ABSTRACT
What is the point of a history of French through texts? There are, after all, a number of good readable general histories of the language available which make relatively little use of texts or relegate them to an appendix. Peter Rickard’s A History of the French Language (1974, 21989) provides an excellent introduction in English for students to the subject, and there is also an impressive selection of one-volume surveys in French, including those by Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989), Cohen (1947, 41973), or Wartburg (1934, 101971), all of which have their merits. a Is not philology, the study of texts, somewhat out of date?
