The mixed people in process of time thus came to speak a provincial Latin, and to call themselves “Romans.” In reality they were very far from being true Romans, and their speech almost was as far from being true Latin. It was both corrupted and also broken up into local dialects. It was, in fact, a blend of Latin with influences from the various native peculiarities. Early in the fifth century a body of Franks, a German people and speaking a German language, invaded the heart of Gaul and permanently held its northern half. It is from them, the Franks, that the whole country obtained the name of “France.” These conquerors brought many a German word—mostly of war and feudalism—into the language of the conquered, and likewise hastened the corruption of their “Latin” syntax. The old Latin of culture became more and more widely severed from everyday speech, and hence “Romance,” the corrupted language of these modern “Romans” of Gaul, was regularly used as a term in direct opposition to the old and literary “Latin.” It came, in fact, to mean the vulgar tongue. It was about the year 800 that, in the northern half of Gaul, the popular or Romance speech was formally recognized. In the tenth century, the Northmen descended on much of this region, and became its masters. Meanwhile the southern half of Gaul, which had been subdued by other German peoples, the Visigoths and Burgundians, was forming its own particular corruption of the Latin, and, among the dialects which arose in that division, the dialect of Provence, in the south-east, took earliest shape and clearest predominance. * * * * *