ABSTRACT
Geographical proximity and complex economic and political relations have always promoted lexical exchange among the Romance languages of western Europe (see Map 1), more particularly when international trade and intellectual exchange began to develop, after the narrow feudalism of the early Middle Ages. The direction and extent of lexical influence have changed, according to shifts in the centres of economic and cultural dominance; more often than not, French has been the donor language. Influence from Romance languages outside French territory was slight, until the sixteenth century, but input from varieties spoken in northern France and the territory of the Langue d’Oc can be detected from the early medieval period.
