A tour de France in search of regional languages

Opinion: can minority languages and regional dialects like Corsican and Flemish survive in a country which has just one official language?

By Ciarán Crowley, Université de Lille

Diversity has become a prevalent term in contemporary times. It is not far away from any social or political debate, the Oscars being just one recent example. One area that has escaped the limelight, however, is that of linguistic diversity. There has been a steady steady decline in the number of speakers of regional and minority languages across Europe in the past two centuries. The trend is evident everywhere, from North Frisian in Germany to Friulian in Italy. Scots Gaelic recently made the news, as it risks soon disappearing as a community language in traditional Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland.

Anybody who has lived in France will have probably heard 'On est en France, il faut parler français!’ (we are in France; you should speak French!). Article 2 of the French Constitution states that ‘La langue de la République est le français’ (The language of the French Republic is French).

What is telling about this short constitutional command is that it’s in the singular; France has one official language and it is French. This has long belied the reality in a country where many tongues have been spoken. It also ignores history and the rich tapestry of dialects and languages that criss-crossed France: from Flemish in the North, Alsatian in the East, Catalan and Basque in the South West, Occitan in the South, Corsican, and Breton in the West.

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From RTÉ Archives, report on the 1987 publicaton of an Irish-Breton dictionary

This is before mentioning a host of other langues d'oïl dialects, such as Picard and Norman, which are closely-related to standard modern French, and which are chiefly located in the Northern half of France. Several languages of recent immigrants including Arabic, Polish and several more, are also spoken across the country, but that is a subject for another day.

Many advocates of regional languages across France have long argued that to recognise only one official language is an overly inflexible and unjust constitutional stance in the 21st century. It is also in stark contrast to neighbouring countries like Belgium, which recognises three official languages, Flemish, French and German, in its constitution. Further afield, South Africa recognises 11 official languages: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.

But official legal recognition is just one way to attach importance and protection for a language and its community. Many other factors influence the viability of a language, including the number of speakers, economic opportunities within the language community, competition from socially, politically or economically dominant languages (like French in France, or English in Ireland) and attitudes and perceptions of the language itself held by its speakers.

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From Talks at Google, Graham Robb talks about his book The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War

So how are regional languages doing in France? I decided to try to take a leaf out of Graham Robb's popular, award-winning book The Discovery of France, by getting on a bicycle and finding out for myself.

Robb’s book sought to explain the traditional customs, languages and way of life in each pays (or region) before they became uniform or ‘French’. This process of uniformisation or standardisation of culture, language and norms began after the French Revolution in 1789, accelerated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is now largely complete. Today everyone in France will speak French, and, contrary to popular belief, many will gladly communicate through English with tourists, especially in the big cities. That said, there are still some instances where you might hear the regional language.

French Flemish (le flamand français) has always been spoken on the French-Belgian border north of Lille, in the region traditionally known as La Flandre française. In 1999, it was estimated that the language had about 20,000 speakers, but this will have decreased since, as most speakers are old. Some efforts are now being made to revive the language, but it is arguably moribund.

From France 24 in November 2007, how the Belgian village of Linkebeek is ogged by communitary tensions over languages

I cycled around Ballieul, Godewaersvelde, Boeschepe and Hondschoote, all within the traditional area along the border with Belgian West Flanders where the language was spoken. However, I only heard French in the cafés and outside the customary boulangeries.

As one can freely traverse national borders on a bicycle, it is a curious sensation hearing one language being spoken on one side of the border before encountering another tongue almost immediately. This would not have always been the case historically. Before the creation of nation states, languages operated more as dialect continua (dialect chains), where differences in dialects only became gradually apparent over long distances. As minorities become part of a nation state, they faced greater pressure to integrate and speak the national language so these continua may now end at national borders. This process of national minority groups turning to speak the dominant language is referred to as ‘linguistic hegemony’.

I cycled from the Belgian village of Watou across the border back into the French village of Houtkerque (‘wooden church’ in Dutch). It was a scorching summer’s day and so I decided to go for a beer in an old-fashioned café. I asked for a drink and sat down. As the old lady served me, she ventured is het warm?, seeing as I was perspiring. After gathering I did not speak any form of Flemish, she then said in French, Il fait chaud (‘it’s warm’). She went back to the counter and spoke to some of her customers in Flemish and to the rest in French. It was a nice discovery to witness the French Flemish language in such a natural setting, but I wondered to what extent it will continue to be spoken on the French side of the border.

From France 24, France's complex relationship with Corsica

It's a different story on the beautiful island of Corsica, dubbed l'île de beauté in French. Having spent a mere week on the island where Napoleon Bonaparte was born, I am glad to report that one will encounter the Corsican language from time-to-time. When stopping in the shop in the mountain village of Olivese (or Livesi, in Corsican), a local came by quickly for his newspaper before rushing off. He relayed some Italian-sounding gossip to the shopkeeper before heading off on his pick-up truck,, often the vehicle of choice in the mountainous areas of Corsica.

I also heard Corsican being spoken in an Ajaccio supermarket by an elderly couple discussing the price of cheese and overheard two parking attendants in their thirties conversing in Corsican. Though French is the language you will hear most of the time, Corsican is very much alive and well on the island. Due to the island's relative isolation, strong cultural identity, regional assembly (L'assemblea di Corsica) and a political push for greater autonomy, the Corsican language is in a very different situation to that of French Flemish.

What is the relationship between younger generations and regional languages?

In an increasingly globalised world, dominated by languages such as English or French, and faced with debates around diversity, it is timely to look at the place of regional, minority and lesser-spoken languages. How is linguistic diversity valued in our modern world? What is the relationship between younger generations and regional languages?

Will language shift towards the dominant national languages (French in France, English in Ireland, Italian in Italy) continue inexorably? Or, will technology and social media platforms bring dispersed language communities together in surprising and revitalising ways, such as Pop-Up Gaeltacht? No definitive answers, but much to ponder for regional language enthusiasts and communities alike in the coming years.

Ciarán Crowley is a law lecturer (professeur certifié affecté dans l'enseignement supérieur) at Université de Lille, France

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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