FRENCH: Old French I guess

[orpheus_samhain]

I am trying to read "Lancelot" in Old French (unless it's Old Occitan, or something else). There seem to be three kinds of articles "li", "la" and "lo". From the context I guess that "li"="le", "la"="la", but I can't figure out what "lo" is supposed to mean (modern grammar says that the nouns proceeded with "lo" are masculine). It seems that "el"

Comments

[oh_meow]

Could be similar to how lo is used in Spanish now, to talk about abstract qualities?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo#Spanish

[oh_meow]

Here's an Occitan grammar guide, seems there were a lot of possible variations of the definite article. I guess people were still seeing them as contractions of ille, illa etc http://www.lingweenie.org/occitan/morph1.html

[orpheus_samhain]

Ah, yes, this explains a lot :) Thank you. Not only gender, but also cases.

[dhampyresa]

This is the edition subtitled "Un roman du 13ème siècleé, right? In that case, you're not dealing with Old French, you're dealing with langue d'oïl (one of them, anyway), which is going to give rise to French, but isn't quite French yet. I'm really no expert, but iirc langues d'oïl had cases the way Latin does, so that's probably what's going on.

[orpheus_samhain]

http://www.livredepoche.com/lancelot-du-lac-tome-1-collectif-9782253055785

It's this one. It has the old text on the one side, and the new one on the other. I am trying to decipher the old one, and the modern translation is sometimes misleading :/

Yes, it seems that it's because of the cases. Thank you :)

[wendyjoly]

French myself, I can assert you that it's almost impossible to understand for someone who doesn't master the Oc written language!
Old french hadn't specific grammar or conjugation it was only an oral language retranscribed. If I read out loud the little part you posted I can have some clues about what it means because somehow it looks like the french I know but for a foreigner it sounds very complicated, isn't it?
Occitan was very similar to Latin too, we can have some help with it.
For the record, most of the french king barely knew how to read/write. Some notes of François 1er had been found and he wrote like a kindergarden child >.>

[orpheus_samhain]

Sometimes I can guess the meaning, but sometimes I am at loss :) Yes, it seems that there are a lot of irregularities, especially if you jump between the texts.

You amused me with that notion of King Francis I. Him being an icon of enlightenment of that period and yet writing like a child :)