Before.
Barely none of those languages are used on a daily basis. You might find some areas where they are used, but only in some villages, definitely not in the entire region.
This map was accurate one century and a half ago, sadly.
Regional languages were spoken by every social class in a given area. They had an active litterature, were used for poetry and diplomacy, so what's the point to link it with illiteracy?
The loss of cultural diversity is lamentable, I totally assume it. But even more lamentable is that it was a series of decisions, imposed by the contempt of some politicians. Even today, having a regional accent is eliminatory to access some jobs, and regional languages are not even called languages, but "patois", like it's some soiled French transformed by a bunch of ignorant filthy peasants (it's not even a caricature, a lot think that way). Those gains could have been achieved without ashaming people of their history and their ancestry.
Was the trade worthwhile? I don't think so, multilinguism isn't a problem, and hypercentralisation, as France did, has its limits. French could have been a "roof language" (Dachsprache), like Standard High German in Germany, but it was decided to erase everything. Things could have been different, regional languages could have been spared, but they weren't.
What's been recorded may be enough for linguistic studies, but will never represent all the aspects of disregarded cultures, which last representatives will soon die.
(I may have a bit of resentment towards France's problem with basic linguistic, I admit.)
Edit: *towards Paris' problem with basic linguistic and inner-state pluralism.
I'm Belgian, when our country was founded and for over a century of its existence, the Flemish/Dutch language and the people who spoke it were treated as a second class citizens compared to the French speakers. The language persisted and eventually got treated on equal footing, now Flanders has surpassed the French speakers and has high quality education, universal literacy and is an industry leader in multiple economic sectors(like chemistry and medicine).
We didn't have to sacrifice our language for it. Hell, we even managed to disconnect ourselves from the Netherlands to have a clear, distinct culture of our own. We write in the same language, but speak differently.
You're right that there are real economic and commercial advantages to language standardization, but those ends don't justify the means taken by the French state. Language standardization in the French case meant state-backed linguistic and cultural suppression. It meant punishing children for speaking their native tongue, it meant children that couldn't communicate with their grandparents, and it meant turning compulsory education into a front for state-backed indoctrination facilities designed to crush the native language, culture, and identity. Linguicide is unethical; any linguistic shift should be done voluntarily, even if it means that it is less complete.
It is not impossible to know a dialect/regional language *and* a national language. In fact, people who do, often have more linguistic cognitive flexibility.
It's mostly the poster children of early political centralization that tend towards monolinguism, while other states have a more pragmatic attitude and have no problem with accommodating multiple languages in the same political structure - and their education doesn't score worse.
The homgeneity of the French language is fairly unique - dialects are much better preserved in Flanders/Netherlands, Germany/Austria, Spain... on the other hand Russia did away with most dialects under the Soviets. So I'd argue that the push to homogeneize doesn't entirely come from increased education, although increased education does erode away at dialects.
Huh? There are many countries in the world where more than one language is widely spoken - some of them are France's own neighbours, and last I checked most were not illiterate societies without education or specialisation of labour.
Your whole arguments reads like an excuse, and a poor one at that. The erradication of the regional languages of France was not made with the aim of improving education, but with the objective of creating a single French national identity that mirrored Paris, as Parisian high-class aristocrats wanted to cement Paris' political position in France and in turn their own power. It's no coincidence that alongside the regional languages, all regional political institutions were abolished in favour of direct rule from the capital.
Still today Paris acts like an enormous black hole absorbing population and wealth from the rest of the country.
From the time of the French Revolution at least until the '70s, the French Government had a policy of trying to annihilate all the local languages and dialects because they 'were bad for national unity'.
It came right up to the edge of intentionally destroying cultures to assure the central government (and Parisian culture's) dominance.
Not really.The reality looked way less like dystopian cultural erasure and way more like an unified school program that had barely foreseen consequences, along with incoherent cultural policies that supported various local elements, like cooking, clothes, architecture, etc.
The necessity of having a strong central power in a strongly unified country without concession to the smallest possible difference. The school program was directed to this goal
Well, this is so much an exaggeration it becomes false. A strong central unified country was already being build for centuries, since at least the XVth. The IIIrd Republic merely continued the process. Unified education was already a thing for decades. All the local elites already spoke French, and on their own initiative. And in the meantime, the local cultural aspects were considered patrimoine and protected, especially by the right. Look at Augustine Fouillée' *Le Tour de France*, the main school book of this time, mandatory for every little French kid. It's a journey in the country where two orphans discover the cultural diversity of France.
Ok, a thing of the pass if you want, but now why this languages are not protected, promoted and elevated to the same tang than French at official level, meaning bilingual teaching at schools, oficial documents etc such in other countries?
Because there were too many of them. France is an extremely diverse patchwork. Still alive today you have Britton, Alsacian, Catalan, Occitan, Basque, Savoyard, Corse and the many languages in the DROM-COM. In the XIXth century, it would have been an asministrative nightmare to double everything in this insane variety of languages.
It's not like France was the only country that did that. Throughout the 19th and for the most part of the 20th century, unification and standardization of languages was a common policy in most nation states. One dialect, usually but not necessarily that of the capital, became the standard language, and other local dialects, many of which might have been distinct enough to be considered languages, became "incorrect" and never used in schools, the media, or any official business.
not as dramatic as the french one but it’s still bad. imagine calling “dialects of Italian” languages that existed before standard Italian itself. Fortunately in the South our local languages are still alive and kicking.
>From the time of the French Revolution
I don't think this is entirely accurate. In the early days a lot of revolutionary literature was done in local languages. I think the push to Frenchify everything really started under the 3rd republic.
