|
This is an article about language policy in France. Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. ...
France has one official language, the French language. The French government, however, does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals or private organizations (save for certain commercial purposes). However, the French government promotes the use of French in the territory of the Republic, in the European Union and globally through institutions such as La Francophonie. The perceived threat from anglicisation has prompted efforts to safeguard the position of the French language in France. An official language is a language that is given a privileged legal status in a state, or other legally-defined territory. ...
French (français, langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered in speakers only by Spanish and Portuguese. ...
La Francophonie (occasionally in English Francophony, formally lOrganisation internationale de la Francophonie), a French language term coined in 1880 by French geographer Onésime Reclus, brother of Elisée Reclus, to designate the community of people and countries using French, is an international organisation of French-speaking countries and...
Anglicisation (CwE) or Anglicization (NAE) is a process of making something English. ...
Besides French, there exist many other regional languages of France (which have no official status), both in the metropolitan territory of continental Europe and in the French overseas territories. The 1999 report written for the French government by Bernard Cerquiglini identified 75 languages that would qualify for recognition under the government's proposed ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. There are a number of languages of France, although the French language is by far the most widely spoken and the only official language of the country. ...
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, refers to the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands and peninsulae. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. ...
History
The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 made French the administrative language of the kingdom of France for legal documents and laws. Previously, official documents were written in medieval Latin, which was the language used by the Roman Catholic Church. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts expanded the central control of the French state The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by François I of France on August 10, 1539 in the city of Villers-Cotterêts. ...
Events May 30 - In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal to find gold. ...
It has been suggested that History of the Latin language be merged into this article or section. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Catholicism. ...
Académie française The Académie française was established in 1635 to act as the official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, and to publish an official dictionary of the French language. Its recommendations however carry no legal power and are sometimes disregarded even by governmental authorities. In recent years the Académie has tried to prevent the anglicisation of the French language. The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ...
Events February 10 - The Académie française in Paris is expanded to become a national academy for the artistic elite. ...
The Dictionnaire de lAcadémie française is the official dictionary of the French language. ...
Anglicisation (CwE) or Anglicization (NAE) is a process of making something English. ...
French Revolution Prior to the French Revolution of 1789, French monarchs did not take a strong position on the language spoken by their subjects. However, in sweeping away the old provinces, parlements and laws, the Revolution established a unified system of administration across the state. At first, the revolutionaries declared liberty of language for all citizens of the Republic, this policy was subsequently abandoned in favour of the imposition of a common language which was to do away with the other languages of France. Other languages were seen as keeping the peasant masses in obscurantism. Liberty Leading the People, a painting by Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 but which has come to be generally accepted as symbolic of French popular uprisings against the monarchy in general and the French Revolution in particular. ...
1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
Parlements (pronounced in French) in ancien régime France — contrary to what their name would suggest to the modern reader — were not democratic or political institutions, but law courts . ...
Obscurantism is opposition to extension or dissemination of knowledge beyond certain limits and to questioning dogmas. ...
The new ideology was expounded in the Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language. Its author, Henri Grégoire, deplored that France, the most advanced country in the world with regard to politics, had not progressed beyond the Tower of Babel as far as languages were concerned, and that only 3 of the 25 million inhabitants of France spoke French as their native tongue. Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. ...
Henri Grégoire Henri Grégoire (December 4, 1750-May 20, 1831), generally known in French as abbé Grégoire, was a French Roman Catholic priest and revolutionary leader and constitutional bishop of Blois. ...
The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865) According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. ...
The report resulted the same year in two laws which stated that the only language tolerated in France in public life and in schools would be French. Within two years, the French language had become the symbol of the national unity of the French State. However, the Revolutionaries lacked both time and money to implement a language policy.
Third Republic In the 1880s, the Third Republic sought to modernize France, and in particular to increase literacy and general knowledge in the population, especially the rural population, and established free compulsory primary education. The choice of French for education seemed natural, given that it was the only language widely spoken in France in which a sizeable number of newspapers and historical, scientific etc. books were available. // Events and Trends Technology Development and commercial production of electric lighting Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings. ...
A map of France under the Third Republic, featuring colonies. ...
World literacy rates by country The traditional definition of Literacy is the ability to read, write, listen and speak. ...
Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occurs during childhood. ...
The only language allowed in primary school was French. All other languages were forbidden, even in the schoolyard, and transgressions were severely punished. In 1925, Anatole de Monzie, Minister of public education, stated that "for the linguistic unity of France, the Breton language must disappear." As a result, the speakers of minority languages began to be ashamed of their own language, and in the 1950s, many families stopped teaching their language to their children and tried to speak only French with them. 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Anatole de Monzie (1876 - 1947) was a French administrator, encyclopaedist, political figure and scholar. ...
Breton (Breton: Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany (Breizh) and Loire-Atlantique (historically part of Brittany) in France. ...
The 1950s were a decade that spanned the years 1950 through 1959. ...
