language-map

Having waxed lyrical about the wonders of hearing French spoken on the streets of early Dubbo, I then stumbled upon the brilliant text by Graham Robb, called The Discovery of France, retelling the history of France from some radically diverse perspectives.

Including language. French, as this map indicates may have been considered the national language by the royal court of Paris but patois or dialects abounded. Only the main centres, like Bordeaux would have been able to communicate to northern authorities while the rest of the country were quite content to speak their local dialects, in some cases down to individual families!!

Between Muller, Martel, Serisier and Hyeronimus there would have been accents, unique dialects and a common ground in French. Serisier (from Bordeaux) and Hyeronimus (from Wallonia in Belgium where it was common for families to exchange children for several years to force them to be bilingual in French and Flemmish) probably would have been very comfortable with French.

Serisier it seems though would also have known the major language Oc and dialects from his region in order to have been able to communicate with servants, tradespeople and shop keepers etc, who would have come to the big city looking for work, from outlying areas where no-one spoke French!!!

Recommended reading if you’re interested in French history and like me, into getting inside a Frenchman’s head!

What is that orange line I’ve drawn across the centre of France? A VERY rough tracing of what was probably an ancient highway between Italy and Bordeaux, built upon by the Romans and which neatly splits the country into north and south.

North of the line was where they spoke Oil plus dialects, south was where they spoke Oc plus dialects.

It’s a France I never knew about and given that Robb rode around France on a bicycle for some 14,000 miles doing his research and talking to the locals for their take on the subject, it’s an awesome read.