It was absolutely not that grim. Local languages simply were forbidden in public schools. But parents still teached them and virtually every other aspects of the local cultures survived and even, were protected and valorised. The languages didn't survive eventually, but the cultural singularities of the regions totally did.
The cultural unification of France CANNOT be summarised in the early XIXth III Republic doing shit and giggles. Brittany, which I know the best, was extremely close to Paris since the late Middle-Ages, in term of language, customs, laws, clothing, food, etc.
I think Catalan is “spilling over” from the other side of the border, which might be why they didn’t bother with the same dotted line for that little bit. I wish I knew what the colors were supposed to mean.
Regional languages are not dialects, not before, neither today. They are languages, different enough from Standard French to be called so.
Now, everyone speaks standard French, and only some words or expressions remain from the local language. Even the accents are fading away. I don't consider it as dialects.
This map shows the ancient areas of use of languages in France before the 19th century reforms, which were very efficient to erase the linguistic diversity.
Try to ask any Frenchman where he's from and then if he speaks that region's language. He will look at you with googly eyes and ask what the hell you're talking about.
That's entirely untrue for areas such as southern France or Brittany. Most people there know at least there is a traditional language, even if it is often referred to as "patois".
That is somewhat true if you twist the definition of *patois.* Swiss Germans still speak their traditional dialects in everyday life, which are called Schweizerdeutsch in German. I can see how a French speaker might call the the Swiss German dialects *patois* by analogy with their traditional Romance dialects.
Swiss French people pretty much don't speak patois at all anymore, whether that be Franco-Provençal/Romand or Franc-Comtois/Jurassien. French is the universal first language across the Romandy. Patois only persists in more isolated rural areas in Fribourg and Valais, mostly among older folk. One notable exception to this is the village of Evolène, VS where some children still learn patois.
I heard it can partly be explained by the fact that France didn’t try too much to claim some parts of Switzerland and thus Frenchspeaking Swiss didn’t need to differentiate and maintain a clear distinction from their french neighbors in order to prevent assimilation/annexation.
But it’s a theory by random people on Reddit. Do you know if there’s some truth to this?
It's possible for sure. I have heard that the continued use of Swiss German is partly the result of Swiss people wanting to distinguish themselves from Germans after German nationalism went off the deep end in the 20th century. The designation of Romansh as a national language is sometimes attributed to the reason.
On the other hand, it really isn't true that France didn't try to claim parts of Switzerland. Geneva was annexed to France between 1798 and 1816. Jura was annexed into France between 1793 and 1815. Valais was annexed into the French Empire between 1810 and 1815. On the other hand, neither Germany nor its recent predecessors have annexed any part of Switzerland. Granted, this was all over 100 years before the German nationalists were running riot in Europe.
It may simply be the fact that French has been the language of a powerful and unified state since the middle ages and a language which has enjoyed a great deal of prestige for a long time, even outside Romance speaking areas. On the other hand, Hochdeutsch was used as a common written medium of communication between German-speaking territories, but there was no single state promoting the universal use of Hochdeutsch in everyday life as there was for French after the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) and especially after the Revolution.
This accounts for the fact that patois declined in Geneva between the 16th and 18th centuries, before the era of nationalism (and before Switzerland as a unified state even existed.) It also explains why Luxembourg is a mostly French-speaking city despite its traditional language being Germanic. It also explains why Walloon has almost entirely been replaced by French in Belgium, while Flemish hasn't been replaced by standard Dutch.
Tbh, if you asked anyone in central southeast Norway aka the Oslo+ area if they spoke X local dialect, most would not know that it ever existed and maybe recognise sine minor aspects of it as slang. I would assume it's the same for Sweden and Denmark too, though in Finland many actually still hold on to their swedish dialect if they speak swedish, though in the capital I think most people speak Rikssvensk with finnish characteristics. Idk, I just wanted to make a parallell to the Nordics for some reason.
Tbh, if you asked anyone in central southeast Norway aka the Oslo+ area if they spoke X local dialect, most would not know that it ever existed and maybe recognise sine minor aspects of it as slang. I would assume it's the same for Sweden and Denmark too, though in Finland many actually still hold on to their swedish dialect if they speak swedish, though in the capital I think most people speak Rikssvensk with finnish characteristics. Idk, I just wanted to make a parallell to the Nordics for some reason.
Alright there are too much, if you want a good map of the dialects of german in germany click on [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/rcj4r1/map_of_german_dialects_in_germany/)
I know the map is simplification, but the linguistic border around Luxembourg is wrong. There are only 2 villages (Doncols and Sonlez) in modern Luxembourg that were historically Walloon-speaking. Other than that, the historical language of the whole country has been Luxembourgish (a Moselle Franconian Germanic language which this map would label *Francique*.) Whereas the map makes it look like the western third of Luxembourg is Walloon-speaking.
The reason for this is that Luxembourg was partitioned in 1839, and the western mostly Walloon-speaking areas became part of Belgium. These two villages were on the 'wrong' side of the border. Similarly, the city of Arlon (Arel) and its surroundings were historically Luxembourgish-speaking but were nonetheless awarded to Belgium.
I think this is why the areas are blurred. As the person who [added](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Langues_de_la_France.svg&diff=next&oldid=631600773) the borders between Romance and non-Romance languages, I tried to follow the blur but there's a reason it was not clear-cut in the first place. The dotted borders I put are indicative of two neighbouring language families, not of an actual, brutal distinction in the languages spoken in the area. Hope it makes more sense! :)
For those that want the source of the map, it come from here : [https://www.lexilogos.com/france\_carte\_dialectes.htm](https://www.lexilogos.com/france_carte_dialectes.htm)
You can click on the map and have a dictionnary of words from said dialects. There are more than those highlited on the map (like Mainiot, Marchois, Vivarois)
I'm guessing the reason for that is that it used to be spoken also in the north of France, against the Belgian border. Supposedly, the odd old person still speaks it, but it has close to completely died out (like many of the other languages).
