Multi-lingual France acknowledged

Melvin Loh

The French have been very parochial about their language, which has meant that thruout hist the Parisian dialect has been promoted thruout the country, with regional languages like Basque, Breton, Occitan, Corsican being until very recently suppressed by the central authorities. Now, what POD could be introduced to facilitate a more tolerant French linguistic policy recognising the linguistic equality of these other regional tongues ?
 

mishery

Not sure a change of policy, other than the active support for local languages/dialects, would have made that much difference in the end. Look at the homogenization of dialect and accent going in the UK and Germany. Parisian French would have been the language of the elite and people would have adopted that to get in life. A challenge might be to come up with why a unified France might legislate to support local languages/dialects.
 

God_of_Belac

A later union. Louis XIV had a strong bureaucracy which passed pretty much unchanged to Napoleon, who was the real administrative centralizer. If by 1789 France was more fragmented and Napoleon was unable to push through his centralizing plans, regional dialects would be less threatened.
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
Melvin Loh said:
The French have been very parochial about their language, which has meant that thruout hist the Parisian dialect has been promoted thruout the country, with regional languages like Basque, Breton, Occitan, Corsican being until very recently suppressed by the central authorities. Now, what POD could be introduced to facilitate a more tolerant French linguistic policy recognising the linguistic equality of these other regional tongues ?
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I guess one reason is that 'France' is a made-up country. Its extent was not determined by the settlement of the Franks but by their military dominance over others, and later by how much central authority the kings could weild (sometimes bugger all). Thus when in a position to exercise control, putting down local differences served to foster a French identity throughout the country, something that was not naturally there before

Grey Wolf
 

MerryPrankster

How exactly was the Parisian dialect promoted throughout the country?

How exactly they did it will affect the POD. Was it forced, or did people come to speak it via "market forces" (learning it to get a better job)?
 

Faeelin

Banned
Grey Wolf said:
I guess one reason is that 'France' is a made-up country. Its extent was not determined by the settlement of the Franks but by their military dominance over others, and later by how much central authority the kings could weild (sometimes bugger all). Thus when in a position to exercise control, putting down local differences served to foster a French identity throughout the country, something that was not naturally there before
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And this is different from "real" countries like The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland how?
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
Faeelin said:
And this is different from "real" countries like The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland how?
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Nope, not different at all which is why it is still illegal to speak Welsh in the House of Commons, why children in Wales, Scotland etc had their local language culture sat upon by English etc

The argument works fine for both IMHO

Grey Wolf
 
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