# Why does France not recognize its regional languages?



## Pedro y La Torre

After reading about the position of Occitan, Breton and Basque vis-a-vis French, I cannot understand why the French government refuses to recognize its regional languages. 

Occitan which is spoken over a huge area including parts of Spain and Italy has no recognized status, while a French Basque cannot address a court in his own language while rather bizzarely someone from the Spanish Basque country can, as they are not French citizens.

What is the reasoning behind this blatant policy of linguicide?


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## Athaulf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> After reading about the position of Occitan, Breton and Basque vis-a-vis French, I cannot understand why the French government refuses to recognize its regional languages.
> 
> Occitan which is spoken over a huge area including parts of Spain and Italy has no recognized status, while a French Basque cannot address a court in his own language while rather bizzarely someone from the Spanish Basque country can, as they are not French citizens.
> 
> What is the reasoning behind this blatant policy of linguicide?



It's a direct corollary of the ideology of nation-state that was born (for the most part) out of the French Revolution and the subsequent political, military, and intellectual turmoils. The French _Ancien Régime_ is usually portrayed -- quite naively, I might say -- as an omnipotent centralized monarchy, but in reality, the kings' ability to project power on the ground was severely limited by the different local customs, traditions, and social and political institutions throughout France. However, ever since the _Ancien Régime _was swept away by the French Revolution, the subsequent French governments have striven -- quite successfully -- to crush any regional specificities and replace them by the centralized power of the nation-state. 

For any powerful central government, the greatest danger for its authority is the possibility that large numbers of people might feel loyal to some identity other than the official one on which the ideological justification of the centralized state is based. Hence the need to fight the regional identities, which in the case of France have a rich history, both political and cultural. Of course, destroying the local language, or at least relegating it to an officially inferior status, is one of the most effective methods for destroying the local identity itself.


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## laurent568

FR
Ce que dit Athaulf est exact, mais il faut préciser toutefois que, depuis quelques années, les langues régionales ne sont plus purement "ignorées". Certains efforts ont été faits, et, même si c'est symbolique, la "Délégation à la langue française" (un office du ministère de la Culture) a été renommée "Délégation à la langue française et aux langues de France". Voyez le site (xxx. culture. gouv. fr/culture/dglf, rubrique "Langues de France", et notamment l'étude Les langues de France dans le droit (xxx. culture. gouv. fr/culture/dglf/lgfrance/legislationLDF.pdf)

EN
What Athaulf says is exact, but it must be precised that, for some years, regional languages are no more totally ignored. Some efforts have been maid; I can give a token example: the "Delegation a la langue francaise" (an agency of the French culture ministry) became "Delegation a la langue francaise et aux langues de France". You can see the site (xxx.culture.gouv.fr/culture/dglf, "Langues de France", and this study, that is on this site: Les langues de France dans le droit.

(Sorry for the links, you'll have to delete the spaces, but I can't make links since I'm a new member.)


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## Outsider

This is not the case just in France. It has been so everywhere in Europe since the Enlightenment, and outside Europe as well. Only in the late 20th century did the trend begin to be reversed, in some places, but by then it was rather late for many languages. In fairness, Occitan and the other regional languages of France have relatively few speakers today -- much less so than Catalan -- and it's legitimate to ask how much would be gained from protecting them at this point in time.

Although negative attitudes towards the languages of underprivileged groups have always existed as far as we can tell, I agree to a large extent with Arrius' explanation above: the most vicious onslaught against them began with the social construction of the "nation-state", in the Enlightenment.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outsider said:


> In fairness, Occitan and the other regional languages of France have relatively few speakers today -- much less so than Catalan -- and it's legitimate to ask how much would be gained from protecting them at this point in time.



Really? Occitan has  610,000 native speakers in France (according to 1999 census) and as many as up to 7 million _passive_ speakers, thus I think quite a lot would be gained from protecting it. Let's not forget that since Catalan became an offical language, many more people have learned it than was the case under Franco.


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## Outsider

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Really? Occitan has  610,000 native speakers in France (according to 1999 census) and as many as up to 7 million _passive_ speakers, thus I think quite a lot would be gained from protecting it.