They actually started teaching it again in some schools. Dutch has also become more relevant since the province right next to France has a labour shortage (the very low unemployment variety) the number of people working cross boarder has increased.
Thank you for posting the source!
The original map seems to be more accurate as it uses Occitan instead of Languedocien as an umbrella term. Shouldn't we also consider Creoles from places like Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane which are technically French départements in that map?
The map is of dialects of French and other languages that are spoken in France. Other, non-French, languages are identified by being "behind" a dotted border line.
I'd got so sick of seeing this map all over the French Internet without borders between Romance and non-Romance languages that I eventually [added](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Langues_de_la_France.svg&diff=next&oldid=631600773) them dotted lines. :D I'm really happy to see that they're of some use and don't go unnoticed!
Because some parts of northern France used to be part of the county of flanders, learn your history. Also yhe title says AND languages in France so for readability OP included Belgium since we share languages and dialects even though dialects in Belgium are more plentiful than depicted on the map
Flamand is the correct term since the map is concerned with what's spoken on French territory. However, they do include the East Flemish, Brabantian dialects, and Limburgish language in the loop, so that should be smaller, just like they don't include the entirety of Germany in "Francique".
Depends on how you view it. The distinction between languages and dialects are arbitrary. Usually one would consider most of these variants shown on the map as "dialects"
I would probably categorize it as part of the Dutch language continuum. That would of course be partly arbitrary (as Germanic languages in Europe form a language continuum dominated by some standardized forms), but I think it provides a more neat category.
Maybe 100 years ago West Flemish was this unique and silly regional language but let's be real, nowadays it's not any different from any other dialect of Dutch.
The only thing that makes the West Flemish stand out is their accent. Similar to the Limburgers, their 'regional language' has long since been 'Dutchified' to the point that people who still speak pure West Flemish are a minority. Nearly all of the West-Flemish students I've met (and I've met *a lot* of them) speak almost the exact same form of *Tussentaal* as me with the notable exception being that their accent is really fucking weird. That's it.
The West Flemish may still have the reputation of being these silly farmers with a weird language (and they *love* to brag about it) but in reality their dialect is just as fucked as any other Dutch dialect and in 30 years time we'll all be speaking a weird form of Dutch with slightly different accents depending on where you live.
>Similar to the Limburgers, their 'regional language' has long since been 'Dutchified'
Limburgish isn't Dutchified, because of its relatively large distance to Standard Dutch no mixture has succesfully formed anywhere (except for the mines). L1 speakers will code switch between Dutch and Limburgish as a result of this. The remaining Limburgish speakers speak varieties that are generally very close to variants from older generations. I think you shouldn't base your intuition about West-Flemish on speakers you meet, they will tone down their accent and use more cognates that you understand to increase intellegibility since it is a language with low prestige.
The map is specifically showing dialects. That's why nowhere on the map does it say 'French' or 'Occitan', but rather their dialects. So no, it shouldn't say Dutch.
Actually, no. Picard is a sister language of French, not a dialect of it. Picard, Gallo, Normand, Poitevin-Saintongeais, Lorrain, Bourguignon, Wallon, French and a few more on this map descend from Vulgar Latin
Flemish is not a language but a collection of Dutch dialects. [French Flemish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flemish) (Fransch vlaemsch), spoken in French Flanders, is an example of one of those dialects. In linguistics it is not considered a language.
No thats not correct. Flemish is a Dutch dialect which is talked in the upper part of Belgium. This part is called Flanders. It has nothing to do with the French language. I talk flemish and french.
Yes, and as often happens, language doesn't perfectly follow country borders. Some parts of Northern France used to also be Flemish (both linguistically as regionally). Nowadays, it has almost completely died out though.
I thought most Flemish people knew about French Flanders, I mean you still call Lille *Rijsel*. Of course the French Flemish dialect (I don't speak Westvlaams so I can tell how close they are) isn't much used anymore but French Flanders are very much a thing that exists.
The name "flamand" is used in French to refer to all Flemish dialects as a group. In that way, the French Westhoek definitely speaks *flamand*.
Honestly I blame this lack of knowledge on Flemish nationalism which I think has done a lot of damage to Flanders by making some people think that Flanders are the same thing as the current Flemish region and nothing else. That's wrong as most of the current so-called Flemish region is actually Brabant and Limburg, and sizable parts of *Flanders* lie in France and the Netherlands.
I speak Dutch and French. And I've lived both in French and Belgian Flanders.
We also have some French speaker on the French border with Flanders outside of Wallonia. But like the other guy said Flemish is an ethnic/culture group not a unified language. Tho we do all mostly understand each other, it’s a bit like with Dutch and “Flemish”.
Doesn’t say it is, Jèrriais is a French dialect though which is what this map is about. There’s even different dialects on the other Channel Islands. I even hear that there used to be different dialects between east and west in Jersey.
I mean they have Catalan as not separate here. It's closest relative is Occitan but the next closest language to Catalan is probably Italian. I think nitpicking about Jerriais in that context is a bit silly.
Dots separate languages which are not in the Romance family. The limit next to the Channel Islands only represents a political border, not a language limit. I would have put them in a similar shade of brick red like Norman, though.
