What Is French?

In 15 39, the king of france decided that his laws would be written in vernacular language instead of latin. He signed a decree saying that justice should be rendered 'a la gage maternel france' This didn't mean there was something specific called le la gage francui or the french language. It just meant that weren't speaking latin. So it could be any one of the numerous dialects spoken at that time in France. The reason we call it french has nothing to do with how different the language became from classical latin and much more to do with negative perceptions of outside linguistic groups as well as parisian lawyers.