Frankish (also Old Franconian or Old Frankish) was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks between the 4th and 8th century. The language itself is poorly attested, but it gave rise to numerous loanwords in Old French. Old Dutch is the term for the Old Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries until about the 12th century. During the Merovingian period, Frankish had significant influence on the Romance languages spoken in Gaul.