Finally...FINALLY...completed The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow this Thursday. By the end, it felt like I had been reading this book since the beginning of the year. Sadly, as my library receipt shows, I have only had the book checked out for close to 2.5 months. Just take a look at my reading progress/updates from Goodreads.com, starting from 18 May to 11 July.
Having taken so long to complete I thought I might write something about it. All page references refer to said text.
I picked up this book hoping to read more about the development of French and how Cajun varies significantly from it. The short answer is that after the Acadians were forced out of Arcadia, now Nova Scotia, to Louisana, the Acadians became effectively isolated, linguistically speaking. "Since 1763, French Canadians lived a kind of linguistic Lost World" (p. 213). According to Nadeau and Benoit, the next French ship to arrive in Quebec wouldn't be until 1855, "ninety-two years after the end of the French regime" (p. 213). It would seem then that Cajun is closer to the last court French than modern French. And that would be the most interesting point on the Cajun language in the whole book. Sadly, the remainder of the chapter talks more about the conflicts in maintaining French and little about the linguistic differences, with half of the chapter also devoted to the isolation of French in Quebec. Did I mention that I had to wait until chapter 10 to get this tid-bit?!
Truthfully, getting to chapter 10 was not so hard nor any less engaging. Indeed I learned some very useful points that should be shared:
The majority of the book is about France's and francophone countries' use of French than the nuances of linguistic variability. It is worth a read but I must warn you, as I have seen other reviewers who have come before me, the last third of the book tends to drag on. Fortunately, the chapters are nearly self-contained so if you thus desired, you could skip around and read only those chapters that interest you.
As to learning more about Cajun language and people, I will have to seek other works outside my state's meager public offerings on the subject.
 |
| Hard to read but "pages read" are on the y-axis, "date" on the x-axis. |
Having taken so long to complete I thought I might write something about it. All page references refer to said text.
I picked up this book hoping to read more about the development of French and how Cajun varies significantly from it. The short answer is that after the Acadians were forced out of Arcadia, now Nova Scotia, to Louisana, the Acadians became effectively isolated, linguistically speaking. "Since 1763, French Canadians lived a kind of linguistic Lost World" (p. 213). According to Nadeau and Benoit, the next French ship to arrive in Quebec wouldn't be until 1855, "ninety-two years after the end of the French regime" (p. 213). It would seem then that Cajun is closer to the last court French than modern French. And that would be the most interesting point on the Cajun language in the whole book. Sadly, the remainder of the chapter talks more about the conflicts in maintaining French and little about the linguistic differences, with half of the chapter also devoted to the isolation of French in Quebec. Did I mention that I had to wait until chapter 10 to get this tid-bit?!
Truthfully, getting to chapter 10 was not so hard nor any less engaging. Indeed I learned some very useful points that should be shared:
- If you wish to take over a country, do so by cultural assimilation and educate the masses.
- Education of a new foreign language is best done through translation from the mother tongue, especially when you have few native speakers of the new language available.
- French was born out of a mixture of Latin, Frankish and other Germanic languages after the 10th century (p. 28).
- England spoke Norman for four centuries after 1066 and it was not until Henry IV that an English king spoke English...but, linguistically, French and English still help each other out (p.30-31).
- "Starting in 1967, most American universities suppressed the mandatory foreign language tests for Ph.D. candidates" (p. 288).
- "Diplomats constantly try to keep the playing field slanted their way when they have the upper hand, or to level the playing field when they are at a disadvantage" (p. 290).
- Places with library and health services for a community increase national exam scores 3-4 times than those places without. At least in Burkina Faso. (p. 348)
- Oxytonism - when "the stress in words (fall) on the last syllable and, in sentences, on the last word" (p. 369). Penultimate - stress on the second-last syllable (p. 370). A change in French that has been occurring since the end of World War I, from former to latter. (...This is probably why all of my antiquated French textbooks were so cheap.)
- You cannot afford to successfully run a country without a ministry of culture or some sort of cultural protection. "...Quebec knows that if it doesn't make its own cultural products, someone else will, and they will inevitably be imports" (p. 411-412).
- We really have Francois I, late 15th Century French ruler, to thank for kick-starting French into what we know of it today (p. 51-52).
The majority of the book is about France's and francophone countries' use of French than the nuances of linguistic variability. It is worth a read but I must warn you, as I have seen other reviewers who have come before me, the last third of the book tends to drag on. Fortunately, the chapters are nearly self-contained so if you thus desired, you could skip around and read only those chapters that interest you.
As to learning more about Cajun language and people, I will have to seek other works outside my state's meager public offerings on the subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment