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Re: An Ill Bethisad thought

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 18:53
En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> It is established that Francien (what we think of as French) is > the language of administration.
Only in Francie, the Northern part of France. In Gaulhe, Narbonese has long been the de facto language of administration (and officially so nowadays. Remember that France *there* works a bit like Belgium *here*, at least linguistically). It occurs to me that to write
> belles lettres in Francien was until the 20th century the province of > a few Parisian eccentrics. However, the Academie Oulippiene changed > all that, particularly after the publication of Raymond Queneau's > scandalous work _Exercises de langage_ in 1947, which was accompanied > by outbreaks of rioting in many French and Narbonese cities. >
Well, in Gaulhe the riots were mostly due to a (not well-known in the North) attempt by some Northern MPs to pass a law making Francien the official language in the whole territory of France. Most Narbonese never read _Exercices de langage_ anyway, it wasn't available in Narbonese translation until ten years ago ;)) (and even though many Narbonese are bilingual, they refuse to read any literature work from Francie. this is in reaction to the obstination of Francie to refuse to put mandatory Narbonese classes at school, disobeying by that a federal law - Narbonese children *do* get mandatory classes of Francien at school, but they usually do everything to forget it after the classes :)) -. The funny part is that Gaulhe receives the support of most intellectual and politicians of Normandy, who tend to consider what Parisians call a "dialecte abâtardi de Francien" the true and only language for literature in Francie...). Hehe, France *there* is about as big a mess linguistico-politically as Belgium is *here* :)) . Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.