bradhurley wrote:Diego Lolic wrote:During the interim period between the two world wars, approximately one and a half million people in Brittany were recorded as speaking the Breton language. Unfortunately this number dwindled by two thirds in the ensuing 50 years, but even today, the Breton language is anything but dead.
Speaking of the wars and Breton, the word "yes" in Breton is pronounced "yah" just like German "jah," and during the occupation of France in the Second World War some of the native Breton speakers were apparently either mistaken for Germans or of conspiring with Germans. So that's one of the reasons the language nearly died out; the bigger and earlier reason was the Revolution: in 1789 only half the people in France actually spoke any French; the country was a rich mosaic of cultures and languages. Napoleon pretty much put a stop to that. But it's kind of amazing to think that French has been spoken in Québec longer than it has been in most of France, apart from the region around Paris!
Today, of course, kids in Brittany can go to schools where only Breton is spoken (we have a friend who teaches at one), although my sense is that Breton is still nowhere near as ubiquitous or as widely spoken in Brittany as Irish is in Ireland. I don't think there's an equivalent to Irelands TG4 in Brittany, for example.
There is an earlier and more important reason than Napoleon to explain the decline of the Breton. I will try to resume it and I hope that my explanation (and my english
) will be clear.
At the beginning of the 20th century, and even between the two world wars, many peoples in Bretagne were still speaking breton but it was forbidden to speak breton in the public schools. There weren't schools where breton was teached or spoken, teachers weren't breton and children were systematically punished for using breton !!! (except of catholic schools, but it wasn't to defend the language, it was to keep an influence on people in Brittany in front of the laic state)
Why ? Just because the french republic has decided that french was the only language that should be used in France. This system worked so well for those generations that speaking breton slowly became a shame, it was synonymic of a lack of education. One of my grandmothers underwent that.
So these generations lost their own language, or didn't pass on it. At the beginning of the 20th, 1.200.000 people were speaking breton, now they are hardly 200.000.
French is a beautiful language, and all french governments all along the 20th and now have been defending this language everywhere in the name of diversity. They also like to defend minorities everywhere but why not in France ? Nothing or almost is done. Stupid ! Do what I say, not what I do !
There are nowadays very few public schools where breton is the first language, and it's hard to keep these schools. There are also some private schools like "Diwan" who try to defend breton but this should be a public thing.
In fact, the french republic has always been afraid of its minorities (well you know, all these people who speak another language might be dangereous for the state, they are different and it's bad, they could ask for their independence... ) like breton, basques, corses... all countries who have their own language and culture, as Brad said, France is still a mosaïc of culture, but of language ? France did not still ratify the European charter of the minoriatires languages !
Breton music and dances are very strong in Bretagne, but not the language, contrary to Wales I think while Ireland kept both music and language.
Or as the author says, pre-classical. Still, a pretty recent terminus ante quem.
Did that really just happen? 