Maybe. That's a difficult and subjective matter which I do not wish to argue. Just don't forget that there's also a price to be paid by society for protecting a minority language: you must (should) finance bilingual schools, pay extra teachers, print bilingual public notices, subsidize bilingual public media, etc. If Occitan were the only minority language in France, that might not be much of a problem, but are you aware of how many more minority languages there are in France? Not to mention that some Occitan speakers would like to split it up into a constellation of distinct languages.



Pedro y La Torre said:


> Let's not forget that since Catalan became an offical language, many more people have learned it than was the case under Franco.


Let me be perfectly clear, then: at the end of Franco's regime in Spain there were already fewer speakers of Occitan in France than there were of Catalan in Spain.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outsider said:


> Just don't forget that there's also a price to be paid by society for protecting a minority language: you must (should) finance bilingual schools, pay extra teachers, print bilingual public notices, etc.



It's done in Spain and the sky hasn't fallen in, I don't see why it could not work in France.  Surely it's better to recognize languages than forbidding and shaming them to near extinction? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha



Outsider said:


> Let me be perfectly clear, then: at the end of Franco's regime in Spain there were already fewer speakers of Occitan in France than there were of Catalan in Spain.



Sure. But the point is that since Catalan has been encouraged rather than being supressed, the number of people learning the language has increased. There is no reason why the same cannot happen for Occitan and/or other regional languages in France.


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## Outsider

Pedro y La Torre said:


> It's done in Spain and the sky hasn't fallen in, I don't see why it could not work in France.


Because the regional languages of France have fewer speakers? 
Anyway, I'm just playing the Devil's advocate. I agree with your basic point of view concerning minority languages.


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## chics

Occitan is the second "language without Estate" most spoken in Europe, after Catalan. It's official in a region of Catalonia (in Vall d'Aran), where it's learned at school, employed in documentation, etc.

And yes, multilinguism is more expensive. As always. Freedom and democracy, too. It's more expensive to have senators, members of parliaments, judges, etc. than an only King who have all the power. It's more expensive for a country to pay school for everybody, and a good health system for every citizen, for example...


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## Athaulf

Pedro y La Torre said:


> But the point is that since Catalan has been encouraged rather than being supressed, the number of people learning the language has increased. There is no reason why the same cannot happen for Occitan and/or other regional languages in France.



Unfortunately, once the decay of a language proceeds beyond a certain point, even the most vigorous efforts to revive it are doomed to failure. The best example is probably the Irish language. Catalan was rescued before it was too late, but regrettably, it seems that Occitan and other regional languages of France are already past the point of no return.


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## Drechuin

Athaulf said:


> It's a direct corollary of the ideology of nation-state that was born (for the most part) out of the French Revolution and the subsequent political, military, and intellectual turmoils. The French _Ancien Régime_ is usually portrayed -- quite naively, I might say -- as an omnipotent centralized monarchy, but in reality, the kings' ability to project power on the ground was severely limited by the different local customs, traditions, and social and political institutions throughout France. However, ever since the _Ancien Régime _was swept away by the French Revolution, the subsequent French governments have striven -- quite successfully -- to crush any regional specificities and replace them by the centralized power of the nation-state.



It's much older than the revolution. It officially began in 1539 with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts.

I believe that most languages (except Breton, with the Diwan schools) have no hope of being revived any longer. They may be part of the regional history, but no more of the regional living culture (amongst the people I know who are less than 40, the only one who understand slightly regional langages use it to understand the elders, but never use it themselves. It's just my personnal experience of course).
To be honest, I think that the _Éducation Nationale_ should focus on teaching French firstly -since we keep hearing how dreadful the students' mastery of the langage has become-, before regional langages.


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## TraductoraPobleSec

Drechuin said:


> To be honest, I think that the _Éducation Nationale_ should focus on teaching French firstly -since we keep hearing how dreadful the students' mastery of the langage has become-, before regional langages.


 
But, dear, Drechuin, with all respect, this is how cultures are killed. This is how the genocide of languages and cultures starts. I am a strong believer that language centralism is very dangerous, a monster. Even in Catalonia there is centralism, being Barcelona such a powerful and important city, and sometimes people tend to discriminate forms of the language which are considered "dialectal", which is totally wrong in my opinion.

