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France rogue state on regional languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 1 of 22 05 April 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Simon Hooper of Al Jazeera English has written an article about the regional language situation in France: France a 'rogue state' on regional languages .
Excerpt: "On March 31, regional language speakers in 10 cities across France will stage the country's largest ever coordinated demonstrations to protest for their linguistic rights to be recognised. Their demands include a change to the constitution to grant official status to regional languages, measures to make the languages "co-official" in the areas where they are spoken, and for France to ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages." I have always been curious as to why Britain recognizes and supports regional languages in the UK and France doesn't. According to the article: "Once home to a vibrant multitude of tongues, the monolingualism of modern France is enshrined in article two of the country's constitution, rooted in the revolutionary principles of 1789, which reads: 'The language of the Republic shall be French.' " The article has a link to the French Language site promoting the civil action: Les langues régionales en France The site is also available in Catalan, Occitan, Corsican, Basque and Breton- oddly, not in Alsatian. Edited by iguanamon on 05 April 2012 at 11:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 2 of 22 05 April 2012 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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For long, speaking minority languages was adviced against in France. You could see signs in schools (in the South of France) saying "speak French and don't spit on the floor" or "Be clean and speak French".
I don't think their protest has any chance to have any effect on the constitution: it has been amended 24 times in 54 years, and looking at the list, it's mostly things that are usually "deemed more important" than minority languages: independance of ex-colonies, change in the presidential election (its vote, frequency, length etc), abolition of the death penalty, asylum rights... Perhaps if a new constitution was written today, minority languages would be mentioned. But as to changing it, I don't believe in it. And which languages would be added, anyway? Breton has certainly fewer speakers in France than Arabic. One thing to consider is also that the people have chosen not to speak these languages, through time (I'm thinking mainly of Breton), because it was considered backward. Now all the celtic languages try to revive, but in the first place they died themselves... Of course, I would prefer that these languages survive. edit:24 times, not 19... Edited by vermillon on 05 April 2012 at 11:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 22 05 April 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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"While estimates of exact numbers vary, campaigners say there are more than five million people in France with fluency in a regional language." source: quote from aritcle with link to Nombre de locuteurs dans les langues régionales Rough English translation from a non-French speaker- me: Number of speakers of Regional Languages
For those who don't click the link, there is a chart that relates number of speakers to the total regional population: It is claimed by the campaigners that Occitan is the largest regional language with 3,000,000 speakers out of a regional population of 13,000,000. Next is Alsatian with 900,000 speakers out of a regional population of 1,700,000. Of course there are "lies, damn lies and statistics". Obviously the campaigners have an agenda, but this is quite interesting. Edited by iguanamon on 06 April 2012 at 12:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 22 06 April 2012 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
While I don't know this particular situation, I don't believe languages just die on their own. There are many, many factors that weigh in, from discrimination (I'm not referring to racism, but that has surely played a part in some aspect) to education (in the US, for example, many native Americans could not receive an education without committing to learning English, and were punished - sometime severely - for using their native language in school), to the perceived prestige of another language (for example, you must speak XX language in order to work in XX field). It's just not as simple as a language "dying" because people no longer speak it. In many cases, it's murdered, or at least an attempt is made to exterminate it by the powers that be. R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 22 06 April 2012 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
Arabic is a recent immigrant language, whereas Breton, Occitan, Catalan, Basque and Alsatian are all indigenous languages within Metropolitan France with centuries of historical presence. Minority indigenous languages represent the culture of a people which is a part of the patrimony of a country. Witness the tale of French in Louisiana. In the first 2/3 of the 20th century French-speakers were actively discriminated against and children were beaten in schools for speaking their native language- French, because it was considered "backward" by the Anglo majority. Zachary Richard sang about what that meant to a people in his sad lament No French No More While some may argue that language death is natural and even desirable, I think we are all the poorer when we lose the contribution of another distinctive voice, a unique patch in the human quilt. A language isn't just verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. It also represents the unique culture of a people. Perhaps, one day in a few hundred years, our descendants may be lamenting the death of major languages as they become less "relevant" in an ever dominant English language world. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 22 06 April 2012 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||
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French is one of the world's clearest examples of a successful elitist, aggressive program of language
extinction and a clear example to countries like China, who try to enact the same policies in modern times. Every time I critizise China for the shameful way it violates linguistic human rights in its program of language extinction, I feel a pang of shame that the same thing has been going on in Europe, and is to some extent still going on in France. I recall reading that during the time of the French revolution, only a few percent of the population of France spoke what is today known as French. Anyone have numbers on that?
Linguistic rights are not adequately spoken about in the press and violations are not adequately condemned in the international community. I hope that the hyperglots that have recently been so saluted by the mainstream media take the opportunity to raise awareness of these issues. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5409 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 7 of 22 06 April 2012 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
This seems to be largely overestimated, see this thread for a more pessimistic view. Some random thoughts on the subject : - Clearly people stopped speaking the language on their own will, thinking it was only a "patois", some bastard version of French, etc. But these ideas have been hammered in republican schools for so long (and in a very harsh way) that it's no surprise they thought their language wasn't worthy of being spoken. And still, would things have turned differently if France hadn't banned regional languages ? I am not sure of that, even in countries where there's no political or educational pressure, the economical pressure is so high that speakers of a regional/minority language often prefer to raise their children in the "dominant" language. - Arabic has more speakers in France than Breton, so why should Breton and not Arabic be protected as a regional language ? My answer would be : because Breton is spoken only in France. If this language isn't "protected" in France, where will it be ? Arabic can rely on millions of speakers outside of france to ensure its survival. Edited by akkadboy on 06 April 2012 at 9:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 8 of 22 06 April 2012 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||
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That's a political discussion, isn't it?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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