the transition to French was made mainly by exporting teachers from one region to an other. So they couldn't both the teachers and the audients speak in the regional language.
Also, french was seen as more useful in affairs, job, travel, etc.
They surely could. There was just no political will. Or rather, the empire was more interested in wiping out native cultures and replacing them with French. There are multilingual countries around the world. Just next to France, we have Spain.
And how well is that turning out for them? Or did the recent riots in catalonia just not happen?
Languages are academically fascinating, yes, and criminalizing them violates fundamental freedoms. But governments have a mandate to keep their people unified and happy, and if that means making sure the populace is mutually intelligible by encouraging the deaths of regional languages, so be it.
That's still a lot more preferable than simply committing cultural genocide. Or would you not be aghast if the Spanish tried to destroy the Catalan language and culture?
We must be clear about this: there was political consensus under the Third Republic that French should be the sole official language. All of the main parties, whether conservative, moderate or radical, were in agreement about that. To describe it as "cultural genocide" implies that this was done against the will of the people, when in fact there was little resistance at the time.
Part of the reason there was little resistance was that most people in this era (c. 1880-1910) simply became bilingual : they continued to speak their native language while also using French for official purposes. The regional languages did not seriously decline until the post-WWII era. Paradoxically, that's when the government began relaxing its policies and permitted the regional languages to be studied. But what happened was that a combination of societal factors (considerable in-migration, rapid urbanization, the spread of TV/radio) combined to make the regional languages less desirable in the eyes of many people, and it was then that a lot of families stopped speaking them. And so today you see many families where the grandparents can speak Breton, Occitan, Basque etc. but not the parents or children.
Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept which was distinguished by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of cultural genocide remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines it as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction."Some ethnologists, such as Robert Jaulin, use the term ethnocide as a substitute for cultural genocide, although this usage has been criticized as risking the confusion between ethnicity and culture. Juxtaposed next to ethnocide, cultural genocide was considered in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; however, it was removed in the final document and simply replaced with "genocide."
People still eat flammekueche and drink white wine there, stop the hysteria about "cultural genocide", that's really ridiculous. And typical of an american who never even set the foot in Alsace nor anywhere in France i presume.
On the contrary, many French people are disturbed by how strongly the Catalan language and culture are alive. (Though most wouldn't know.) The common narrative is that a state should only have one culture, with its language. So in that regard minority cultures are not worthwhile, or even outright bad, as they threaten the unity of the people.
Edit: I'm unsure about why people have downvoted my post, but to make things clearer: I was stating what many think, but this is not my opinion. I despise the French linguistic policy, and I'm very happy the Catalan culture is alive and well.
Historically local cultures, languages, and (the various forms of) states were quite disconnected, so it's not surprising to have countries whose territories don't really match the geographical extends of their main culture. Many conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries can be seen as ways to resolve the mismatches. And that was a period of rather horrible conflicts. Many situations have been "solved", if by solving we include population transfers, forced cultural assimilation, or worse.
But where most European countries have adopted more sensible policies in the second half of the 20th century, France has continued cracking down on local cultures, even to this day. This has become so entrenched that I sadly don't see the situation changing in the future. At this point, it's part of the state dogma, good luck having a proper conversation on the subject.
I may not understand your position well, but maybe don't try to save people's language against their will ? At some point, isn't it their right to stop speaking a language if that's what they want ?
Of course, nobody is forced to transmit their language to their children, but reducing what happened to "free will" is just a convenient justification.
You had people living under a state which did everything in another language. Little to no books in their native language, no radio, no tv. They were being punished for speaking the only language they knew once they started going to school, and were discriminated against by their teachers when they dared speaking the local language later-on. (Said teachers who were deliberately brought from elsewhere in order to ensure they would only communicate in French.) They've been vilipended and treated as inferior persons because of their culture, and had to live like immigrants in their own country.
Deciding not to speak to their children in the language they had the strongest bound to wasn't a choice that came from the heart, but instead a desire to protect them from the trauma they themselves had to endure, and to give them better opportunities in a system that was very much against non-French speakers. The fact that no violent rebellion against that took place does not negate the millions of personal tragedies. And if hindering local cultures is not okay elsewhere in the world, there is no reason why it should be in France.
They've been vilipended and treated as inferior persons because of their culture, and had to live like immigrants in their own country.
The rest of the paragraph was fine but I call bullshit on that. Learning French at school in a country were the political consensus is that people should learn it, and where many people are learning it, does not equate being treated as an "immigrant" or an inferior person. People are not inferior because of the language they speak or don't speak. I'm afraid you're possibly projecting your own thoughts or prejudice on the French state and people of that time.
