Language Policy in France during the Revolution

Abstract

The author looks at the language policy in France during the Revolution (1789-1794) by analysing Grégoire’s questionaire, a number of available responses to the questionnaire, Bàrère’s and Gregoire’s reports to the Convent and the decrees accompanying these reports. This policy is best seen in its attitude towards dialects, regional speech and language — disdainfully called patois (»idioms«). One recognizes two essentially different tactics when »idioms« are in question: the first, which permits and encourages translations into »idioms« (the phase »with receivers«) and the second, which propounds and decrees »the total destruction of »idioms« (the phase »without receivers«). The latter proclaims the eradication of not only the dialects of French and the Occitan language but of Bretagnic, Basque, Flemish, German and Italian as well on the territory of the French Republic. Practically-wise, the Revolution brought nothing new since French monarchs had conducted a language unitarism in the courts and the administration but had tolerated private bilingualism since 1539. However, nobody before or after the Revoluion attempted — at least in such an open and selfconfident manner — to theoretically justify »the eradication of idioms« proclaiming it not only a state policy but a principle of civilization. The Jacobian dogma of a »unified and immutable use of the language of freedom in a single and indivisible Republic« through revolutionary praxis transformed itself into a declared and systematic glottophagia, even into attempted genocide in Alsace. Fortunately, this policy had no significant immediate negative consequence due to the brief duration of the Revolution but has, in an essential way, left ita stamp on language policy in France to the present day, especially during the Third Republic.