I really do believe that it would have been wonderful if France had not carried out such language policies .

Best regards to everyone.


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## Athaulf

Drechuin said:


> It's much older than the revolution. It officially began in 1539 with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts.


True, but this legislation merely stipulated the use of French in official documents that were of concern to the royal government. This was still a far cry from the later policies of active suppression of other languages with the goal of their total replacement by French in all areas of life. Such policies started only after the Revolution -- the pre-revolutionary kings had neither the means nor the inclination for such measures.


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## MarX

Some differences between Valencian and Occitan which haven't been mentioned yet:

1. Barcelona rivals Madrid in many aspects, and it has proven itself to be able to keep up.
2. Catalan never ceased to be spoken by the upper classes of the society. And they never saw it as being inferior to Castilian. Hence they saw no need of switching to Castilian to be more "sophisticated".
3. Catalan dialects are fairly homogeneous, whereas Gascon and Provençal, to take an example, are pretty far apart.
4. Related to above mentioned point, there are more separatist movements in Occitan than in Catalan, where the only major one exists in València.

Point 1 and 2 have to do with prestige; 3 and 4 with uniformity and unity.

I'm not sure, either, if Occitan is really "savable".


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## avok

In France, be it breton or be it someone who speaks occitan (if there is any), anyone/everyone "feels" French. And this is a national pride. They just dont want to / dont need to address a court in their regional language. I had breton friends and they could not speak the language and they were not interested in learning it either. I dont know what you mean by "recognize" but bretons can enjoy the right of learning breton at school.
Catalan, Basque in Spain... Spain is an exceptional case. Every country has its own conditions, policies, national constructions that make them different than any other country including Spain. Spain may recognize its local languages but on the other hand all latin america speaks spanish!! Is that fair? European local languages in France are more important than indigenous languages in Latin America? Do you know how many languages, dialects there are all around the world? Is it practical/sensible to adress a court in a language spoken by only 10 people for instance? Then why do we have states? why do we have nations?


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## MarX

avok said:


> Catalan, Basque in Spain... Spain is an exceptional case. Every country has its own conditions, policies, national constructions that make them different than any other country including Spain. Spain may recognize its local languages but on the other hand all latin america speaks spanish!! Is that fair? European local languages in France are more important than indigenous languages in Latin America? Do you know how many languages, dialects there are all around the world? Is it practical/sensible to adress a court in a language spoken by only 10 people for instance? Then why do we have states? why do we have nations?


 
In my previous post I simply comparingly demonstrate the situation in Southern France and Spanish Levante.
A simple fact is that the circumstances for Catalan in Spanish Levante, especially Catalonia, have been more favourable than the ones for Occitan in Southern France.
Nothing more, nothing less.

If we start pointing at others saying "That's not fair!" like little children, there will be no end to this.

Btw, there are enough examples of states and nations which have more than one official languages, and they work just fine.

All I'm saying is that we should rather focus on the real situation in a specific region and reasonably think about what steps could be taken and/or whether they would be worth it.

The childish attitude of pointing at others won't bring us anywhere.


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## Sepia

samanthalee said:


> Can't say I agree on this. China, for example, is also killing its regional Chinese languages; even though the written form of these Chinese languages are the same. That is, printed public notices and printed public media don't have to be "bilingual". (Think of Hong Kong, where we have spoken Cantonese but written Chinese based on Mandarin syntax.)
> 
> On the other hand, it is protecting the Tibetan and Mongolian languages even though their written forms are definitely different from written Chinese (and hence extra costs on printing bilingual public notices, subsidizing bilingual printed public media).
> 
> Financing bilingual schools, and paying extra teachers isn't that big a hurdle either. If so many countries can make learning of English compulsory, on top of the countries' native languages, I don't see what's so difficult for France to have bilingual schools for its own regional languages.
> 
> The reason for any country to not recognize its regional languages must be political.



You are perfectly right. Surpressing parts of a population's culture has always efficient tactics when someone is trying to increase his power. It has been done by introducing new religions by force and it has been done by destroying probably the most important part of a culture - the language. 