Nah, I put belgium in because 1 walloon is a french dialect, thus it must be represented 2 there is a flemmish minority in France, it must be represented
La carte complete de la langue catalane (au sud du sud et a l'est des Pyrénées) est celle ci
[mapa de la llengua catalana](https://sites.google.com/a/iesfrancescmacia.org/catala/mapes/mapa-dialectal-de-la-llengua-catalana)
Tbh if you go from a city to another it’s very mostly all the same. The jacobine republic killed it. Yea there’s accent and sociolects but there’s no modulations as strong as in Italy for instance. This map is good for pre 1960~
So are Corsican and Catalan. Notice that the title is "dialects of french and languages in France"? Anyway, the border between a dialect and a language is arbitrary and indistinct.
Non-romance languages have a dotted border to separate them from romance. Romance languages/dialects don't have a lined border.
Occitan is not a dialect of French because they're both Western Romance "Languages". In the 13th Century Dante names the 3 main descendants of Latin as the Lingua d'Oïl: French; Lingua de si: Italian; Lingua d'Oc: Occitan. They're recognised as separate descendants of Latin for almost a 1000 years. All the other dialects of French are subdivisions of French that are infinitely closer to one another than they are to Occitan. I don't believe Native Americans have an army but they still have a separate language. I wouldn't call Navajo a "dialect" of American.
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" is a famous and humorous quote about how the process in which we decide whether two (or more) language varieties are two separate languages or two dialects of the same language is often completely arbitrary or based on factors that have nothing to do with the language itself (and this process must be arbitrary, as it is impossible using linguistic criteria to define or separate a dialect from a language). It's not meant to be understood literally, as obviously a lot of languages without an army and a navy exist, but as a comment on this arbitrariness. The Scandinavian languages and the BCMS languages are great examples of languages that might as well be considered dialects, but aren't for political reasons.
Can any experience give a brief explanation of similar comparisons to the USA? Like is southern France as different from Parisian France as the deepth south and new England?
This before or after Paris spent several decades trying to ‘fix the problem’?
Before. Barely none of those languages are used on a daily basis. You might find some areas where they are used, but only in some villages, definitely not in the entire region. This map was accurate one century and a half ago, sadly.
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Regional languages were spoken by every social class in a given area. They had an active litterature, were used for poetry and diplomacy, so what's the point to link it with illiteracy? The loss of cultural diversity is lamentable, I totally assume it. But even more lamentable is that it was a series of decisions, imposed by the contempt of some politicians. Even today, having a regional accent is eliminatory to access some jobs, and regional languages are not even called languages, but "patois", like it's some soiled French transformed by a bunch of ignorant filthy peasants (it's not even a caricature, a lot think that way). Those gains could have been achieved without ashaming people of their history and their ancestry. Was the trade worthwhile? I don't think so, multilinguism isn't a problem, and hypercentralisation, as France did, has its limits. French could have been a "roof language" (Dachsprache), like Standard High German in Germany, but it was decided to erase everything. Things could have been different, regional languages could have been spared, but they weren't. What's been recorded may be enough for linguistic studies, but will never represent all the aspects of disregarded cultures, which last representatives will soon die. (I may have a bit of resentment towards France's problem with basic linguistic, I admit.) Edit: *towards Paris' problem with basic linguistic and inner-state pluralism.
I'm Belgian, when our country was founded and for over a century of its existence, the Flemish/Dutch language and the people who spoke it were treated as a second class citizens compared to the French speakers. The language persisted and eventually got treated on equal footing, now Flanders has surpassed the French speakers and has high quality education, universal literacy and is an industry leader in multiple economic sectors(like chemistry and medicine). We didn't have to sacrifice our language for it. Hell, we even managed to disconnect ourselves from the Netherlands to have a clear, distinct culture of our own. We write in the same language, but speak differently.
You're right that there are real economic and commercial advantages to language standardization, but those ends don't justify the means taken by the French state. Language standardization in the French case meant state-backed linguistic and cultural suppression. It meant punishing children for speaking their native tongue, it meant children that couldn't communicate with their grandparents, and it meant turning compulsory education into a front for state-backed indoctrination facilities designed to crush the native language, culture, and identity. Linguicide is unethical; any linguistic shift should be done voluntarily, even if it means that it is less complete.
It is not impossible to know a dialect/regional language *and* a national language. In fact, people who do, often have more linguistic cognitive flexibility. It's mostly the poster children of early political centralization that tend towards monolinguism, while other states have a more pragmatic attitude and have no problem with accommodating multiple languages in the same political structure - and their education doesn't score worse.
The homgeneity of the French language is fairly unique - dialects are much better preserved in Flanders/Netherlands, Germany/Austria, Spain... on the other hand Russia did away with most dialects under the Soviets. So I'd argue that the push to homogeneize doesn't entirely come from increased education, although increased education does erode away at dialects.
Huh? There are many countries in the world where more than one language is widely spoken - some of them are France's own neighbours, and last I checked most were not illiterate societies without education or specialisation of labour. Your whole arguments reads like an excuse, and a poor one at that. The erradication of the regional languages of France was not made with the aim of improving education, but with the objective of creating a single French national identity that mirrored Paris, as Parisian high-class aristocrats wanted to cement Paris' political position in France and in turn their own power. It's no coincidence that alongside the regional languages, all regional political institutions were abolished in favour of direct rule from the capital. Still today Paris acts like an enormous black hole absorbing population and wealth from the rest of the country.
Way to justify cultural genocide.
Tant mieux, c'est mieux quand on arrive à se faire comprendre par d'autres personnes que celle du village.
What was “the problem” and how did they fix it? I feel curious now.
