ABSTRACT
In order to reconstruct a dead language, linguists usually rely on either literary
or documentary sources. With regards to the French of the Franks, the
transmission of literary texts in the manuscripts may have erased the Levantine
colour of works composed in the East. It is possible that texts like the Chronicle
of the Templar of Tyre or Philip of Novara’s account of the war between the
Ibelins and the Imperials reflect the language of the transmitters rather than that
of the authors. Nevertheless, these testimonies of a literary kind need not be
jettisoned if we take the trouble to verify the data provided in other kinds of
documents.