Who is trying to destroy a culture is not aiming for democracy.

Of course bilinguality in a region costs money. Having around 20 official languages in the EU institutions also costs a huge amount of money in terms of translations and interpreter services. (Remember, all possible language combinations of 20 languages means 400 interpreters working at the same time).

Such a huge amount that it costs every EU citizen something like 1 Euro a month, as far as I have heard. Big numbers but we are a big population too. 

So the basic question to ask is: What is the price of democracy? Your life? Or 1 Euro a month for the interpreters? All depends on where in the world you are, doesn't it.


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## cuchuflete

I look at the thread question:  *Why does France not recognize its regional languages?* 
and then I see posts talking about conditions in places other than France.  These tell me how things have been and how they may be changing outside of France.  I read threads talking about the costs of democracy.  I'm still left wondering, as Pedro y La Torre was way back in post 1, "I cannot understand why the French government refuses to recognize its regional languages."

I can share the historical viewpoint of some members that consolidation of centralized control of a nation led to the imposition of a single national language
during a past time.  That doesn't answer the question implied in the thread title: Why are things in France as they are _today_?  Would some form of official recognition and/or support for regional languages today be a threat to anything essential to French culture or political stability or prosperity?  Is there nothing more at play here than inertia?

I would very much appreciate the views of French natives, non-natives living in France, or others with some genuine, informed insights into conditions in France (which is not Ireland or China or Paraguay or Catalonia or Switzerland or Maine, U.S.A., or any other multi-lingual place with or without state support or state suppression of multiple languages for whatever local reasons may obtain...) as to
why regional languages *in France, today*, do not have official recognition.


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## Kajjo

I can only contribute an outsider's point of view, which should be discussed by French natives. My feeling is that the French are very proud and protective about French and lovingly nurse language culture. With such a focus, e.g. avoiding English terms in official language, it is clear to me that the vast majority of French would not want to see French being only "one of many" languages in France. Given clear majorities, it is no wonder why the French do as they currently do.

Let me add my personal opinion, too. I believe that a common language is one of the most important factors to make individual persons feel like a people. Even dialects can be a factor of separation, but not understanding each other's native language would feel really weird to me.

I see very clearly the huge advantages a single official language carries. No doubt about which law in which language is decisive, no need to publish in several native languages, every citizen speaks at least one common language and so on. I would not want to sacrifice these advantages. 

Kajjo


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## Nanon

Well... I am not certain that "such a vast majority" of the French would not like to see the French language as "one of many languages in France", provided that the use of these local languages does not cause an empoverishment of French.

It is true that throughout centuries and regimes, state policies eventually succeeded in establishing the French language as the only official language of France. Needless to say, the use of local or regional languages was a strong social marker, the use of these languages was prohibited and punished outside the family circle, etc. However, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) was not aimed as suppressing local languages. Rather, it imposed the use of French over Latin in legal acts. Indeed, the eradication of local languages dates back to the French revolution: the presence of many local languages was considered as a factor of division that suited the purposes of monarchists... so the use of French was imposed by force.

The current official position does not state clearly that local languages are not accepted. According to the Constitution, "the language of the Republic is French", but the law says that "nothing is opposed" to the use of local languages. 

Some sporadic initiatives for recognition or, at least, elements of these local languages appear here and there. Bilingual (private) primary schools exist in some regions. And if you arrive in Marseille by road, you will see a city sign reading _"MARSEILLE / MARSIHO"_ (the second variant is in Occitan and uses the "Mistralian" spelling traditionally used in Provence). But this will not suffice to revive a significant number of speakers. Especially if primary school learners do not go on practising these languages in secondary and superior education and in professional contexts, if no text (commercial, official, etc.) is written in these languages, if nobody uses them on national TV channels... The use of French in official and commercial texts, adverts, etc... is compulsory, but what about subtitles and bilingual versions?...


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## hald

As an answer to the original post, I think it's important to understand that France is definitely not Spain. The status of regional languages is not the same because their importance is not the same. Whatever the historical explanation is, the fact is that nowadays regional languages are mostly spoken by elders (maybe you can except corsican dialect). And that's also true concerning regional "cultures" : they are slowly being melt in "french" culture.
My great grand parents were Alsacien, Breton, Catalan, and so on. I'm simply French.