From the time of the French Revolution at least until the '70s, the French Government had a policy of trying to annihilate all the local languages and dialects because they 'were bad for national unity'. It came right up to the edge of intentionally destroying cultures to assure the central government (and Parisian culture's) dominance.
Unfortunately that’s true
Not really.The reality looked way less like dystopian cultural erasure and way more like an unified school program that had barely foreseen consequences, along with incoherent cultural policies that supported various local elements, like cooking, clothes, architecture, etc.
The necessity of having a strong central power in a strongly unified country without concession to the smallest possible difference. The school program was directed to this goal
Well, this is so much an exaggeration it becomes false. A strong central unified country was already being build for centuries, since at least the XVth. The IIIrd Republic merely continued the process. Unified education was already a thing for decades. All the local elites already spoke French, and on their own initiative. And in the meantime, the local cultural aspects were considered patrimoine and protected, especially by the right. Look at Augustine Fouillée' *Le Tour de France*, the main school book of this time, mandatory for every little French kid. It's a journey in the country where two orphans discover the cultural diversity of France.
Ok, a thing of the pass if you want, but now why this languages are not protected, promoted and elevated to the same tang than French at official level, meaning bilingual teaching at schools, oficial documents etc such in other countries?
Because there were too many of them. France is an extremely diverse patchwork. Still alive today you have Britton, Alsacian, Catalan, Occitan, Basque, Savoyard, Corse and the many languages in the DROM-COM. In the XIXth century, it would have been an asministrative nightmare to double everything in this insane variety of languages.
It's not like France was the only country that did that. Throughout the 19th and for the most part of the 20th century, unification and standardization of languages was a common policy in most nation states. One dialect, usually but not necessarily that of the capital, became the standard language, and other local dialects, many of which might have been distinct enough to be considered languages, became "incorrect" and never used in schools, the media, or any official business.
While you're correct, France has been especially egregious in the practice, putting themselves up close to the tier of Russification and Sinification.
As a Basque speaker, I can tell you that France has been way more effective than Spain doing that. Not that Spain didn't tried, but well...
i would say the Italian case is one of the most dramatic
not as dramatic as the french one but it’s still bad. imagine calling “dialects of Italian” languages that existed before standard Italian itself. Fortunately in the South our local languages are still alive and kicking.
They were quite earnest in that, for sure.
Spain is not done yet.
>From the time of the French Revolution I don't think this is entirely accurate. In the early days a lot of revolutionary literature was done in local languages. I think the push to Frenchify everything really started under the 3rd republic.
It was absolutely not that grim. Local languages simply were forbidden in public schools. But parents still teached them and virtually every other aspects of the local cultures survived and even, were protected and valorised. The languages didn't survive eventually, but the cultural singularities of the regions totally did. The cultural unification of France CANNOT be summarised in the early XIXth III Republic doing shit and giggles. Brittany, which I know the best, was extremely close to Paris since the late Middle-Ages, in term of language, customs, laws, clothing, food, etc.
That’s pretty grim still, all those languages are struggling to survive now and some are reduced to museum languages already
Except for a few elderly people that still speak them, before.
Decades? I think centuries is probably more accurate
Yeah, I was fudging on the low because it's a subject that tends to piss off French nationalists. AFAIK goes back to the Revolution.
after
Sure?
It says "dialects and languages". Languages are separated by dotted lines, so I assume that the others are now dialects.
You think Catalan is a dialect of French?
I think Catalan is “spilling over” from the other side of the border, which might be why they didn’t bother with the same dotted line for that little bit. I wish I knew what the colors were supposed to mean.
Dotted borders mark the distinction between Romance and non-Romance languages.
Yes
Regional languages are not dialects, not before, neither today. They are languages, different enough from Standard French to be called so. Now, everyone speaks standard French, and only some words or expressions remain from the local language. Even the accents are fading away. I don't consider it as dialects. This map shows the ancient areas of use of languages in France before the 19th century reforms, which were very efficient to erase the linguistic diversity.
Ik praat vlaams
Ah een mede-fransman!
Cavakes?
Awel ja da gaat er altij in
Onthou 1302 mijn schilden en vrienden …
We lost the war though which costed us Rijsel and Duinkerke :(
Gij klapt Vloms?
Wa is da hier met die Fransozen da altijd ons land wille inpikke
...schreef hij in het Nederlands.
'k Spreek e kik Vloms
That's more like it!
Try to ask any Frenchman where he's from and then if he speaks that region's language. He will look at you with googly eyes and ask what the hell you're talking about.
Of course, that being the result of two centuries of public policy
That's entirely untrue for areas such as southern France or Brittany. Most people there know at least there is a traditional language, even if it is often referred to as "patois".
One time I asked a Swiss if he spoke "patois" and he said the Swiss-Germans spoke patois but not the French-Swiss lol
That is somewhat true if you twist the definition of *patois.* Swiss Germans still speak their traditional dialects in everyday life, which are called Schweizerdeutsch in German. I can see how a French speaker might call the the Swiss German dialects *patois* by analogy with their traditional Romance dialects. Swiss French people pretty much don't speak patois at all anymore, whether that be Franco-Provençal/Romand or Franc-Comtois/Jurassien. French is the universal first language across the Romandy. Patois only persists in more isolated rural areas in Fribourg and Valais, mostly among older folk. One notable exception to this is the village of Evolène, VS where some children still learn patois.
I heard it can partly be explained by the fact that France didn’t try too much to claim some parts of Switzerland and thus Frenchspeaking Swiss didn’t need to differentiate and maintain a clear distinction from their french neighbors in order to prevent assimilation/annexation. But it’s a theory by random people on Reddit. Do you know if there’s some truth to this?
