piaf's "La vie en rose" in the 1966 episode of Get Smart entitled "Casablanca".

Édith Piaf is mentioned in the song "Piaf chanterait du rock" by Luc Plamondon, which was most famously recorded by Marie Carmen and Celine Dion.

The song "Edith and the Kingpin" on Joni Mitchell's 1975 album ''The Hissing of Summer Lawns'' was revealed to be about Édith Piaf in an interview with Mitchell published in the February 2008 issue of ''Mojo''.

The Elton John song "Cage the Songbird", from his 1976 ''Blue Moves'' album, is a tribute to Édith Piaf.

Édith Piaf is mentioned in the song "Chocolate Cigarette" by Tom Russell and Sylvia Tyson on Russell's 1991 album ''Hurricane Season''.

In 1996, Ari Folman released the near futuristic comedy ''Saint Clara''. In this film, Édith Piaf is repeatedly mentioned by many of the adults, who remember her seemingly from school, and prove that they are part of the leading culture, as opposed to the immigrants

In the film ''Saving Private Ryan'' (1998), Piaf's 1943 songs "C'Était Une Histoire D'Amour" and "Tu Es Partout" are central to providing a common thread of longing for loves and lives left behind in scenes between Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and Private Ryan (Matt Damon) as well as providing a context for anecdotes from other central characters.

The song La Foule was used in the 2004 film My Summer of Love.

Martha Wainwright sings a collection of 15 songs made famous by Piaf on her album ''Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris: Martha Wainwright's Piaf Record'', released on 24 November 2009, by MapleMusic Recordings. All songs were recorded at Dixon Place Theatre in New York City during the summer of 2009.

Japanese musician, Utada Hikaru, has covered the song Hymne à l'amour (Ai no Anthem) for her second compilation album Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 2 in 2010.

"Non, je ne regrette rien" is featured extensively in the 2010 movie Inception.

In the film ''X-Men: First Class'' (2011), the song La Vie En Rose is used.

See also

Music of France

French popular music

References

External links

Edith Piaf's songs

Genealogy of Edith Piaf, Généalogie magazine, n° 233, pp. 30–36

Category:1915 births Category:1963 deaths Category:Musicians from Paris Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Cabaret singers Category:Cancer deaths in France Category:Deaths from liver cancer Category:French buskers Category:French female singers Category:French-language singers Category:French people of Italian descent Category:French people of Algerian descent Category:French pop singers Category:French Resistance members Category:Torch singers

af:Édith Piaf ab:Едит Пиаф ar:إديث بياف an:Édith Piaf az:Edit Piaf zh-min-nan:Édith Piaf be:Эдзіт Піяф be-x-old:Эдыт Піяф bs:Edith Piaf br:Édith Piaf bg:Едит Пиаф ca:Édith Piaf cs:Édith Piaf cy:Édith Piaf da:Édith Piaf de:Édith Piaf et:Édith Piaf el:Εντίθ Πιάφ eml:Édith Piaf es:Édith Piaf eo:Édith Piaf eu:Édith Piaf fa:ادیت پیاف hif:Edith Piaf fr:Édith Piaf fy:Edith Piaf ga:Édith Piaf gd:Édith Piaf gl:Édith Piaf ko:에디트 피아프 hy:Էդիթ Պիաֆ hsb:Édith Piaf hr:Edith Piaf io:Édith Piaf id:Édith Piaf is:Édith Piaf it:Édith Piaf he:אדית פיאף ka:ედიტ პიაფი sw:Édith Piaf la:Editha Piaf lv:Edīte Piafa lb:Édith Piaf lt:Édith Piaf hu:Édith Piaf mk:Едит Пјаф mg:Edith Piaf ml:എഡിത് പിയാഫ് mt:Édith Piaf nl:Édith Piaf ja:エディット・ピアフ no:Édith Piaf nn:Édith Piaf oc:Édith Piaf pnb:ایڈتھ پیاف nds:Édith Piaf pl:Édith Piaf pt:Édith Piaf ro:Édith Piaf rue:Едіт Піаф ru:Пиаф, Эдит sc:Édith Piaf simple:Édith Piaf sk:Édith Piaf sl:Edith Piaf sr:Едит Пјаф sh:Édith Piaf fi:Édith Piaf sv:Édith Piaf ta:எடித் பியாஃப் kab:Edith Piaf th:เอดิต เพียฟ tr:Édith Piaf uk:Едіт Піаф ur:ایڈتھ پیاف vi:Édith Piaf war:Édith Piaf wuu:艾迪托 比娅呋 zh-yue:伊蒂琵雅芙 zh:艾迪特·皮雅芙