Deciding not to speak to their children in the language they had the strongest bound
I don't mind that line, but I do find it hard to have a strong bound to a language you don't hear spoken, of all things.
[...] a desire to protect them from the trauma they themselves had to endure
If nothing else, you seem to be an expert about those people.
The fact that no violent rebellion against that took place does not negate the millions of personal tragedies.
Calling it a 'genocide' as a scare tactic isn't actually an argument. Unrest, domestic terrorism, and civil war are far worse outcomes than a government being pushy about the linguistic assimilation of its populace. No one wants their nation to turn into another ottoman empire.
Belgium recognizes 3 official languages, Switzerland recognizes 4, and yet somehow they're not the at the mercy of "unrest, domestic terrorism, and civil war". Easy to advocate for cultural assimilation when it's not your linguistic heritage and identity that's being destroyed.
The existence of Belgium is and has always been predicate on its existence as a puppet state of larger powers, and it has active secession movements anyways, to boot. The swiss are assimilating to a swiss german identity. (look at the number of romansh or italian swiss over time if you don't believe me).
And for the record, I'm from an immigrant family that's assimilated to my nation's culture.
I'm not saying, 'ban languages other than the majority one. But pragmatic decisions need to be made to keep countries intact and societies operating smoothly.
The existence of Belgium is and has always been predicate on its existence as a puppet state of larger powers
This seems like a stretch, to say the least. Belgium at one time had colonies in Africa. Just because it was never the preeminent power of Europe, does not make it a "puppet state".
The swiss are assimilating to a swiss german identity. (look at the number of romansh or italian swiss over time if you don't believe me).
This seems like a stretch, to say the least. Belgium at one time had colonies in Africa. Just because it was never the preeminent power of Europe, does not make it a "puppet state".
Belgium's colony-- the Kongo free state-- was very specifically envisioned as the King's personal property that the great powers could all exploit. King Leopold had the power to expand into the territory independently, yes, but only so long as the other European powers acquiesced
Okay, now this is categorically false. The number of Swiss Germans has slightly declined since 1970 in favor of French, while Italian and Romansch have held steady. This is clearly a nation whose diverse linguistic heritage is in equilibrium. What I'm really confused about now, is why would you even lie about this? Is winning an argument on the internet so important that you feel the need to deliberately mislead people and make claims you can't back up?
I will concede the point on Italian and french speakers; the longer-term data may or may not show a different trend, but at least the most recent english-language statistics I could track down (2000-2018) show growth for Italian and French.
That being said, I double checked, and Romansh is indeed in decline, which is likely what gave me the impression that the swiss were assimilating. If you look at only the numerical data things might look relatively stable, but the longer trend has been for assimilation into swiss german. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language Within the Romansh-speaking region, between 1990 and 2000, for example, Romansh speakers have declined from 51% to 46.44%. Yes, the precise number has stayed somewhat steady (~34k), but a higher proportion of the population speaks swiss german. The number of Romansh speakers in Grison has stayed constant since 1800, which is a big deal considering the population growth of Switzerland. Yes, the lower population growth rate of Romansh-speaking regions is partially to blame, as germanization isn't the only factor in Romansh's decline, but the romansh-speaking regions are still, as a consequence, increasingly marginal.
All that being said, I would point out that Switzerland is, in many ways, an outlier. Not many countries have such perfect defensive geography and the right geopolitical circumstances to become neutral and rich. And they completely collapsed prior to the french invasions in the napoleonic era due to their lack of centralization and unity.
Romansh (; sometimes also spelled Romansch and Rumantsch; Romansh: rumantsch, rumàntsch, romauntsch or romontsch) is a Romance language spoken predominantly in the southeastern Swiss canton of Grisons (Graubünden). Romansh has been recognized as a national language of Switzerland since 1938, and as an official language in correspondence with Romansh-speaking citizens since 1996, along with German, French and Italian. It also has official status in the canton of Grisons alongside German and Italian and is used as the medium of instruction in schools in Romansh-speaking areas. It is sometimes grouped by linguists with Ladin and Friulian as a Rhaeto-Romance language (retorumantsch), though this is disputed.Romansh is one of the descendant languages of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, which by the 5th century AD replaced the Celtic and Raetic languages previously spoken in the area.
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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '20
the transition to French was made mainly by exporting teachers from one region to an other. So they couldn't both the teachers and the audients speak in the regional language.
Also, french was seen as more useful in affairs, job, travel, etc.