Linguistic treasures: Exploring France's regional languages

It’s silly. I think it’s wonderful to be able to speak multiple languages. Countries like neighboring Luxembourg do a good job of that.

It's sad France isn't celebrating the rich diversity in of all the languages and cultures within its borders.

The fact that the french state murdered the occitan culture is so sad. How could the french state kill its own cultural diversity

unfortunately, my grandmother was the last native Alsatian speaker in our family :(. We all speak French, but finding an Alsatian teacher in either the UK or the south of France is impossible..

The Constitutional Council is wrong. Our kids took French Immersion in the United States and it in no way hinders learning English. The linguistics "experts" promoting these backwards ideas should be ignored as outdated. Immersion doesn't interfere with dominant language acquisition. And the Immersion model helps the French disapora.

In Wales in the UK, Welsh-medium schools can be found in abundance and, in fact non-Welsh speaking parents will often send their kids to such schools as they’re often better than their English-medium equivalents. As a result, the Welsh language is growing, it’s brilliant! The government in France should take an active interest in preserving its linguistic heritage!

I'm glad whenever French public TV talks about the state's language diversity at all because that isn't too common. Let's hope that France will eventually embrace its other languages just like most of the country's neighbours have! Here are the languages of France that the map in the video didn't show: the around fifteen langues d'oïl in Northern France; Arpitan; Flemish; Lorraine Franconian; South Franconian in Northern Alsatia; the indigenous languages of French Guiana; Antillean Creole; Guianan Creole; Réunion Creole; the Austronesian languages in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Fortuna; as well as Comorian and Malagasy in Mayotte.

Something is changing in France. More and more people from these regions aren't willing anymore to accept that their identities are treated this way. Quite often it harms their future options of finding a qualified job, particularly in those areas where German dialects are spoken and speaking the language is very useful for a job career.

As a native catalan, bilinguism has only brought me culture and a great source of help at learning new languages. Children are sponges, we can't compare our adult brain with theirs, i know exactly when i spoke in catalan and when i spoke in spanish, don't tell me how i knew, i just knew it. Moreover in my elementary school there was engliah since 3 years and french since 9 years. English has been a part of my life wherears french is a language i don't use except when travelling. But all this inputs where necessary for me to communicate in 5 languages (i then learned german in high school) at the age of 18. And it's not an isolated case. The more inputs of different cultures the better.

Oh geez! The linguist they interviewed is soooooo biased!!! Ask any other linguist outside of France and outside of the "oldschool" and they will completely differ on this. To be a true bilingual, the 2 languages should be taught at the same time from birth through grade school, at the same level. Learning their heritage language at the same level as the national language will in NO WAY impede the students' ability to comprehend the national language at say a higher academic level, if anything, it may make the student more aware of language nuance. Bilingualism, whether in combo with a heritage and national or national and foreign language, doesn't decrease a child/student's ability to understand anything, actually it may make them smarter and maybe even more tolerant of say, um, immigrants. I mean come on, this BS is why most other parts of Europe are better in second or foreign languages than France. And how the hell does immersion classes detract from the constitution? Keep all government correspondence in French, sure, whatever, but what does that have to do with people's lives outside of the public/government sphere? Linguistic diversity has only ever hurt the people that don't understand it, and separatist movements don't happen because of linguistic diversity, hahahah, they happen because of oppression from expressing and living their diversity

Not so long ago the French state filed criminal charges on speakers of these languages who gave their children non French language names. Breton langage schools are continuously harnessed by public officials with manufactured complaints. The Fench state makes every attempt to obstructed, intimidate and diminish the activities and lives of people working to preserve their languages. All while French an invented language is aggressively pushed and all foreign language teaching in France declines.

They totally forgot West Flemish in the North

What about Flemish Language in the Nord

There are about 80 languages in the Philippines. Separatism (except on religious grounds in the south) has never been an issue. The Filipino national language is all over the media that it is difficult to think now of Filipinos counting themselves as other than Filipinos. Why can't France make the leap if regional languages like Occitan, Breton and Alsatian are indeed national treasures? And dialects like Normand, Champenois, and Picard?

That map is missing a lot

They forgot Arpitan language , btw i had the chance to heard occitain language in Dordogne during a dinner with french friends and theirs families ,they start to speak it and for me, italian, it was so amazing to understand it, it was so touching, like "the presence of the ancients romans is still stonger in the south until today", they conquered from Aix en Provance to tne North.

I’m soo glad I live in Britain, a devolved Welsh government seems like heaven when you compare it to France. The French Constitution really needs to be changed. Stay strong Llydaw!

The basque people Are the oldest people in Europe, we Are prerromanic people with neolitical origin, basques are not Spanish Of French.

Banning ones language is not the best way to fight agains the separatism. Living well together, caring about each other, being mindful of the other's interests, allowing all cultures to flourish is the way to go.

yikes, mistakes!! You missed Flemish in northern France (area of Hazebrouck).