Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; Modern French ancien français) 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.

Gaulish, maybe the only survivor of the continental Celtic languages in Roman times, slowly became extinct during the long centuries of Roman dominion. Only several dozen words (perhaps 200, if we add Gaulish etymology) survive in modern French, for example chêne, ‘oak tree’ and charrue ‘plough'; Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167.

Despite attempts to explain some phonetic changes by the action of a Gaulish substratum, only one of them is sure, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish language epigraphy, e.g. : on the potteries of la Graufesenque (1st c. AD), there is the Latin word (from Greek) written paraxsid-i instead of paropsid-es. The spellings /ps/ and /pt/ are confused with /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. : Latin capsa > *kaxsa > caisse (compare Italian cassa) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif (Modern French chétif, compare Irish cacht 'servant' ≠ Italian cattiv-ita, Spanish cautivo). This phonetic evolution is parallel to the shift of the Latin group /kt/ in Old French (Latin factum > fait, Italian fatto, Spanish hecho or lactem* > lait ; Italian latte, Spanish leche).

Donald Richard Wright (February 2, 1907 – March 21, 1985) was the 24th Chief Justice of California.

Born in Placentia, California, Wright earned his Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University in 1929 and his Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1932. Admitted to the California State Bar in 1933, he worked in private practice at the law firm of Barrick, Poole & Knox in Pasadena, California until 1953, except for 1942–1946 when he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

In 1953, Governor Earl Warren appointed Wright to the Los Angeles Municipal Court, where he served until 1961 after being elected to the Los Angeles Superior Court. Wright left the Superior Court in 1968 when Governor Ronald Reagan appointed him as an Associate Justice of California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Two. In 1970, Reagan appointed Wright as the 24th Chief Justice of California, where he served until his retirement in 1977.

Marin Marais (31 May 1656, Paris – 15 August 1728, Paris) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles. He did quite well as court musician, and in 1679 was appointed "ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole", a title he kept until 1725.

He was a master of the basse de viol, and the leading French composer of music for the instrument. He wrote five books of 'Pièces de viole' (1686-1725) for the instrument, generally suites with basso continuo. These were quite popular in the court, and for these he was remembered in later years as he who "founded and firmly established the empire of the viol" (Hubert Le Blanc, 1740). His other works include a book of Pièces en trio (1692) and four operas (1693-1709), Alcyone (1706) being noted for its tempest scene.

Titon du Tillet included Marais in Le Parnasse françois, making the following comments on two of his pieces, Le Labyrinthe, perhaps inspired by the labyrinth of Versailles, and La Gamme: