4 ms·

Also, more interestingly, during the Norman period English wasn't even remotely as standardized as we like to imagine it today. French was not only the language

by pluma 12y ago

Also, more interestingly, during the Norman period English wasn't even remotely as standardized as we like to imagine it today. French was not only the language of the nobility, it was also wide-spread and relatively consistent. English wasn't, at all.

barry-cotter 12y ago
The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' – in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it was not usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French." Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990; ISBN 0-521-43961-2) chapter II "The popular protonationalism", pp.80–81 French edition (Gallimard, 1992). According to Hobsbawm, the main source for this subject is Ferdinand Brunot (ed.), Histoire de la langue française, Paris, 1927–1943, 13 volumes, in particular volume IX.
- mc32 12y ago
  To this day you have langue d'oc (opposite langue d'oil, among other regional dialects in France. But this marginalization of non-official dialects has been the history of European nations, for the express purpose, as you mention, to solidify a sense of nationhood. So plattdeutsch, frisian, langue d'oc, sicilian, catalonian, etc. have been supplanted by the 'official' languages and spellings, grammars, etc...
- eru 12y ago
  British French, since it came via a small group of conquerors might still have been a fairly consistent affair. More consistent than mainland French. (I don't know. But the argument that mainland French wasn't homogenous doesn't tell us much about French in Britain.)
- javert 12y ago
  If 50% of people did not speak French, what did they speak? I am extremely skeptical of this claim (but I haven't looked at your cited sources). I mean, the French government worked to unify the language used in the country well before the time you are talking about. I can't imagine that langue d'oil was actually a different language(s) than "French," and not properly considered to be perhaps French dialects, but maybe I'm wrong.
  - umanwizard 12y ago
    Breton, Gallo, Picard, Walloon, Provençal, Catalan, Alsacien, ... Go talk to some 70+ people in rural parts of France and ask them if they had to learn to speak differently when they went to school or had to start communicating with people in the cities and I'll bet they say yes. Languages other than Standard French were very common even in the 20th century. (By the way, whether something is a "dialect" or a "separate language" is much more of a political question than a scientific one. Speakers of some of the languages I mentioned -- Gallo, Walloon, and Picard are all oïl languages -- may have thought of themselves as speaking uneducated peasant French. But they were more different than, say, Scots and English, and probably not more than superficially mutually intelligible.)

by pluma 12y ago

barry-cotter 12y ago

The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' – in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it was not usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French." Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990; ISBN 0-521-43961-2) chapter II "The popular protonationalism", pp.80–81 French edition (Gallimard, 1992). According to Hobsbawm, the main source for this subject is Ferdinand Brunot (ed.), Histoire de la langue française, Paris, 1927–1943, 13 volumes, in particular volume IX.

mc32 12y ago
To this day you have langue d'oc (opposite langue d'oil, among other regional dialects in France. But this marginalization of non-official dialects has been the history of European nations, for the express purpose, as you mention, to solidify a sense of nationhood. So plattdeutsch, frisian, langue d'oc, sicilian, catalonian, etc. have been supplanted by the 'official' languages and spellings, grammars, etc...
eru 12y ago
British French, since it came via a small group of conquerors might still have been a fairly consistent affair. More consistent than mainland French. (I don't know. But the argument that mainland French wasn't homogenous doesn't tell us much about French in Britain.)
javert 12y ago
If 50% of people did not speak French, what did they speak? I am extremely skeptical of this claim (but I haven't looked at your cited sources). I mean, the French government worked to unify the language used in the country well before the time you are talking about. I can't imagine that langue d'oil was actually a different language(s) than "French," and not properly considered to be perhaps French dialects, but maybe I'm wrong.
- umanwizard 12y ago
  Breton, Gallo, Picard, Walloon, Provençal, Catalan, Alsacien, ... Go talk to some 70+ people in rural parts of France and ask them if they had to learn to speak differently when they went to school or had to start communicating with people in the cities and I'll bet they say yes. Languages other than Standard French were very common even in the 20th century. (By the way, whether something is a "dialect" or a "separate language" is much more of a political question than a scientific one. Speakers of some of the languages I mentioned -- Gallo, Walloon, and Picard are all oïl languages -- may have thought of themselves as speaking uneducated peasant French. But they were more different than, say, Scots and English, and probably not more than superficially mutually intelligible.)