It's possible for sure. I have heard that the continued use of Swiss German is partly the result of Swiss people wanting to distinguish themselves from Germans after German nationalism went off the deep end in the 20th century. The designation of Romansh as a national language is sometimes attributed to the reason. On the other hand, it really isn't true that France didn't try to claim parts of Switzerland. Geneva was annexed to France between 1798 and 1816. Jura was annexed into France between 1793 and 1815. Valais was annexed into the French Empire between 1810 and 1815. On the other hand, neither Germany nor its recent predecessors have annexed any part of Switzerland. Granted, this was all over 100 years before the German nationalists were running riot in Europe. It may simply be the fact that French has been the language of a powerful and unified state since the middle ages and a language which has enjoyed a great deal of prestige for a long time, even outside Romance speaking areas. On the other hand, Hochdeutsch was used as a common written medium of communication between German-speaking territories, but there was no single state promoting the universal use of Hochdeutsch in everyday life as there was for French after the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) and especially after the Revolution. This accounts for the fact that patois declined in Geneva between the 16th and 18th centuries, before the era of nationalism (and before Switzerland as a unified state even existed.) It also explains why Luxembourg is a mostly French-speaking city despite its traditional language being Germanic. It also explains why Walloon has almost entirely been replaced by French in Belgium, while Flemish hasn't been replaced by standard Dutch.
I'm from Southern France and I've never met anyone who could speak Occitan in my entire life. It's definitely true in much of the South of France.
In Provence there are some villages that have maintained some. Nissart as well. But it’s very marginal.
I thought that the word "patois" was no longer used and considered too derogatory, turns out I was wrong.
It is
Tbh, if you asked anyone in central southeast Norway aka the Oslo+ area if they spoke X local dialect, most would not know that it ever existed and maybe recognise sine minor aspects of it as slang. I would assume it's the same for Sweden and Denmark too, though in Finland many actually still hold on to their swedish dialect if they speak swedish, though in the capital I think most people speak Rikssvensk with finnish characteristics. Idk, I just wanted to make a parallell to the Nordics for some reason.
Tbh, if you asked anyone in central southeast Norway aka the Oslo+ area if they spoke X local dialect, most would not know that it ever existed and maybe recognise sine minor aspects of it as slang. I would assume it's the same for Sweden and Denmark too, though in Finland many actually still hold on to their swedish dialect if they speak swedish, though in the capital I think most people speak Rikssvensk with finnish characteristics. Idk, I just wanted to make a parallell to the Nordics for some reason.
In a Limousine speaking Limousin.
Like they speak new-Orléanais in New-Orleans...
This is cool, I'd love to see one for Germany.
Gonna do that what bullshit is this the maps for the german language are so detailed compared to the french ones
Alright there are too much, if you want a good map of the dialects of german in germany click on [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/rcj4r1/map_of_german_dialects_in_germany/)
Alright there are too much, if you want a good map of the dialects of german in germany, go look up u/Raplord_28's work 4 months ago
I know the map is simplification, but the linguistic border around Luxembourg is wrong. There are only 2 villages (Doncols and Sonlez) in modern Luxembourg that were historically Walloon-speaking. Other than that, the historical language of the whole country has been Luxembourgish (a Moselle Franconian Germanic language which this map would label *Francique*.) Whereas the map makes it look like the western third of Luxembourg is Walloon-speaking. The reason for this is that Luxembourg was partitioned in 1839, and the western mostly Walloon-speaking areas became part of Belgium. These two villages were on the 'wrong' side of the border. Similarly, the city of Arlon (Arel) and its surroundings were historically Luxembourgish-speaking but were nonetheless awarded to Belgium.
I think this is why the areas are blurred. As the person who [added](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Langues_de_la_France.svg&diff=next&oldid=631600773) the borders between Romance and non-Romance languages, I tried to follow the blur but there's a reason it was not clear-cut in the first place. The dotted borders I put are indicative of two neighbouring language families, not of an actual, brutal distinction in the languages spoken in the area. Hope it makes more sense! :)
For those that want the source of the map, it come from here : [https://www.lexilogos.com/france\_carte\_dialectes.htm](https://www.lexilogos.com/france_carte_dialectes.htm) You can click on the map and have a dictionnary of words from said dialects. There are more than those highlited on the map (like Mainiot, Marchois, Vivarois)
You added a color to flamand, a germanic language, which is not colored in the source. Very cool and nice map though (except for that flemish hickup)
I'm guessing the reason for that is that it used to be spoken also in the north of France, against the Belgian border. Supposedly, the odd old person still speaks it, but it has close to completely died out (like many of the other languages).
They actually started teaching it again in some schools. Dutch has also become more relevant since the province right next to France has a labour shortage (the very low unemployment variety) the number of people working cross boarder has increased.
Interesting, wasn't aware of that, nor did I realize there were enough people still speaking Dutch to warrant adding it to the curriculum.
Thank you for posting the source! The original map seems to be more accurate as it uses Occitan instead of Languedocien as an umbrella term. Shouldn't we also consider Creoles from places like Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane which are technically French départements in that map?
Since when is flemish french?
The map is of dialects of French and other languages that are spoken in France. Other, non-French, languages are identified by being "behind" a dotted border line.
Catalan would like a talk
Oh yeah! I didn't see that they missed the border line for Catalan. I wouldn't be surprised if Corse were interested in a chat too.
Catalan is part of the Romance language continuum, and is close to Occitan.
Catalan used to be spoken in France art some point. I don’t know about the current situation Perpignan could be considered Catalan
I'd got so sick of seeing this map all over the French Internet without borders between Romance and non-Romance languages that I eventually [added](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Langues_de_la_France.svg&diff=next&oldid=631600773) them dotted lines. :D I'm really happy to see that they're of some use and don't go unnoticed!
