U.S. English Foundation Research
FRANCE
Language Research
8. Miscellaneous: What else can be found about languages and minorities?
Paris, April 15, 2000- "In the colloquium organized by UNESCO in Paris in the framework of the European Day of Languages, representatives from Breton cultural associations and federations -together with others from Occitanie, Corsica, Alsace, the Basque Country, the overseas departments and Poitou Saintongeais- devoted themselves to the discussion on the refutation of the French Constitutional Council's decision to block the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages considering this would contravene the second article of the French Constitution. The colloquium focused mainly on the fact that the ratification would not imply any change in the juridical regulations as regards the role of lesser-used languages in France, as it is stated in the general principles of the document's preamble." (http://www.troc.es/ciemen/mercator/index-gb.htm)
According to the results of a survey carried out by an institute of research on public opinion in April 2000, 83% of the polled population would agree with the French ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the European Council. While 79% proved to be in favor of a constitutional modification, in case it was necessary.
The French government and the President of the Corsican Assembly have finally agreed on a proposal to be presented before the Corsican Assembly on July 28. This text deals with the future status of the island. A first phase should be observed between 2000-2002 in which there would be a large transfer of elementary power from the State to the Corsican Assembly. Within those new guidelines there is an important measure concerning the Corsican language. It is to be taught in elementary school, as part of the compulsory national program, with a possibility of withdrawal if the parents do not wish such languages classes. But above all, the relevance of the proposal is to allow for, in a second phase (2003-2004), a transfer of legislative power, which would require a constitutional reform. (http://www.troc.es/ciemen/mercator/index-gb.htm)
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Updated (March 2002)
In February, the National Institute of Surveys and Economic Studies (INSEE) published the results of its survey about the linguistic situation in France. The INSEE survey was conducted as a part of the population census questionnaire in 1999. This is the first survey of its kind in France and the results are clear: The French environment is very unfavorable to multilingualism and regional languages are endangered. There is a lack of encouraging policy for conservation and use of regional languages.
26 percent of the respondents said that his/her parents (one or both of the parents) spoke another language than French. This percentage represents 11,5 million people. Half of them quoted a minority language as the language spoken, and the other half quoted it as a foreign language. In other words, around 5,5 million people had daily contact with a minority language at the age of five. In 60 percent of the cases, the minority language was used simultaneously to French. But as consequence of the lack of a linguistic, educational and media policy for minority languages, these languages are now used seldom. The situation is worse for minority languages than for foreign languages.
610,000 people said they had Occitan as a customary language, and as first language in his/her childhood. Another 1,060,000 people said they had Occitan as their second language. The problem is to practice the language because only 37 percent of those who inherited it from his/her family speak it now.
Regarding Breton, 280,000 respondents had it as a customary language and 400,000 people had it as a second language. For Alsatian speakers, these numbers are 660,000 and 240,000.
INED's final conclusion was that there were currently
548,000 Alsatian speakers,
526,000 Occitan speakers,
304,000 Breton speakers,
and 204,000 people speaking the Oil dialects.
There are 132,000 Catalan speakers, 122,000 Corsican speakers, 78,000 Francic-Lorrain speakers and 44,000 Basque speakers. All these were considered to be daily speakers. The use of the languages within the families seems to be closely connected to big political events. A decline of regional languages can be noticed during the whole 20th century, and at the same time an acceleration of the "Francisation" phenomenon is noticed during fifteen years since the World War II.
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Updated (May 2002)
The outcome of the presidential election in France on May 5, 2002, giving Jacques Chirac an overwhelming 82 to 18 percent victory over Jean-Marie Le Pen, has caused positive reactions throughout Europe and is also called a victory of democratic values. However, for the speakers of French regional or minority languages, Chirac's victory still means no change to the current wording of the French Constitution, declaring that French is the language of the Republic. Jacques Chirac stated that he is in favor of regional languages, but he made it clear that he is not prepared to neither change the Constitution, nor to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
"Everybody says that they are in favor of regional languages - even the extremists - because they can't say that they're against them. But in reality they are," minority representatives commented after the first round of the presidential elections two weeks ago. Freedom and Equality for our Languages, a coordinated group of over twenty regional and minority language organizations in France, has however declared a firm intention to pursue their work aimed at changing the Constitution and ratifying the charter.
