The Story of French
Read The Story of French Online
Authors: Jean-Benoit Nadeau,Julie Barlow
Contents
Linguistic Map of France in the Middle Ages
Map of the French-Speaking World
Chapter 1 The Romance of French
Chapter 2 In French and Not Otherwise
Chapter 5 The Language of Genius
Chapter 6 Revolutionary French
Chapter 11 The Power of Attraction
Chapter 12 The Invention of Cultural Diplomacy
Chapter 13 A New Playing Field
Chapter 17 The Struggle for Standards
Chapter 18 Protecting the Future
Chapter 20 The Unwritten Chapters
Acknowledgments
This book was a big project, and if we managed to research and write it in less than thirty months, it’s because a great number of people and institutions gave us financial, intellectual and moral support.
Among our backers we would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for its considerable financial assistance at an early stage of the project. We were thrilled (and a little relieved) that our three original editors, Michael Schellenberg of Knopf Canada, Michael Flamini of St. Martin’s Press and Jeremy Robson of Robson Books, signed us on so quickly. As for our principal editor, Michael Schellenberg, his professionalism, flexibility, wise observations and guidance have been a great source of reassurance to us during every stage of the process. We also received support in the form of grants from Jacques Saada, Canada’s minister responsible for the Francophonie; Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, Quebec’s minister of international affairs and the Francophonie; Line Beauchamp, Quebec’s minister of culture and communications; and Nathalie Normandeau, Quebec’s minister of tourism and regional affairs. Diane Audet, of the Air France office in Montreal, arranged for special ticket prices for some of our travels.
It would be impossible to thank the couple of hundred people we interviewed for this book, but some individuals made a particularly important intellectual contribution, for which we are especially grateful. Linguist Henriette Walter, who has authored many books, was something of an intellectual godmother to us. Abdou Diouf, secretary-general of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, supported our project wholeheartedly from the start, as did Alain Marquer, vice-president in charge of development for the Fédération des Alliances françaises. Xavier North, then director of cultural cooperation and French language at France’s ministry of foreign affairs; Laurent Personne, cabinet director of the French Academy’s permanent secretary; and Bernard Cerquiglini, then director of the Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France, provided us with key institutional insight. Françoise Ploquin generously opened the archives of
Le Français dans le monde
for us. Professor Edy Kaufman, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the University of Maryland, gave us information, insights and hospitality in both Israel and the United States.
We also benefited from the help and insight of Guy Dumas, deputy minister in charge of Quebec’s Secretariat à la langue française; and of Jean-Louis Roy, president of Rights and Democracy, former Quebec delegate in Paris and former head of the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique. Astou Gueye, liaison officer at the Canadian embassy in Dakar, made our trip to Senegal an invaluable experience. Jayne Abrate and Margot Steinhart of the American Association of Teachers of French and Chris Pinet of the
French Review
all supported us warmly and opened many doors for us in the world of French teaching in the United States and beyond.
A number of specialists assisted us in the late stage of reviewing. In addition to Guy Dumas and Jean-Louis Roy, we would like to thank Professor Clyde Thogmartin of Iowa State University of Science and Technology; Professor Albert Valdman, director of the Creole Institute; and Philippe Blanchet, director of the Centre de recherche sur la diversité linguistique de la francophonie at the University of Rennes in Brittany.
Finally we would like to thank five people whose contribution had a more personal significance to us. To start with, Jean-Benoît’s father, Yvan Nadeau, got us out of a few financial pickles during our costly research. Jean-François Nantel and Valérie Lehmann offered us both friendship and the use of their Paris apartment as a pied-à-terre. Our agent, Ed Knappman, gave early impetus to the project. And finally, Peter Martin, former director of the Institute of Current World Affairs, sent us to study the French in 1999–2000. Without his support and confidence back then, we would never have dreamed of writing this book.
All these people were behind the scenes of
The Story of French
and we would like to thank them, as well as all the others who generously offered us their time and insight while we were researching and writing.
MAP 1 - LINGUISTIC MAP OF FRANCE CIRCA 1100, BEFORE THE FRENCH LANGUAGE CAME INTO EXISTENCE
This map shows the languages that pre-existed French. The shaded part of the map is present-day France. Over the centuries, the language developed out of a linguistic melting pot. Although French ultimately superseded them, most of these regional languages and dialects are still spoken today in France.
Introduction
If there was one place in the world where we never expected to hear French, it was Tel Aviv. Julie had twice travelled extensively in Israel before we started to research this book, and it had simply never occurred to her that there was a significant francophone presence there. Most Israelis speak Hebrew and English, so it’s hard to imagine that French has even a fighting chance as a second language among them. Yet the first language we heard when we stepped out of our hotel in Tel Aviv was French—a pair of women chatting at a corner store across the street.
That was a surprise, since we hadn’t gone to Israel to meet francophones. Our goal was to visit the Hebrew Language Academy in Jerusalem. We had chosen it almost randomly from among some seventy bodies that regulate language across the world to illustrate the fact that France isn’t the only country with a language academy. But when we looked at Israeli society through francophone eyes, we discovered that ten percent of Israelis speak French, including almost all the Moroccan immigrants who live there. In fact, Israel has many more French speakers than Louisiana does.
It turns out there are French-speaking communities not only in the cities of Netanya and Ashdod, but also in urban centres. Tel Aviv has a substantial francophone population; Jerusalem has a vibrant French cultural centre, Le Centre culturel français Romain Gary; a French bookstore, Librairie Vice-Versa; and a large French expatriate community. When we strolled through the Arab quarter of the Old City chatting in French, merchants beckoned us into their shops in French. When we ran into communication problems with an Israeli taxi driver who didn’t speak English, French provided a miracle solution.
Our dip into the Middle East solidified an impression that got stronger throughout our research for this book: that French is more resilient than people generally believe. No matter how people feel about France, they are still interested in the French language. Israel was a case in point. Because of diplomatic tensions over the Palestinian question, very few Israelis hold France in high esteem today. But the reputation of the French language in Israel has suffered very little by association. Jerusalem’s Centre culturel français attracts enough students to offer French courses regularly, and Israel still has two French
lycées,
plus a dozen or so French schools run by Catholic religious orders referred to as
les frères.
While the use of French is probably not increasing in Israel, it is holding its own, as both a mother tongue and a second language.
This basic impression was confirmed everywhere we travelled to research this book, including Louisiana, the eastern United States, the Canadian Maritimes, northern Ontario, Senegal, Tunisia, Guadeloupe, Algeria, France, Belgium and Switzerland. In terms of relative numbers of speakers, French may be declining as an international language, but it has an enduring hold on the world, a level of influence that in many ways surpasses—and is even independent of—France’s.
When people think of the “French paradox,” they are usually thinking about how the French can eat rich foods and drink great quantities of wine yet somehow remain slim. But there is another French paradox, this one about the language: In spite of the ascendancy of English, French has held on to its influence. Where did this influence come from, and how has French retained it? These are the questions we set out to answer in
The Story of French.
As an international language, French is said to be waning. English not so long ago surpassed French as the world’s lingua franca and is now the undisputed international language of business, diplomacy and academic exchange. In numbers of speakers, French ranks only ninth in the world, far behind Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and English, and neck-and-neck with Portuguese. It has relatively little economic clout; the combined GDP of the countries where French is spoken places it far behind English, well behind both Japanese and German, and just ahead of Spanish. French speakers seem to be so insecure that they pass laws banning other languages and spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars making sure their language gets used in literature, music and film.
