Themes in French Language Policy

1. Centrism: control from the center

   • Top-down decision making, rather than bottom-up, decentralized authority.

   • Federalism is bad; centralism is good and democratic!

   • Paternalistic: the monarch, the revolutionary committees know best.

   • Dirigisme control everything (even things that can't be controlled? Control Freakism?)

   

2. Ideologism:

   • Standard French is lucid, rational, clear and other forms of language (idiomes, patois, jargons, argots) are muddied, irrational, unclear, inadequate. Speech by Barrère to the Convention on the 27th of January, 1794:

     "La langue d'un peuple libre doit être une et la même pour tous. Nos ennemis avaient fait de la langue française la langue des cours; ils l'avaient avilie. C'est à nous d'en faire la langue des peuples: elle sera honorée. (...) Le fédéralisme et la superstition parlent bas-breton; l'émigration et la haine de la république parlent allemand; la contre-révolution parle italien et le fanatisme parle basque. Brisons ces instruments de dommage et d'erreur. (...) [Federalism and superstition speak Breton; emigration and hate for the republic speak German; counterrevolution speaks Italian, and fanaticism speaks Basque. Let us destroy these instruments of damage and error.]

     Citoyens, vous détestez le fédéralisme politique. Abjurez celui du langage. La langue doit être une comme la république." [citizens, you hate political federalism. Abjure linguistic [federalism]. Language ought to be one, like the republic.]

   • Task of education is to replace the muddy, murky language with the rational one, and thereby instill a clear rational language in the heads of students (and eradicate the other, useless, inadequate 'language'.)

   • Mission civilisatrice: Task of French (language and culture) is to civilize the world, bring rationality to the poor irrational hordes, whether it be in the colonies, the schools, the marginal areas, the gutters...

   • Rayonnement: metaphors of light are rampant: French civilisation and language 'radiate' out from the center, illuminating the darkness of the world. They are brilliant and glorious.

      

     

   

3. French Revolution: tried to change everything!

   • Eliminate the monarchy, religion, privileges, slavery, injustice...

   • Bring in justice, rights of man, progress, citizenship for all...(but did not eliminate slavery in the colonies).

   • Used language as both a vehicle and an object

     • Goal: Standardize the language, rationalize it

     • Teach it to all, in all communes, in all schools

     • Use it to democratize, and to usher in democracy; eliminate `bad' forms of language (idiomes, patois, etc.) which were counterrevolutionary barriers, vehicles of hate, retention of privilege, elitism, hereditary advantage, irrationality, injustice, etc.

     • Grégoire and his survey: the revolution could not be furthered unless language itself changed; language had to be the vehicle but also had to be purged. Otherwise rights would not be extended to all, the revolution would not be available to all, would fail.

       "Vous avez voté des lois à toutes les communes de la République, mais ce bienfait est perdu pour celles des départements du Morbihan, du Finistère, des Côtes-du-Nord, de la Loire-Inférieure. Les lumières portées à grands frais aux extrémités de la France s’y éteignent en y arrivant, puisque les lois n’y sont pas entendues.' [ You have voted laws for all the communes of the Republic, but this benefit is lost for those of the departments of Morbihan, Finistere, Cotes du Nord, and Loire Interieure. The lights carried at great expense to the extremities of France extinguish themselves when they arrive there, because the laws there are not understood.]

       (See more on this here.)

   

4. Blind Spots:

   • Terrorism ( la terreure a.k.a. 'the Reign of Terror.') If people resisted, they were `counterrevolutionaries' and had to be eliminated: chop off their heads! Some people 'knew best' and people who resisted them had to be eliminated; Power was usurped by Robespierre, others; by the month of Thermidor, Year 2, terror was out of control. Robespierre went too far, then was guillotined himself, ending the rein of terror. ("The revolution devours its children...")

   • Jacobinisme was the French name for this tendency to try to control everything. Still a feature of French life. (More here.)

   • Other problems: Bonapartisme or 'great man will fix it'; great man then makes things worse. Solution: bring in another great man, to fix THAT. The revolution rolls on, rolling over its children (la révolution dévore ses enfants) : constant revolution needed to clean up the messes of the jackasses who went before.

   • Law of unintended consequences?

   

5. What REALLY happened during the French Revolution as far as language was concerned? Did every wonderful thing they say happened, really happen?
   • The Monarchist language policy was finally triumphant (sic!)

   • Jacobiniste language policy clearly got a foothold

   • Myths of various sorts got started...such as the idea that France has "the oldest official language policy in the world" (Balibar).

   • What else?

   

6. Other pertinent stuff...
   • A colorful clickable map depicting the regional languages of France and all their details.

   • Read what the French say/"think" about their earliest history: les Serments de Strasbourg (the earliest document in "French" (i.e. lingua romana dating from 842.)

   • Read the Chapters (4 and 5) on France in Schiffman 1996
     
     
   • A handout that raises more questions than it answers.

   • Maps of France showing expansion since around 1100.

   • The Constitution of France, 1958 the Fifth Republic

   • An article explaining the French Revolutionary Calendar.

   • And the amendments of 1995 (English text) regarding language (Is this explicit or what?)

   • A recent (2002) article of my own about French assumptions about controlling language.

   • An article questioning whether the recent réforme of the orthography really did anything, or was DOA. (Just for fun, see about the circumflex accent and its use in 'branding' of the Lancàme cosmetics company. And for more fun, here's an even more egregious example of spurious umlaut manipulation.)

   • A page for la Francophonie the French-speaking community in the world.

   • A page from a regional French government, declaring the local dialects (langues régionales de la Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) to be equal, and ought to be promoted and taught. (Translation by me, hfs, with help from Philippe Blanchet; original was in French.)

   • A nice page summarizing French language policy from Université Laval, in Canada.

   • Some interesting clippings from the world press:

     • A recent flap over requirement that pilots and air-traffic controllers speak English! and how it was resolved.

     • Reports about granting some autonomy to Corsica, including linguistic rights for Corsican and the ensuing political flap.

     • A recent article in the Guardian about the future of French in the European Union.

     • A web document about abbreviations in French.

     • An article from 1989 describing how the Institut Pasteur decided to change the title of its journals to English, and publish henceforward only in English!