Re: An Ill Bethisad thought

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.