Fourth Republic The 1950s were also the first time the French state recognised the right of the regional languages to exist. A law allowed for the teaching of regional languages in secondary schools, and the policy of repression in the primary schools came to an end. The Breton language began to appear in the media during this time. A regional language is a language spoken in a part of a country - it may be a small area, a federal state or province, or a wider area. ...
Fifth Republic After the first few minutes in the radio in the 1940s, the French State allowed in 1964 for the first time one and a half minutes of Breton on regional television. But even in 1972 president Georges Pompidou declared that "there is no place for the regional languages and cultures in a France that intends to mark Europe deeply." // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ...
For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ...
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (July 5, 1911 – April 2, 1974) was President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. ...
The debate about the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages In 1999 the Jospin socialist government decided to sign the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and tried, without success, to have it ratified. The Constitutional Council of France declared that the implementation of the Charter would be unconstitutional since the Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Lionel Robert Jospin (born July 12, 1937 in Meudon, a suburb of Paris) is a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997-2002. ...
The Palace of Europe in Strasbourg European Flag: used by the Council of Europe and by the European Union The Council of Europe (French: Conseil de lEurope , German: Europarat /ˌɔɪ.ˈro. ...
A republican guard giving directions to visitors at the front entrance of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. ...
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European convention (ETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe, ratified and implemented by 17 States, but not by France (as of 2004). A treaty is a binding agreement under international law concluded by subjects of international law, namely states and international organizations. ...
1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...
A regional language is a language spoken in a part of a country - it may be a small area, a federal state or province, or a wider area. ...
A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a country. ...
Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ...
2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The charter contains 98 articles of which signatories must adopt a minimum of 35 (France signed 39).
The signing, and the failure to have it ratified, provoked a debate between the people in favour and the people against the charter.
One argument against was the fear of the break-up of France "one and indivisible" leading to the threat of "babelism", "balkanization" and then ethnic separatism if Charter were to be implemented, and that therefore there should be only one language recognised in the French state: the French language. This was also linked to a wider debate about how power should be apportioned between the national and local governments. Balkanization is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region into smaller regions that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other. ...
Separatism involves setting oneself or others apart. ...
Another was that in an era where a widely spoken language like French was threatened of becoming irrelevant in the global arena, especially in economic, technical and scientific contexts, officially supporting regional languages was a mere waste of government resources.
As an example of what proponents of ratification considered racist and scornful, here is a sample quote from an article in Charlie Hebdo, a well-known satirical journal: Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical political weekly newspaper. ...
- The aborigines are going to be able to speak their patois, oh sorry, their language, without being laughed at. And even keep their accent, that is their beret and their clogs.
Likewise, Jacques Chirac, when putting an end to the debate, and justifying why France could not ratify the Charter, said that it would threaten "the indivisibility of the Republic," "equality in front of the Law" and "the unity of the French people," since it may end by conferring "special rights to organised linguistic communities."
Similarly, France, Andorra and Turkey are the only European countries that have not yet signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. This framework entered into force in 1998 and is now nearly compulsory to implement in order to be accepted in the European Union . This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. ...
1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...
Endangered languages Excluding the languages spoken in the régions d'outre-mer and other overseas territories, and the languages of recent immigrants, the following languages are spoken by sizeable minorities in France: Région doutre-mer, or Overseas regions, is a recent designation given to the départements doutre-mer which have similar powers to those of the régions of metropolitan France. ...
The non-French Oïl languages and Franco-Provençal are highly endangered. The other languages are still spoken but are all considered endangered. Romance languages in the World Blue-French; Green-Spanish; Orange-Portuguese; Yellow-Italian; Red-Romanian The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...
Catalan (Català IPA: ) also called Valencian (Valencià IPA: ) is a Romance language, the only official language of Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia. ...
Corsican (Corsu or Lingua Corsa) is a Romance language spoken on the island of Corsica (France), alongside French, which is the official language. ...
Franco-Provençal (Francoprovençal) or Arpitan (in vernacular: patouès) (in Italian: francoprovenzale, arpitano, patois; French: francoprovençal, arpitan, patois) is a Romance language with several dialects in a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue dOïl and Langue dOc. ...
The langue doïl language family in linguistics comprises Romance languages originating in territories now occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands. ...
Occitan, or lenga dòc, or languedoc, is a Romance language (or group of languages), spoken mainly in the Languedoc or Occitania region in southern France. ...
The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ...
This inscription in Alsatian on a window in Eguisheim, Alsace, reads: Dis Hausz sted in Godes Hand - God bewar es vor Feyru (This house is in the hands of God - May God protect it against fire) Alsatian (French Alsacien, German Elsässisch) is a Low Alemannic dialect spoken in Alsace...
The term Flemish can be a linguistic one, referring to the speech of the Flemings, inhabitants of Flanders, or a geographical one, referring to any attribute of Flanders, but not to its official language, which is exclusively Dutch. ...
