The Story of French

Nadeau, Jean-Benoit and Julie Barlow. The Story of French. 2006, 483p. ISBN 978-0-312-34184-8. 440.9 NAD on the library shelves.

The Story of French presents a concise history of the French language from its inceptions out of the ruins of the Roman Empire to today’s dynamic and evolving environment stretching across all continents and in more than 53 countries. But it is not simply a story of the language. The authors aim not only to explain how French transformed and changed over the last 1,500 years, but also answer the less asked question, why did French become the second most popular second language on the planet.

French evolved out of Latin and was heavily influenced by Frankish and germanic influences. 

Originally, what we refer to as French was only spoken in the area centered around Paris. French evolved organically until the 15th century when Francois I acceded to the throne of France. Following the Hundred Years War, the kingdom of France found itself isolated. To counteract losses to the territory and a loss of European influence, Francois I “was the first French king to create a policy for the promotion of culture and to link it specifically to the French language” (p 49). The king specifically tied the use of language to the culture of the Paris region and began exporting it throughout the kingdom in an organized fashion, both to promote France and to support his own claim to ultimate power. He figured that with a shared culture and language he would become the uncontested leader of the country, and set about creating policies that would eventually lead to the unification of the French state and to the autocratic rule of future French kings.

Other kings continued to support Francois’ policies of cultural and linguistic exports, until Cardinal de Richelieu created the Academie Francaise with the purported goal of creating a French dictionary, but in fact entrusted with monitoring and emphasizing a set of rules on the language to standardize and export it to the rest of France. By the 1600s, more than ⅔ of the country did not speak French but rather variations. The Academy was designed to create a set of standards that led to language purity: “... the ethics of purism that inspired the Academy’s creation would have a major impact on how French evolved over the centuries. Since the seventeenth century, French authors and grammarians have had the objective of clarity in mind, not just to produce a language that is precise, but also to make French comprehensible to as wide a public as possible” (p. 82). This language was then employed at Court and exported to the other royal courts throughout Europe as France gained continental supremacy.

Successive wars and revolutions did not change the appeal of the French language and culture. All treaties negotiated in Europe until the end of World War I were written in French first then translated in the various national languages. Following the revolution, the central government in Paris decided that the best way to spread French not only outside its borders but within it was to institute national education standards and force all children to go to school. A difficult standard to implement at first, it was not until the mid 1800s that this goal was realized. At the same time, as all instructors were formed in Paris and sent to the provinces, they were embued during their training with a conception of the language that was clearly Parisian: “Possessed by the idea of a pure language, teachers began pushing an idealized, bourgeois version of French on schoolchildren. They started a tradition of drilling generations of kids to write purely and perfectly by imitating the classics” (p. 178).

At the same time, France was expanding its colonial efforts in Africa. France’s first wave of colonies had mostly failed (Canada, Haiti, and Louisiana), but the second wave, focused on Africa, took hold. And unlike other colonizers, France created policies to force its language and culture on its new colonies: "... the real difference in French colonial techniques was not the so-called civilizing mission, it was the way they went about it. For the French, the ultimate objective of colonization was cultural assimilation … More than any other colonial power, the French were explicit, if not adamant, about the importance of educating their colonial subjects and teaching them French. So the French language became a tool for empire building." (p. 195)

The result of these cultural and linguistic policies and efforts over the year have resulted in a love of French language and culture that belie the small size and diplomatic importance of France today: “There is no doubt that France has been very successful in cultural diplomacy and in projecting “soft power” by promoting its language and culture across five continents for the last century and a half. The surprising result seems to be that the French language today is more popular than France itself” (p. 274).

French-speaking countries, and increasingly others, have implemented measures to protect their language from a perceived assault from English: “ … francophones have been effective in devising and applying measures to protect their language and culture” (p. 391). Laws have been passed requiring emphasis on French, the removal of English signs, and trade agreements that protect the “cultural exception.”  These policies have not been favored by the United States and Britain, but in the last decade, with the rise of Spanish, the United States have also begun implementing measures to protect English and attempt to prevent the language from becoming a minority language.

The authors conclude that whether French survives depends on itself and not on influences from other languages or economic conditions: “In the end, the future of French will depend on a simple question: How useful will French be to its native speakers, partial speakers and francophiles? Very few people ever learn a language just because it is beautiful. People will continue to learn and maintain French only if it provides them with access to things that are useful, productive, challenging, or beautiful” (p. 448).