Maybe it's simply too late for any support to resuscitate these languages and cultures. And I don't know whether it's really "wrong". Things and people change, should we still be speaking latin, frankish ?
As a side note, do you know of what's happening in Belgium these days ? Did you hear about the situation in Corsica ? This is exactly why french government is not fond of encouraging regional autonomy.


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## yannalan

France did never recognize any other language than french. I went to school when Algeria was yet a french colony and there was absolutely no arabic at school.
About regional languages, basque first, then bretons, catalans and occitans ans alsatians opened schools in their language with out any help from stat first. A fter years of struggle, it is a little better, some state schools and catholic schools are bilingual in these areas. But it is difficult to open new schools, although a lot of people ask for them.
This week french Parliament voted that Tahiti government (french oversea territory) cannot use their language and must use french !
Some give the example of Belgium : would things be better there if the french speaking minority had to speak the majority's language from Ostende to Namur ?
I'm not quite sure french speaking belgians would agree....


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## Pedro y La Torre

yannalan said:


> This week french Parliament voted that Tahiti government (french oversea territory) cannot use their language and must use french



Really? That's outrageous.


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## guiño

I recommend the Wikipedia article on "Language Policy in France".   Especially check out the section on the French Revolution and Henri Grégoire´s _Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois_.


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## itka

I just read this thread now and I feel like it is quite without matter.

I'm very interested in dialects. I for one was a searcher in dialectology. All my life, I have been studying occitan languages and specially near the italian fronteer. All our dialects and languages (which are strictly the same in linguistics) have much interest. They carry lots of memories in history and in linguistics and it's my pleasure to learn them... 

But...how many people speak these dialects nowadays ? How many are interested in learning them ? Don't be silly pretending that the french government (which one ?) or french state (ours !) oppress us and coerce us to speak french ! In Occitania nearly nobody would be able to speak something else... Years ago, a free school was open here to learn the dialect. It had to close because there were not enough people interested.
In Corsica, they try to maintain their customs and their language when they are at home, but the most of young people comes to the continent to study and to work... What would they do if they spoke only their language ? Had they to learn french as a foreign language just to find a work ? I have family (my cousin's wife is a corsican) and friends in Corsica. I just report their opinion here. They all grew their children in french and wished nothing else.

As a huge majority, the french people just feel french and have no problem in speaking french. The situation is probably quite different in other countries, but I think it's a big mistake to imagine it could be compare to the french one.

_Why must I write this in english ? It does oppress me !_ _If I wrote in french a lot of readers wouldn't understand me... and if wrote it in my own dialect, who could read my post ?_


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## yannalan

I cannot agree with Itka.
Of course, if a language is never taught at school, never heard on tv and radio, it is easy to understand it is going to disappear... And people in France have been educated for a long time to consider their own mother tongue as a peasant's oral language...
Of course, most people educated their children in french, you simply cannot find a job in another language ! You cannot speak local language at post-office, courts,...
We are not all dead yet, and we try hard to go on... But France is the worst country in Europe anong with Greece and Turkey....


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## itka

Yannalan, je ne veux pas parler de la situation de la Bretagne que je connais mal. Je sais que les Bretons sont attachés à leur langue pour des raisons culturelles que je comprends fort bien, mais j'évalue mal la situation linguistique de cette région. Toutefois, tous les Bretons que j'ai rencontrés parlaient exactement la même langue que moi, qui suis à l'autre bout de la France, et considéraient cette langue commune comme leur langue maternelle.

En ce qui concerne ce que je connais (essentiellement l'Occitanie) plus personne ne parle habituellement le dialecte, sinon pour des raisons folkloriques (je ne peux vous dire les difficultés que j'ai pu avoir pour trouver des informateurs !).  Pourquoi devrait-on l'enseigner à de jeunes enfants qui ne l'ont jamais entendu chez eux, ne le comprennent pas et n'ont aucune chance de pouvoir l'utiliser un jour dans un contexte normal ?