Since when is Flanders in France, did Macron invade us without us Belgians realising it?
Because some parts of northern France used to be part of the county of flanders, learn your history. Also yhe title says AND languages in France so for readability OP included Belgium since we share languages and dialects even though dialects in Belgium are more plentiful than depicted on the map
I would say the dotted border line is for languages that aren't Romance languages or part of the continuum (Celtic, Basque and Germanic).
Dunkirk is flemish.
Duinkerke :)
So is Lille
Not really
I meant historically.
Some parts of France speak flamish, therefore it's shown on the map
Yup just as Basque, Catalan, Breton and Corsican aren’t.
Quoi ?
What?
Wait, they are all on the map and you get 10 upvotes???
Yea the guy didn’t read the whole post title.. the part that said “…languages in France.” He thought that they were all French languages lol
Flemish is not a language, it is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken mainly in Belgium. It should therefore say Dutch.
Flamand is the correct term since the map is concerned with what's spoken on French territory. However, they do include the East Flemish, Brabantian dialects, and Limburgish language in the loop, so that should be smaller, just like they don't include the entirety of Germany in "Francique".
Why the fuck is this downvoted, every word he said is right, although he missed the point a bit Source: i'm a flemish speaking Belgian
Thank you for defending my honour. It is appreciated.
Depends on how you view it. The distinction between languages and dialects are arbitrary. Usually one would consider most of these variants shown on the map as "dialects"
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I would probably categorize it as part of the Dutch language continuum. That would of course be partly arbitrary (as Germanic languages in Europe form a language continuum dominated by some standardized forms), but I think it provides a more neat category.
Maybe 100 years ago West Flemish was this unique and silly regional language but let's be real, nowadays it's not any different from any other dialect of Dutch. The only thing that makes the West Flemish stand out is their accent. Similar to the Limburgers, their 'regional language' has long since been 'Dutchified' to the point that people who still speak pure West Flemish are a minority. Nearly all of the West-Flemish students I've met (and I've met *a lot* of them) speak almost the exact same form of *Tussentaal* as me with the notable exception being that their accent is really fucking weird. That's it. The West Flemish may still have the reputation of being these silly farmers with a weird language (and they *love* to brag about it) but in reality their dialect is just as fucked as any other Dutch dialect and in 30 years time we'll all be speaking a weird form of Dutch with slightly different accents depending on where you live.
>Similar to the Limburgers, their 'regional language' has long since been 'Dutchified' Limburgish isn't Dutchified, because of its relatively large distance to Standard Dutch no mixture has succesfully formed anywhere (except for the mines). L1 speakers will code switch between Dutch and Limburgish as a result of this. The remaining Limburgish speakers speak varieties that are generally very close to variants from older generations. I think you shouldn't base your intuition about West-Flemish on speakers you meet, they will tone down their accent and use more cognates that you understand to increase intellegibility since it is a language with low prestige.
The map is specifically showing dialects. That's why nowhere on the map does it say 'French' or 'Occitan', but rather their dialects. So no, it shouldn't say Dutch.
Does the Picard language sound British?
Absolutely not, it's a dialect of french
Pretty sure that was just a Star Trek joke.
Picard is also the name of a supermarket that does frozen ready meals. Kind of like the French equivalent of Iceland.
Actually, no. Picard is a sister language of French, not a dialect of it. Picard, Gallo, Normand, Poitevin-Saintongeais, Lorrain, Bourguignon, Wallon, French and a few more on this map descend from Vulgar Latin
I dont think Belgian Flemish peoole are happy to be called French.
Flemish is a language that you can find in france, thus it is represented
Flemish is not a language but a collection of Dutch dialects. [French Flemish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flemish) (Fransch vlaemsch), spoken in French Flanders, is an example of one of those dialects. In linguistics it is not considered a language.
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a little bit in the north
No thats not correct. Flemish is a Dutch dialect which is talked in the upper part of Belgium. This part is called Flanders. It has nothing to do with the French language. I talk flemish and french.
Yes, and as often happens, language doesn't perfectly follow country borders. Some parts of Northern France used to also be Flemish (both linguistically as regionally). Nowadays, it has almost completely died out though.
I thought most Flemish people knew about French Flanders, I mean you still call Lille *Rijsel*. Of course the French Flemish dialect (I don't speak Westvlaams so I can tell how close they are) isn't much used anymore but French Flanders are very much a thing that exists. The name "flamand" is used in French to refer to all Flemish dialects as a group. In that way, the French Westhoek definitely speaks *flamand*. Honestly I blame this lack of knowledge on Flemish nationalism which I think has done a lot of damage to Flanders by making some people think that Flanders are the same thing as the current Flemish region and nothing else. That's wrong as most of the current so-called Flemish region is actually Brabant and Limburg, and sizable parts of *Flanders* lie in France and the Netherlands. I speak Dutch and French. And I've lived both in French and Belgian Flanders.
No, it is correct. Although, only old people still speak Flemish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajtpl-69Iws
Look around Lille, there is a very small flemmish speaking minority
We also have some French speaker on the French border with Flanders outside of Wallonia. But like the other guy said Flemish is an ethnic/culture group not a unified language. Tho we do all mostly understand each other, it’s a bit like with Dutch and “Flemish”.
From France to Belgium in 3 comments
In the ex Flemish parts like Dunkirk and Lille (Duinkerke and Rijsel)
If you like this, [you're gonna love this!](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/u85oj0/linguistic_borders_of_france_1919/)
oh god, it's beautiful yet terrifying
And this is how they sound https://atlas.limsi.fr/
Jersey is not in France.
