Is it true that in the 1860s only 20% of the French population regarded themselves as French, or spoke the French language?

star_gazer

I doubt it, the French are famous for their patriotism and love of their language. Mar 26 07, 1:29 PM

Baloo55th

I would doubt it, too. However, in the 1860s there were areas taken over from Italy where there were Italian speakers (still are some), areas where German was spoken (Alsace), areas where Breton was spoken (Brittany), and areas where Occitan/Provencal were spoken (south of France. Most of these people (except perhaps the Italians who had only just been taken over) spoke French as well as their local language, and regarded themselves as French citizens in the same way that English, Welsh and Scots regard themselves as British. Back then, too, Occitan was regarded as a dialect of French rather than a language in its own right, and along with Breton, German and the two I forgot to mention above, Basque and Corsican was discouraged by the authorities. Education was in French, and the local languages had to be learned at home. The population was centred largely on Paris and the northern industrial areas, which were French speaking to begin with (except for Alsace). Mar 26 07, 2:04 PM

lanfranco

20% would certainly be far too few for the 1860's, but this site indicates that in 1789, a good 50% of the "French" couldn't speak the language we now know as standard French, they spoke their regional tongues, some of which Baloo has mentioned. Quite likely, they would have thought of themselves as "Breton" or "Gascon" or something else, not French. However, the influence of conscription under Napoleon was apparently signficant in terms of demanding a common language, and urbanization, industrialization, and new technologies for communication would have been influential as well over the course of the 19th century. French education laws in the 1880's then completed the task of ensuring that all the French could communicate with one another: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French Mar 26 07, 2:18 PM

author

In his book "Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914" Eugen Weber claims that in 1863 just 20% of the French population regarded themselves as French or spoke the French language. Mar 27 07, 11:28 AM

Baloo55th

Weber's conclusions are rather disputed, and he has a certain reputation in academic circles that is, shall we say, dubious. I quote: "Picking on Eugen Weber is kind of like making jokes about Dubya's intelligence ... at this point it's just so easy that the fun has more or less gone out of it altogether" (their ... not mine). http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2005/07/latbr_thumbnail.html He's also criticised (to put it mildly) at http://todgoldberg.typepad.com/tod_goldberg/2005/07/i_just_cant_wai.html I also think this quote from Weber says something: "Given imagination and the talent, I would have been a writer of fiction." Apart from which, Robert Fulford in his Globe and Mail column reviewing a book by Weber says: "Old France had been a cluster of many societies, speaking many languages, and in the 1860s a fifth of the citizens couldn't speak French." That's 20% couldn't, not only 20% could. I would accept that figure for the 1860s in France, given my post above. Mar 27 07, 12:24 PM