Je ne parle pas du passé (au début du vingtième siècle) où, en effet, les enfants des écoles étaient contraints de parler français alors qu'ils entendaient chez eux, leurs parents parler un dialecte. Je parle d'aujourd'hui. Aucun de mes amis, chercheurs en dialectologie, ni moi-même, n'avons jamais parlé le dialecte. Nos parents savaient en dire quelques mots. Nos grands-parents le parlaient occasionnellement, pour rire... et pour situer les choses, ma grand-mère la plus jeune était née en 1889...

Pourquoi vouloir donner l'idée que les Français sont contraints de parler français ? C'est notre langue maternelle, la seule que nous connaissions depuis l'enfance ! Je ne crois pas qu'il y ait en France des enfants (français) dont la seule langue soit un dialecte opprimé. 

Nous sommes contraints d'étudier l'anglais pour communiquer avec les autres et comprendre les publications scientifiques. Que voudriez-vous ? Que nos enfants parlent un dialecte et étudient _deux_ langues pour vivre au XXIe siècle ? Pourquoi dans ce cas ne pas leur enseigner le latin comme langue maternelle et commencer dès aujourd'hui à n'utiliser que le latin dans les communications internationales ?


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## Pedro y La Torre

itka said:


> Que voudriez-vous ? Que nos enfants parlent un dialecte et étudient _deux_ langues pour vivre au XXIe siècle ?



Pourquoi pas ? Les catalans le font ainsi qu'un grand nombre des basques (même en France), belges etc.

Rappelons-nous que les hollandais peuvent parler deux, trois même quatre langues et c'est "normal" là-bas. Même chose pour la Scandinavie où presque tout le monde peut parler anglais ainsi que les autres langues scandinaves.

Sinon toutes les petites langues vont disparaître et nous allons tous finir par parler anglais, espagnol, français ou une autre grande langue et qui veut cela ?


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## cirrus

Is not some of the problem to do with the fact that some of the languages overlap with those of other countries? Having lived on the border with France, I can tell you that there are Germans who fall about laughing when people talk about alsacien as though it was a separate language. If you go from Kehl over the pont de l'Europe to Strasbourg whether you call the local dialect badisch or alsacien: it is the same language. 

It strikes me that France as a nation has struggled to admit that its preferred language has expanded and become dominant in areas where many people speak/ used to speak/once spoke different languages. Nice, Languedoc, Pays Basque, Bretagne would all serve as examples.  Dialects they may be, but they are dialects of other languages. I don't know whether it is apocryphal, but did not Napoleon say "Une langue est un dialecte avec une armée?


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## yannalan

About dialects ne may consider alsatian or corsican as dialects of german and italian, but basque, breton or catalan are not. But every one looking to destroy a language calls it first a dialect...
About arabic : we are speaking about regional languages, spoken in particular areas of France. I mean somebody really wanting to live in arabic can do it in many countries. Somebody who wants to live in breton has no other place than Brittany...
About teaching : some peomàple consider there is no need teaching languages at school, but, strange, french-speaking children have to learn french, although it is widely heard and read everywhere...
People cannot use breton or basque because gvt employees "do not havr to learn it"... And why not ? In Belgium, if you go through Eupen or St Vith, german is spoken in every office. 
The problem is in the head of french-sdpeaking people considering other languages inferior to theirs. Look at how many french speaking belgians can speak dutch and hom many dutch speaking belgians speak french....


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## Drechuin

yannalan said:


> The problem is in the head of french-sdpeaking people considering other languages inferior to theirs. Look at how many french speaking belgians can speak dutch and hom many dutch speaking belgians speak french....



Are we speaking about the policy of _France_ on regional languages, or are we talking about the moral inferiority of every people on earth speaking French?

They are two different problems, you know.


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## yannalan

We are talking about France, but we can take examples to show things can be different. It is not an affair of "morale" anyway.


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## Mate

Regrettably, this thread has gradually transformed itself into a collection of posts containing no more than chat and personal opinions, most of them now deleted. 

Should anyone have some cultural insight to add to the thread please contact one of the CD moderators.


Best regards, 

Mateamargo
CD mod


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