The history of French Language
I recently took a course on the history of French language at DEFLE — Department of French as a Foreign Language (Département de Français Langue Etrangère) at a public university in France.
Learning the origins and the historical context in which a language develops can be an interesting way to learn a language deeply and connect with it. Although, during this course, I felt otherwise because the history of French language is very controversial.
After the Romans
Sometime after the Romans in 476 AD, the Franks came to France. They were essentially from the Germanic part of Europe. Prior to them, the Romans used latin as their official administrative language but never enforced it on the general public. Road systems, law and administration were the key placed where Latin was present. Most of the country during this time was still speaking whatever they wanted — different regional languages, local dialects, getting influenced naturally by which language the administration used (Latin in this case).
In 842, the sons of Charlemagne, one the key kings of the Franks started arguing amongst each other and released a document called Serment de Strasbourg which they basically translated in their own mother tongues along with Latin. Their mother tongues being various versions of Frankish and local dialects.
Hugues Capet (987) was the first king to speak françois which eventually will become French. With time, a version of françois became the vehicular language eventually replacing Latin.
From the middle ages to the 1500s
From then on until 1500s, French developed further and became a language of culture, art, bourgeoisie, of the court but most of the country was still bilingual. Even the Parisians were bilingual and spoke local languages along with French.
In 1539, the Ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts was passed which imposed French as the official administrative language. Also, during this time, the first ever French dictionaries and a Bible in French were printed by the royal printers.
Then came what they call was “Le Grand Siècle”, the great century. During this time, the French Academy was setup. They fixed the rules around spellings and grammars for French.
This was the period of enlightenment when people realised that there is possibly no God and “reason” became the guiding principle. Diderot, a French intellectual and philosopher edited and released the first ever Encyclopaedia.
Diderot defined a patois, a regional language of France as: A corrupt language that is spoken in the provinces of the empire. Each province has its own regional language that is different from the language of the capital (Paris).
“Patois. Langage corrompu tel qu’il se parle presque dans toutes les provinces : chacune a son patois […]. On ne parle la langue que dans la capitale.”
The French revolution period and after
Then came the period of the Revolution. During this time, there was a strong “anti-patois” sentiment. Patois were the languages spoken by the farmers and the lower classes, e.g. Occitan, Alsacien, Basque, Breton and other franco-provincial languages.
During this period, a bunch of people in power passed laws which would diminish the use of these regional languages because they thought they were “degenerate” (a word Henri-Baptiste Gregoire, an influential politician, used for Alsacien). He also said that the “negroes of our colonies speak a version far worse than the language franque (français).”
Anyway, eventually they tried passing a decree that would jail and/or fine people if they tried speaking the patois languages in schools. They tried enforcing a prayer in French before and after a class. They banned kids from using their local language completely in schools, even during the recreation periods. Even if the students didn’t understand something, the teachers were banned from explaining it in the local language . It was called the mission to “civilise” France.
A politician, Francois Guizot is known to have said to the school managers, “you need to remember that you have been selected to kill the language Breton. Nothing less, kill it.” Breton is/was the regional language of Bretagne (Brittany, a region in the north).
As the revolution progressed, many of these aristocrats and politicians were guillotined. So it goes.
But, of course the politics of language doesn’t end over here.
After the revolution, after Napoleon and all, they passed another law called Loi Ferry in 1882. The one that sealed the deal. This law made education/school mandatory for all children, male and female of the age 6–13 years. The key hook for this law was also that it apparently promoted “secularism” by getting rid of religious studies and courses and replaced it with moral and civic education. This was considered not as a linguistic law but more as a secularism or equality law, even though everything being taught was in French with no room for any other language.
Inferences and “fun facts”
The members of the French academy are called ‘The Immortals’ and wear a fancy embroidered robe.
Another interesting anecdote, France hasn’t yes signed the European Accord for protection of regional European languages because it contradicts other laws in the 90s that made French the official language above all. It could be simply because passing laws and accords takes a hell of a time. But what’s odd is that “Creole”, the name of the sub-group of languages spoken in the overseas French territories has been casually left out of this document.
Learning about the history of French made me understand the reasons for France’s slow adoption of English. It also made me consider the question of “diglossie” where one language is considered superior to another because of the possible opportunities it presents or the status it had in the past.
Nation states have used language politics to unify their regions but it has often lead to hate, suffering and divisions among the social classes. To enforce “official” languages for a large population is fundamentally totalitarian and has always diminished diversity of culture and thought.