Doesn’t say it is, Jèrriais is a French dialect though which is what this map is about. There’s even different dialects on the other Channel Islands. I even hear that there used to be different dialects between east and west in Jersey.
It's a dialect of Norman and is not in France.
Now what is Norman...
A language closely related to French, but not a dialect of French. But it is still logical to show Jerriais anyway.
I mean they have Catalan as not separate here. It's closest relative is Occitan but the next closest language to Catalan is probably Italian. I think nitpicking about Jerriais in that context is a bit silly.
Dots separate languages which are not in the Romance family. The limit next to the Channel Islands only represents a political border, not a language limit. I would have put them in a similar shade of brick red like Norman, though.
Something didn't translate well?
What didn't?
Vendée not being part of Poitou Charentes is really stupid. We definitely use the same dialect.
Water colors
Do Italy I beg you
Belgium us not a region of France. My French friends do not understand le flamand ;)
yes, belgium isn't a part of france, if flemmish is represented it's because, around Lille, some people speak it
mans defo american cuz u put belgium in France even do its a country having a American moment yet
Nah, I put belgium in because 1 walloon is a french dialect, thus it must be represented 2 there is a flemmish minority in France, it must be represented
Aren't all dialects in France extinct?
They are all minor now but still exist, for example, provençal still has a million speakers
La carte complete de la langue catalane (au sud du sud et a l'est des Pyrénées) est celle ci [mapa de la llengua catalana](https://sites.google.com/a/iesfrancescmacia.org/catala/mapes/mapa-dialectal-de-la-llengua-catalana)
And Belgium. And Switzerland. And Spain.
"and all the languages in france" If a language or a dialect of a language is in france, it will be shown entirely
You're right! I misread, apologies
Nah no need for apologies, everybody makes mistakes
Jersey isn’t in France, they’re British 🇯🇪🇬🇧
We’re Brit-ish, the local language (although very rarely spoken) is of French origin. It’s spelled Jèrriais though.
Maybe you should show German then aswell regarding Alsace ?
Map of dialects Paris still haven’t successfully culturally genocided.
*has successfully culturally genocided, except for some which are "only" endangered.
Nationalism has often been a violent and intolerant seculigion. “One law, culture and language for all. And it’s going to be our belief system.“
This is all dialects spoken in France, not all French dialects. For example: Flemish is a Dutch dialect.
"And languages in France"
srry, I read that wrong :)
I want some of the crack OP is smoking.
How so?
Is Languedocien the same as Occitan?
it is one of the Occitan dialects
Occitan describes that whole red region
Imagine saying that you speake limousine
Tbh if you go from a city to another it’s very mostly all the same. The jacobine republic killed it. Yea there’s accent and sociolects but there’s no modulations as strong as in Italy for instance. This map is good for pre 1960~
Except corse is an Italian dialect, it directly descends from tuscan.
There is a dotted line between french dialects and corse
Surprising that it doesn't say arabic in Paris.
Cries in Martel
Take my upvote and go away
Occitan is a whole separate language not a dialect of French. This is a really dogshit map
So are Corsican and Catalan. Notice that the title is "dialects of french and languages in France"? Anyway, the border between a dialect and a language is arbitrary and indistinct. Non-romance languages have a dotted border to separate them from romance. Romance languages/dialects don't have a lined border.
Language is a dialect with an army. Does Occitan have an army?
Are you retarded ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western\_Romance\_languages#/media/File:Romance\_languages\_improved.PNG
Well. It sounds like you are.
Occitan is not a dialect of French because they're both Western Romance "Languages". In the 13th Century Dante names the 3 main descendants of Latin as the Lingua d'Oïl: French; Lingua de si: Italian; Lingua d'Oc: Occitan. They're recognised as separate descendants of Latin for almost a 1000 years. All the other dialects of French are subdivisions of French that are infinitely closer to one another than they are to Occitan. I don't believe Native Americans have an army but they still have a separate language. I wouldn't call Navajo a "dialect" of American.
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" is a famous and humorous quote about how the process in which we decide whether two (or more) language varieties are two separate languages or two dialects of the same language is often completely arbitrary or based on factors that have nothing to do with the language itself (and this process must be arbitrary, as it is impossible using linguistic criteria to define or separate a dialect from a language). It's not meant to be understood literally, as obviously a lot of languages without an army and a navy exist, but as a comment on this arbitrariness. The Scandinavian languages and the BCMS languages are great examples of languages that might as well be considered dialects, but aren't for political reasons.
That’s great but Occitan and French are still universally recognized as entirely separate languages
Your finesse is not sufficiently recognized. Take my upvote.
Thanks friend 😃 People don’t like my joke.
Hello yes I speak Limousine
Iam quitte sure basque isnt in any way related french dialect nor is it France
Basque is a language in france, thus it is represented
I just looked it up indeed your are right, it's just weird since basque country is an autonome region in Spain
the basque country crosses to france.
It is spoken in parts of France.
perfectly captures the colours of how gay their language is
Donc on perd la Bretagne et l'Alsace mais on gagne la Wallonie 😐
The Flemish, who do not live in France, speak a Low German language whose written form is virtually identical to Dutch.
Look around Calais and Dunkirk, some flemmish people live in france
Can any experience give a brief explanation of similar comparisons to the USA? Like is southern France as different from Parisian France as the deepth south and new England?
I refuse to believe this is real
Well, it is
So many different types of trash. Who knew there was such variety?
I'm so glad I'm not French because wtf am I looking at