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The language the French forbade

bbc.com

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Re: The language the French forbade

#11

Post by anateus »

eeks wrote: post #3

It certainly is not "the French". It's the "French Republic". Local dialects lived happily in France for over a Millennia under the Monarchy. The French dialect, mostly spoken in the Jacobin circles in Paris, was imposed by the revolutionaries as a mean to achieve "equality".

Although the French Revolution started the first concerted effort at suppression, L’Academie Francaise was created over 100 years earlier by Richelieu. I feel like the only reason the monarchy didn't impose its edicts is that they just didn't care about the common people that much one way or the other :)

Re: The language the French forbade

#12

Post by laurentoget »

eeks wrote: post #3

It certainly is not "the French". It's the "French Republic". Local dialects lived happily in France for over a Millennia under the Monarchy. The French dialect, mostly spoken in the Jacobin circles in Paris, was imposed by the revolutionaries as a mean to achieve "equality".

This is not true. The standardization of the french language started with Francois I, centuries before the revolution.

Re: The language the French forbade

#13

Post by VK538FY »

eeks wrote: post #3

It certainly is not "the French". It's the "French Republic". Local dialects lived happily in France for over a Millennia under the Monarchy. The French dialect, mostly spoken in the Jacobin circles in Paris, was imposed by the revolutionaries as a mean to achieve "equality".

True, the 'French republic' was never a friend of regional identity and it continues today. Unfortunate that the policies have diminished the mosaic that is France and also for intergenerational links and the economic opportunities that were lost.

I think of my Alsatian colleagues that learnt their regional language mostly from their grandparents. That skill is still very useful on the other side of the border but you wouldn't know it if you ask the ministry of education in Paris: the dialect of the Haut-Rhin is relatively close to Baseldüütsch and for those that didn't learn at home, bilingual school opened the doors of employment to a lot of people there. There is a net regression of Alsatians who are functional in German, either dialect or standard. Good job opportunities in Basel are being increasingly filled by Germans as the generations progress, while the economy stagnates in France. Back at home, the regional reorganization of France under Hollande is unlikely to help efforts to preserve the regional language since Alsace has been incorporated into a mostly francophone eastern megaregion that has little interest to spend money on the promotion of some 'backwards' regional language or even the foresight to encourage a second language that is not English.

Anyway, the discouragement of regional languages is not only a problem in France, as others have noted. Next door in Switzerland, the regional patois like arpitan (a variety of franco-provençal, perhaps related to Occitan) were discouraged for a long time. Completely different to the approach adopted in Alemanic Switzerland.

My personal opinion: the desire to 'live together' starts on the local, not national level so more efforts are needed in that direction for a functional society and regional languages help.

Re: The language the French forbade

#14

Post by laurentoget »

This article makes it sound like occitan is mostly used in rural communities to talk about local cuisine and folk tradition.

There are also people speaking various dialects of occitan in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Perpignan, Marseille and Nice, mixing it with french and with languages brought by immigrant communities.

There are rap songs in occitan, or mixing french occitan and arabic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kK7iL9brY&list=PL2ztot6xjo...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJXuUEVH5_M

Re: The language the French forbade

#15

Post by titanix2 »

Bayart wrote: post #10

Well, I still speak it somewhat... The _truth_ is that the transition of Occitan speakers to French is by and large a process consented by the population (often encouraged by working men, like my grand-father who associated the "patois" with extremely backwards conditions) because it simply provided more economic and social opportunities at a time people started moving massively towards cities. In fact the South-West…

That may be true for some languages such as Occitan or Picard but others were purposefully killed by the republic. Alsatian for instance was forbidden in schools. If prestige only was at play Alsatians may have mostly became bilinguals (similar situation exists in Africa, Hong-Kong, India) instead of unilingual speakers of French.

Re: The language the French forbade

#16

Post by nickserv »

kgwgk wrote: post #6
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occitan is closer to Catalan than to Spanish.

Both are a lot like Spanish (unlike Breton or Basque).

Breton and Basque are not Romance languages.

Occitan and Catalan are more similar to each other than Catalan to Castillian or Occitan to French.

Re: The language the French forbade

#17

Post by kgwgk »

nickserv wrote: post #16
kgwgk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are a lot like Spanish (unlike Breton or Basque).

Breton and Basque are not Romance languages. Occitan and Catalan are more similar to each other than Catalan to Castillian or Occitan to French.

I think we all agree about that.

Edit: bambax said “Occitan is a lot like Spanish (unlike, say, Breton or Basque [...])”. He could have said “is a lot like Catalan”, or “is a lot like French”, or “is a lot like Gascon”. All are true to different degrees.

Re: The language the French forbade

#18

Post by VK538FY »

laurentoget wrote: post #12
eeks wrote: post #3

It certainly is not "the French". It's the "French Republic". Local dialects lived happily in France for over a Millennia under the Monarchy. The French dialect, mostly spoken in the Jacobin circles in Paris, was imposed by the revolutionaries as a mean to achieve "equality".

This is not true. The standardization of the french language started with Francois I, centuries before the revolution.

I'd like to know more. In New France, the majority was from northwestern France (Normands, Poitevins, etc.) but somehow they managed to settle on a language that is surprisingly similar to Parisian French despite the accent and informal terms whose northwestern roots are clear (according to the linguists that I've read). So did the colonists of New France build on the efforts of François 1er?

Re: The language the French forbade

#19

Post by ElBarto »

eeks wrote: post #3

It certainly is not "the French". It's the "French Republic". Local dialects lived happily in France for over a Millennia under the Monarchy. The French dialect, mostly spoken in the Jacobin circles in Paris, was imposed by the revolutionaries as a mean to achieve "equality".

Languages in France were regional, not depending on your political views...

Re: The language the French forbade

#20

Post by ElBarto »

VK538FY wrote: post #18
laurentoget wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. The standardization of the french language started with Francois I, centuries before the revolution.

I'd like to know more. In New France, the majority was from northwestern France (Normands, Poitevins, etc.) but somehow they managed to settle on a language that is surprisingly similar to Parisian French despite the accent and informal terms whose northwestern roots are clear (according to the linguists that I've read). So did the colonists of New France build on the efforts of François 1er?

The language divide was mostly north/south with also a few other languages at the margins (Breton, Basque, Alsacien).

Normands spoke French long before some emigrated to North America. Just ask the English.

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