The Frankish language can refer to: the language spoken by the Franks, a Germanic people active in the Roman era, often now called Old Frankish a West Franconian dialect of modern German spoken in Alsace and Lorraine, regions in France the Franconian language family In the second sense, Frankish (German...
The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ...
Breton (Breton: Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany (Breizh) and Loire-Atlantique (historically part of Brittany) in France. ...
A language isolate is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or genetic) relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language. ...
Basque (in Basque: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. ...
In the 1950s, more than one million people spoke Breton as their main language. The countryside in western Brittany was still overwhelmingly Breton-speaking. Today, about 250,000 people are able to speak Breton (1 out of 6 people in the Breton-speaking area ); but most of them are old people, over 60 years old. The other languages have followed the same trend, even though Alsatian and Corsican have resisted better, and Occitan as followed still a worse trend. The 1950s were a decade that spanned the years 1950 through 1959. ...
Traditional coat of arms This article is about the historical kingdom, duchy and French province, as well as one of the Celtic Nations . ...
Accurate information on the state of language use is complicated by the non-recognition of regional languages and the inability of the state to ask language use questions in the census. 1870 US Census for New York City A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). ...
Since the rejection of ratification of the European Charter, French governments have offered token support to regional languages within the limits of the law. The Délégation générale à la langue française has acquired the additional function of observing and studying the languages of France and has had "et aux langues de France" added to its title.
The French government hosted the first Assises nationales des langues de France in 2003, but this national round table on the languages of France served to highlight the contrast between cultural organisations and language activists on the one hand and the state on the other. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The decentralisation programme initiated by the Jean-Pierre Raffarin government has not extended to giving power in language policy to the regions. Decentralisation (American: decentralization) is any of various means of more widely distributing decision-making to bring it closer to the point of service or action. ...
Jean-Pierre Raffarin Jean-Pierre Raffarin listen? (born August 3, 1948) is a French conservative politician. ...
Opposition to the language policy France presents itself as a small country struggling for cultural diversity against the predominance of English in international affairs. On the other hand, inside its frontiers, France has been struggling for two hundred years against cultural and linguistic diversity, denying the very existence of minorities. According to French republican ideology (see also Laïcité), all citizens are equal and therefore no groups may exercise extra rights; this is an idea stemming from the French Revolution, contrasting with the previous situation in which many groups had different, special rights and privileges. Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
Motto of the French republic on the tympanum of a church. ...
Liberty Leading the People, a painting by Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 but which has come to be generally accepted as symbolic of French popular uprisings against the monarchy in general and the French Revolution in particular. ...
This policy of cultural homogeneity has been challenged from both the right wing and the left wing. In the 1970s, nationalist or regionalist movements emerged in regions such as Brittany and Occitania claiming that the people should do what the French State refuses to do. The main result was the creation of associative schools in the minority languages. That new web of schools is called Diwan in Brittany, Ikastola in the Basque country, Calandreta in Occitania, Bressola in Northern Catalonia. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...
...
Since then, the popular pressure has legitimised the teaching of minority languages, obliging the French State to open its own bilingual schools in the 1980s. But even today, only one quarter of the young Bretons have access to a course of Breton language during their time in school. The Constitutional Council also blocked the assimilation of the Diwan schools into the public education system. MacGyver - 1980s hero The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ...
A long campaign of defacing road-signs led to the first bilingual road-signs in the 1980s. These are now increasingly common in Brittany. As far as the media are concerned, there is still hardly any Breton on the waves. But since 1982, a few Breton speaking radio stations have been created on an associative basis. The launching of the Breton TV Breizh was a commercial failure. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
There is some opposition to Loi Toubon mandating the use of French (or at least a translation into French) in commercial advertising and packaging, as well as in some other contexts. The Toubon Law (full name: law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language), is a law of the French government mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, advertisements, and some other contexts. ...
References - WRIGHT (Sue), 2000, Jacobins, Regionalists and the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, Journal of Multilingual and Multicural Development, vol. 21, n°5, p. 414-424.
- KYMLICKA (Will), Les droits des minorités et le multiculturalisme: l’évolution du débat anglo-américain , in KYMLICKA (Will) et MESURE (Sylvie) dir., Comprendre les identités culturelles, Paris, PUF, Revue de Philosophie et de sciences sociales n°1, 2000, p. 141-171.
- GEMIE, S. (2002), The politics of language : debates and identities in contemporary Brittany, French Cultural Studies n°13, p. 145-164.
- SZULMAJSTER-CELNIKER (Anne), La politique de la langue en France, La Linguistique, vol 32, n°2, 1996, p. 35-63.
See also Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. ...
Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of language. ...
Linguicide is a little used term describing the intentional causing of the death of a language. ...
Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting the culture or language of one nation in another. ...
The Académie de la Carpette anglaise, which may be translated as the English Doormat Academy (the word carpette means both rug and fawner), awards an annual prize to members of the French élite who distinguish themselves by relentlessly promoting the domination of English over French in France and in...
External links |
Feeds |
Contact