Source: Eurolang News, http://www.eurolang.net/
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Updated (January 2003)
USE AND TRANSMISSION OF ALSATIAN IN DECLINE
According to the results of the INSEE (the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Research) survey for the Eastern region in France, 545,000 persons over the age of 18 speak Alsatian, and around 500,000 of them do actually also live in Alsace. However, most likely they are not settled in the urban areas of Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse, where few people speak the regional language.
Based on the latest information, 51 percent of Alsatian speakers were born in Alsace. Only 16 percent of those born outside Alsace speak Alsatian.
Age also plays an important role when 60 percent of people born before 1945 speak Alsatian, compared to only 40 percent of those born after 1970. This drop in the language use started after World War II, when French was given priority and French men from other parts of the country settled in Alsace.
Only 8 percent of Alsatian speakers have not learned the language at home. The transmission of Alsatian is mainly carried out from parents to their children, but this trend has clearly declined since the beginning of the 20th Century - from 90 percent to only 50 percent in 1970s. Nowadays, 25 percent of children learn the Alsatian language from their parents.
Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, January 8, 2003, by Margret Oberhofer, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4025
A NEW REPORT CONFIRMS SHARP DECLINE IN INTER-GENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF BRETON
With 257,000 people claiming to use the language regularly, Breton is by far the top contributor to linguistic diversity in the region. It comes well ahead of English (111,600), Gallo - the other minority language spoken in Brittany (28,300) and Spanish (24,300).
According to the official report by INSEE (the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Research), 12 percent of adults speak Breton regularly overall ranging from 20 percent in Finistère (West) to 0.7 percent in Loire-Atlantique (South). This study clearly indicates that Breton is a territorial language, spoken nearly exclusively in Brittany.
However, more alarming is the age structure of the Breton speaking population and the sharp decline in the rate of transmission of the language. Half of the speakers are over 65 years old and seventy-five percent are over 50. Today, only 6 percent of children learn Breton from their parents as opposed to 60 percent in the 1920s. Interestingly, 19 percent of people who were taught Breton by both parents transmit the language to their own children as opposed to 8 percent of those who spoke Breton only with one parent.
Strikingly, 90 percent of the current speakers learnt the language from their parents. Only one out of eight learnt it with friends or in evening classes. However, according to the survey, 50 percent of those who have learnt Breton do not speak it anymore.
The Breton language is now in such a critical situation that without political willingness to support its fight for survival the language will be extinct soon.
Source: Eurolang News, Douarnenez, January 23, 2003, by Yann Rivallain, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4056
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Updated (July 2004)
IS FRENCH A LESSER-USED LANGUAGE?
France, the state that has yet to ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), can now apparently experience a feeling of having French relegated to the status of a lesser-used language.
On July 12, 2004 the Secretary General of the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF), Abdou Diouf, urged European Foreign Affairs Ministers to act on behalf of linguistic and cultural diversity and to fight the decline in the use of the French language (according to a report published on the Voilà.fr website).
The OIF organized a meeting in Brussels attended by representatives of thirteen EU member states, including the six foreign ministers. Diouf stated that even enlargement of the EU has further weakened the position of the French language. According to him, maintaining of the language diversity is not costly at all since the costs covering translations within the EU institutions are just €2 per inhabitant, what is the price for a cup of coffee.
In the meantime, "The Guardian" reported that the government of France has established a school in Avignon to teach French to ambassadors and senior state officials from the new EU members in the hope to protect the use of the language in EU institutions. A weeklong course, costing euro;1,500 per participant, is paid for by an agency of the French government and it is designed to teach practical language skills to diplomats.
Stéphane Lopez, an official in charge of the program, said for "The Guardian" that it is dangerous to encourage uniformity. She thinks that the English language is a predator, which destroys other languages. When people use English, other languages get crushed.
The goal of this program is not to turn back the clock to the times when French was a universal language of diplomacy but to increase the number of French speakers in the EU, which has dropped significantly since 1997.
However, Mr Diouf's claims are somewhat breathtaking, considering that France still continues to implement policies that destroy languages within its territory such as Breton and Occitan. Furthermore, France has still not ratified the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and has not signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, because "it would violate its Constitution, which declares French as the only language of the Republic". Recently it also failed to support efforts of the Spanish government to gain an EU treaty language status for Basque and Catalan.
Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, July 15, 2004, by Jim Fife and Davyth Hicks, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4690
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Updated (March 2007)
MORE THAN 20,000 PEOPLE MARCHED TO SUPPORT THE OCCITAN LANGUAGE
Over 20,000 people attended a march in the city of Bèsiers on 17 March 2007 to support the Occitan language. They came from all over Occitania; also, from the Val d'Aran in Catalunya, where Occitan is an official language, and from the Occitan-speaking valleys in Italy, to show how strongly they feel about future development of the language.
The organizers spoke about developing Occitan in every domain of society: in the media, in education, and in public life. In order to reach these targets, the speakers demanded that the French state must begin by changing Article 2 of its Constitution and by ratifying the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
During the demonstration, the various opinions of the French presidential candidates were given out to the demonstrators. Afterwards, a four-page paper was published by EBLUL France and by the French Association for Regional and Minority Languages and Cultures that questioned each candidate on their respective policies on regional languages. The document is available on the Cultural Council of Brittany's blog www.kuzul.info in French only.
Source: Eurolang News, March 19, 2007 by Gwenvael Jequel http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2848&Itemid=1&lang=en
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Updated (November 2007)
DIWAN SCHOOLS FAIL TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF BRETON SPEAKERS
Brittany's Diwan schools (bilingual French-Breton) were created in 1977 to protect a language that had been under attack from the centralized French state for centuries.
Today, even though a significant number of children is taught bilingually, the number of people speaking Breton, one of the country's best-known regional languages, is still falling.
In the past, the language was often treated as a dialect for the uneducated, and moves to stamp out Breton were common in state schools until the 1960s, with many older people still remembering being punished for speaking Breton at school. The old system meant that hundreds of thousands of Bretons became ashamed of their identity and culture and refused to teach their mother tongue to their children. Consequently, the number of Breton-speakers has rapidly decreased but also due to the state's attitude towards regional languages which were seen as a threat to a unified French state.
Today the situation has changed. There are bilingual French-Breton road signs posted across the western French region, and regional authorities subsidize Diwan schools to the tune of around 550,000 euros ($782,000) a year. On average, one or two new Diwan schools open each year but each creation is an uphill struggle.
Critics of Diwan describe it as a partisan organization that implicitly rejects the idea of a unified state with French as its common language. Some say that as Diwan is a school system that favors a certain community, it should not be supported by the state. Padrig Herve, president of the Divan organization, however, argues that the system fosters open-mindedness and the schools have a good academic record.
He also says that the Breton language as well as other regional languages will not survive unless they are formally recognized and supported by the State.
Source: The Gulf Times newspaper, November 5, 2007 http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=182602&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21
THE RUN TO SUPPORT BRETON
The ‘Redadeg’ (Run) – an event planned for spring 2008 and inspired by the success of the Basque “Korrika” run – aims to promote Breton language learning, to increase the language usage, and to raise money for the under-funded Diwan bilingual schools.
The ‘Redadeg’ – the run to celebrate the Breton language will start in the southern Breton city of Naoned (Nantes) and will continue non-stop for 3 days and nights over a distance of 600 kilometers. The runners will be divided into groups and relay a marathon-style baton every kilometer to the next awaiting group. The transfer of the baton from one group to another is, in fact, a symbol of intergenerational language transmission. The ‘Redadeg’ will culminate in a huge party celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Diwan.
Organizers hope to raise at least 60,000 euros for the Diwan schools from sponsorship of runners and merchandising of shirts and stickers with the event's logo.
Source: Eurolang News, November 14, 2007 by Huw Jones & Davyth Hicks http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2984&Itemid=1&lang=en
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Updated (September 2008)
A PROTEST TO DEFEND BRETON CULTURAL RIGHTS
An event combining a protest marching with a trade fair and various cultural events took place in Nantes, the historic capital of Brittany. Dozens of organizations supported the event, which called for devolution, a vote for reunification, and a new law to protect Breton language and culture.
Currently, Brittany is split between two different administrative regions, with the southern Breton department of Loire Atlantique having been appropriated into the Pays de la Loire region under the Vichy Government.
Speakers called for powers and resources to be transferred from central government to the regional government and for the Breton language to have official status.
The Culture Council of Brittany was responsible for organizing this event, marked to celebrate 10 years of the Breton Cultural Charter, with support from a number of organizations, including the Cultural Institute of Brittany, United Brittany and Diwan.
Source: Eurolang News, September 25, 2008 by Davyth Hicks http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3097&Itemid=1&lang=en
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