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From: EURMXK@sdcmvs.mvs.sas.com
Subject: Re: Why is France systematically excluded?
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:10:00 GMT
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In article <321E20F8.717D@iac.co.jp>,
Didier Le Priol <dlepriol@iac.co.jp> writes:
 
>EURMXK@sdcmvs.mvs.sas.com wrote:
>>
>> In article <snu3txj7ht.fsf@sparc4.i-have-a-misconfigured-system-so-shoot-me>,
>> <alwyn@sparc4.pia.bt.co.uk> Alwyn Thomas writes:
>>
>> >kruisweg@flatearth.xs4all.nl (Ruud van de Kruisweg) writes:
>> >
>> >> It may well be that Breton has a similar status and provisions as
>> >> Frisian, ensured by a lively interest of Breton speakers to keep their
>> >> language alive well into the 21st century.
>> >
>> >This is not so. Since the late 1950's the Dutch government has
>> >actively supported the Frisian language: the French government has
>> >never done the same for Breton. Nobody knows how many people speak
>> >Breton; an estimate is 400 000, similar to the numbers for Welsh (a
>> >sister-language, incidentally) and West Frisian.
>> >     In fact the French government actively tried to forbid people to
>speak breton, kicking out kids out of school for the day if they did so (
>e.g. my father) back in the 50'. As for the number of breton-speaking
>people the rough number should be around 10 000 native speakers (counting
>all seven dialects).
>
>
>> >> Maybe someone can compare the status of Breton and Alsacian German in
>> >> France in detail?
>> >
>> >One encouraging sign is that the French talk of *langue regionale*
>> >rather than *patois* these days. But it is still not French policy to
>> >give them official recognition and teach them is schools.
>> There are some bi-lingual classes in Alsace, but not very many, and
>> most of them were created by privite initative.
>>
>> On the other hand, recteur de Gaudemar (sort of the head of education
>> in Alsace) was backing bilingual education in a series of articles
>> in the "Dernieres Novelles d'Alsace" last year. It turned out that
>> children attending these classes were better in German (of course)
>> but also in French than children attending monolingual (French)
>> classes.
>>
>> >
>> >One interesting thing about Alsatian is that, unlike many dialects, it
>> >does not have a low social status; the fact that you speak it does not
>> >make you an inferior person in the eyes of most Alsatians.
>> >
>> I doubt this very much.  For years the Alsatians have been told:
>> "C'est chic de parler francais", and they have "learned" to
>> regard their languge as something inferior.
>>
>> Manfred Kiefer
>>       Thanks for the information on Alsacian.
You're welcome.  You can get more details by contacting the
Cercle Rene' Schickele / Rene' Schickele Gesellschaft in Strasbourg.
They publish a newsletter "Land un Sproch" with lots of interesting
articles in French, German and dialect.  Some of these deal with
the situation of other language minorities in Europe.
 
Manfred Kiefer
 
P.S. I'm not going to apologize for posting this in English (nor would
I when it was German or French or anything else).  ;-)
 
>
>Didier Le Priol
>
>> >Alwyn
>> >
