October 24, 2007
the discovery of france
At the time of the French Revolution of 1789, only about half of the population of that country knew French, and bilingualism was common. France continued to accommodate a myriad of tongues right through the 19th century: Flemish, Provençal, Gascon, Catalan, Basque, and so on, and many dialects and patois, as well as extraordinary variation in spoken language within regions. The diversity wasn't merely lingual: A variety of pre-Christian religious beliefs and superstitions, worldviews and ways of life flourished simultaneously in the more provincial countryside beyond Paris. Even the legal order varied greatly: In addition to the difference between regions influenced by customary law — essentially northern France — and Roman law, a variety of local systems of justice survived intact, each system bringing along with it a strong sense of belonging to one of the myriad petites patries of the hexagon.
more from The NY Sun here.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 04:26 PM | Permalink
Comments
I don't know about the book, but the review skirts around the fact that the objective of French elites has always been to destroy the diversity of France. Local languages must be exterminated and are considered treasonous. Local particularities that cover things other than food are uncivilized, and everyone must act like Parisians.
There's a strong current of forced assimiliation and top-down power in French history, and people don't often appreciate that.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Oct 25, 2007 9:21:15 AM
Quite so Hektor. Reading Mdme Bovary again recently, it is salutary to remember just how remote her little town was from the relatively "dazzeling metropolis" of Rouen, and how unimagenably distant was the fabled city of Paris. Now its an hour or two on the autoroute. In 1970's Dordogne some farmers still ploughed with horses, called themselves "payzans" in a nasal, vaguely Spanish sounding accent, and spoke patois with one another.
Its very picturesque and so on, but I think that there has to be some process of consolidation in the process of nation building. One of those endless capital-periphery, north-south, nomad-settled issues.
Posted by: aguy109 | Oct 25, 2007 11:08:43 AM
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