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It is a little known episode in the history of France. In 1806, Napoleon entrusted his statistics office – attached as it should be to the Ministry of the Interior – with a vast linguistic survey. Its object? Know the “native idiom” in use in each of the many French regions. The approach is not intended to be ideological, but scientific: it is a question of better knowing the situation of one’s empire. The paradox, however, is only apparent: knowledge always makes it possible to control…
To carry it out, the director of the said office, Charles Coquebert de Montbret, in turn asked the prefects for samples of the said idioms as well as a translation of a famous episode from the Bible, the parable of the prodigal son, “such as it is found in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter XV”.
It is this exceptional material that the historian, essayist and writer René Merle had the excellent idea of analyzing by focusing exclusively on the area of the dialects of Oc, Franco-Provençal and Catalan (1). A work from which a major observation emerges: if, at that time, the francization of the country advanced for good or bad, France was still profoundly multilingual.
Francization is progressing… “The study and practice of the language Francoise have made significant progress in all classes of citizens since the Revolution”, welcomes the prefect of the Mont-Blanc department, like several of his colleagues. Multiple factors contribute to this movement. The “circulation of travellers”; the return to their homes of the soldiers of the Napoleonic armies; the arrival of ever-increasing populations in the cities; the need to know the laws. Not to mention the loss of political independence of formerly independent provinces, such as Provence or Béarn, where Provencal and Gascon respectively had official status.
… unevenly. However, the situation remains contrasted because the progress of the national language mainly concerns urban centers and notables. In popular circles and in the countryside, Occitan (2) remains largely in the majority. “It is especially in the mountains that constant isolation maintains old habits”, deplores the investigator from Isère.
Let’s qualify again. If part of the population is bilingual, it is most often unbalanced bilingualism. We practice French, of course, but few are those who master it perfectly or exclusively. South of the Loire, the oc continues to dominate, even if words from the national language are gradually being introduced, especially among the new generations. “In Montpellier, old people say croupa, bara, crema while the young people say bought, closed, brullâ”, notes the investigator from the Hérault department.
The taste for French is even more marked among the privileged classes, anxious to distinguish themselves. This can be seen in Marseilles. “For “house”, the people say “houstaou”, the bourgeois and traders “but where”. “Handkerchief” is said in some “lou moucadou”, in others “lou handkerchief””.
pejorative speech. Unlike Abbé Grégoire’s famous report on the “need to annihilate patois” (1794), under Napoleon there was no desire for linguistic extermination. It is true that, to achieve this, it would have been necessary to establish a policy of education for all whose power did not have the will. On the other hand, the idea of a hierarchy between languages is already present. “In the mountains of our Cantal, the language is abrupt, hard and coarse”, it is thus affirmed without, of course, these eminently subjective notions being defined. In Montpellier, the investigator flatly refuses to translate the biblical parable which, according to him, would result in a “disgusting and grotesque copy of a majestic and imposing original”.
The complexes of the southern cultivated classes. These last quotes bear witness to this: many investigators, although speakers of the langue d’oc, have integrated the dominant discourse on the supposed inferiority of their so-called “dialect”. In the Hautes-Alpes, Abbé Rolland was willing to admit that “the Provençal language (2) is not devoid of interest”; “that it was, at certain times, a language superior to all those spoken in Gaul”; that it has “clarity, elegance and a certain harmony”; that “even kings admired him in their courts”. Never mind: it seems to him necessary that it now give way to the French language which, “by its clarity, its softness, its harmony and its nobility, must make forget all the jargons, called patois, leftovers from ‘a time of barbarism and ignorance’.
This attitude is reminiscent of what the writer Albert Memmi described as “the colonized complex” in an essay published in 1957 (3). He described the “shame of themselves” felt by some Africans and their propensity to try to assimilate by alienating themselves culturally. What makes the sociolinguist Romain Colonna say today: “The dominated looks at his own language and his own culture through the contemptuous eyes of the dominant. And the latter, consequently, no longer even needs to exercise any form of domination: the dominated submits himself.”
In fact, under Napoleon, the attitude of certain southerners was exactly that.
FIND VIDEOS DEDICATED TO FRENCH AND THE LANGUAGES OF FRANCE ON my youtube channel
(1) Visions of the native idiom, by René Merle. Editions Trabucaire.
(2) In the 1800s, the term “Occitan” was not in use. It is generally preferred the designation “provençal”, taken in the generic sense to qualify all the dialects of oc.
(3) Portrait of the colonizedby Albert Memmi, Gallimard.
READ ELSEWHERE
With RegionLanguagesall regional languages just a click away
This site set up by Florian Lefebvre and Quentin Lefebvre offers several entries. Audiovisual resources in regional languages that can be consulted free of charge; a collaborative project enriched thanks to the contents proposed by the Internet users, without forgetting a map allowing to discover the places and cultural events in real time. To be consulted (and fed) without moderation.
Should we double the Quebec series in France?
This decision by Canal + about the series The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up shocks Quebecers. “The Francophonie, underlines this article of The Press, it is not a metropolis that imposes its language everywhere in the world, without reciprocity. It’s a give-and-take relationship.”
Discover the new edition of the “barometer of world languages”
Number of speakers, official status, obtaining international literary prizes… Using 13 criteria, linguists Alain and Louis-Jean Calvet have drawn up an analysis grid describing the state of health of the world’s languages. An open approach that allows everyone to create their own ranking based on the indicators that seem most relevant to them. The data for the latest edition has just been published.
Good news: ChatGPT speaks Breton
The artificial intelligence is able to speak (almost) in Breton. An important asset for a minority language, which this conversational agent allows to anchor in modernity, as this article from the Telegram.
A petition for place names in Gallo
The Chubri institute is launching the petition “Du gallo sur la route: let’s urgently list the names of places!” signed by 35 associations and more than 1,000 people. It was addressed to the Prime Minister, to the regional councils of Brittany and Pays de la Loire, to the departmental councils of Pays Gallo (Côtes-d’Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique and Morbihan), as well as to the metropolises and towns of Rennes and Nantes. Its objective: to obtain a signage of place names in Gallo across Upper Brittany where this Romance language was and is still in use.
New edition of the French-Occitan Limousin-Marche-Périgord dictionary
Yves Lavalade has just published the fourth edition, revised and expanded, of the French-Occitan dictionary in its Limousin-Marche-Périgord variant. A rich work of some 80,000 words (ie more than a Petit Robert or a Petit Larousse, which contain around 65,000). It is on sale in Limoges in the Anecdotes and Page et Plume bookshops.
Conference in Pessac on February 25: “How to save Occitan?”
This is the question I will try to answer in the auditorium of the Pessac media library (Gironde) on Saturday February 25 at 3 p.m. during the study day (study days) organized by the Calendreta school in this town near Bordeaux. To do this, I will rely in particular on the ideas developed in my latest book Save regional languages (Editions Heliopoles).
TO LISTEN
Education: the voice of teachers plays on the confidence of students
It is an English study which confirms it: the pupils are very sensitive to the voice of their teacher, who can therefore motivate them… or give them the desire to rebel.
TO WATCH
Gwennyn is an important figure in Breton song. “Author-composer-performer”, she regularly performs on European stages and of course in Brittany, like here where she performs Son ar Chistr. A title recorded in Quimper, as part of the France Television program “Les Copains d’abord”, where she is accompanied by Tri Yann and Gilles Servat. Also discover his latest album titled Imram.
Original lyrics
Son Ar Chistr
Ev chistr’ta Laou, rak chistr zo mat, loñla
Ev chistr’ta Laou, rak chistr zo mat
Ev chistr’ta Laou, rak chistr zo mat
Ur blank, ur blank ar chopinad loñla
Ur blank, ur blank ar chopinad
Ar chistr zo graet’vit bout evet, loñla
Hag ar merc’hed’vit bout karet
Karomp pep hini e hini, loñla’Vo kuit da zen kaout jealous
N’oan ket c’hoazh tri miz eureujet, loñla
‘Ben’vezen bemdez chikanet
Lâret’oa din’oan butuner, loñla
Ha lonker sistr ha merc’hetaer
French translation
So drink some cider, Guillaume,
Because the cider is good
A penny, a penny, the glass
Cider is made to be drunk
And girls to be loved
Let’s each love our each
And there will be no more jealousy
I hadn’t been married for three months
That I was disputed every day
They said of me that I was fickle
Cider drinker and womanizer
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