Francization
Encyclopedia
Francization or Gallicization (and informally Frenchification) is a process of cultural assimilation
that gives a French character to a word, an ethnicity or a person.
s (French language speakers) in the world has been risen substantially since the 1980s. In 1985 there were 106 million Francophones; that went up to 173.2 million in 1997 ,200 million in 2005,reached 220 million in 2010 (+10% from 2007) and the forecasts expect the number of French speakers in African education to reach 400 million in 2025 and 700 million in 2050. The French speaking population would be multiplied by 4 whereas the world population would only be multiplied by 1.5.
to nowadays. These policies aimed at imposing or maintaining the dominance of French language and culture by encouraging or compelling people of other ethnic groups to adopt the French language and culture, and to develop a French identity.
after this region was reannexed by France following the First World War, to the Flemings in French Flanders
, or to the Occitans
in Occitania
, as well as to Breton
s, Catalan
s, Corsicans and Basque
s.
It began with the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
under king Francis I of France
, that prescribed the official use of the French language in all the documents. The other tongues like Occitan began to disappear as written languages.
Everything was francized step by step : surnames, place-names, etc. Nowadays it still continues but people can change their names to bretonize (replacement of 'Le' by 'Ar' for instance Le Bras becomes Ar Braz 'the tall') or occitanize it again. The city signs for example, must be spelled in the French way, but the local authorities are now allowed to add the historic version.
has francization policies intended to establish French as the primary language of business and commerce. All businesses are required to provide written communications and schedules in French, and may not make knowledge of a language other than French a condition of hiring unless this is justified by the nature of the duties. Businesses with more than fifty employees are required to register with the Quebec Office of the French language
in order to become eligible for a francization certificate, which is granted if the linguistic requirements are met. If not, employers are required to adopt a francization programme, which includes having employees, especially ones in managerial positions, who do not speak French or whose grasp of French is weak attend French-language training.
As part of the francization programme, the Quebec government provides free language courses for recent immigrants (from other countries or other provinces) who do not speak French or whose command of French is weak. The government also provides financial assistance for those who are unable to find employment due to being unable to speak French.
Another aspect of francization in Quebec regards the quality of the French
used in Quebec. The Quebec Office of the French language has, since its formation, undertaken to discourage anglicisms and to promote high standards of French language education in schools.
The francization programmes have been considered a great success, since 1977 (date of the vote on the Charter of the French Language.) the number of English speaker has decreased from 14% in 1970 to less than 6.7% in 2006, also in the 70's the French languages was understood by only native French speakers, (80%) of the population of Quebec, in 2001, French was understood by more than 94% of the population.
Also the number of immigrants choosing English schools for their children fell from 80% in 1970 to less than 4% in 2006.
French is also becoming increasingly attractive to foreigns speakers suggesting that the francization programmes have been successful.
Montreal is a particular case, because unlike the rest of Quebec, the French speaking proportion of the population diminished however this does not mean that the francization programmes failed, as the level of English speakers diminished too; it seems more likely that the decrease was caused by the fact that 93% of new immigrants choose to settle in Montreal, with a corresponding rise in languages other than English and French. The government of Quebec estimate that the next 20 years will see the French-Speaker proportion of Montreal going back up.
But those estimations seems to underestimate the Francization of Montreal for some experts because statistics shows that the proportion hass already risen from 55.6% (1996)to 56.4% (2001)
The success of the Francization of Quebec can also be seen over the borders of its territory, in Ontario the proportion of English speakers dropped from 70.5% in 2001 to 68% in 2006 whilst the proportion of French speakers went up from 4.06% (488 815) in 2006 to 4.80%(580 000) in 2009.
The policy has been even more successful in New-Brunswick, where entire cities became French speaking, for example: the city of Edmundston, which went from 89% of French speaker in 1996 to 93.4% in 2006, the city of Moncton (from 30,4% in 1996 to 33% in 2006), Dalhousie (from 42,5% to 49,5%) and Dieppe (from 71.1% in 1996 to 74.2% en 2006). Some cities even passed over the 50% of French speaker between 1991 to 2006 like Bathurst, which passed from 44,6% of French speaker in 1996 to 50,5% in 2006, or Campbellton, (from 47% in 1996 to 55% in 2006).
The Charter of the French Language has been a complete success according to Hervé Lavenir de Buffon (general secretary of the « Comité international pour le français, langue européenne »), who said in 2006 : "Before the bill 101 Montreal looked like an American city, now Montreal look like a French-speaking city ,that proves how well the bill 101 worked!"
Rates of francization may be established for any group by comparing the number of people who usually speak French to the total number of people in the minority language group. See Calvin Veltman
's Language Shift in the United States (1983) for a discussion.
transformed from an exclusively Dutch-speaking
city to a bilingual city with French
as the majority language and lingua franca
. The language shift began in the 18th century and accelerated as Belgium became independent
and Brussels expanded beyond its original city boundaries. From 1880 on, more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual, resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century the number of monolingual French-speakers carried the day over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants. Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use. The francisation of the Flemish periphery still continues because of the continued immigration of French-speakers, coming from Wallonia and Brussels.
The same exists for other languages, for example English, in which case objects or persons can be anglicized
.
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
that gives a French character to a word, an ethnicity or a person.
French Colonial Empire
Francization in the World
The number of FrancophoneFrancophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
s (French language speakers) in the world has been risen substantially since the 1980s. In 1985 there were 106 million Francophones; that went up to 173.2 million in 1997 ,200 million in 2005,reached 220 million in 2010 (+10% from 2007) and the forecasts expect the number of French speakers in African education to reach 400 million in 2025 and 700 million in 2050. The French speaking population would be multiplied by 4 whereas the world population would only be multiplied by 1.5.
Francization of ethnic minorities in France
Francization is also a designator applied to a number of ethnic assimilation policies implemented by French authorities from the French revolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
to nowadays. These policies aimed at imposing or maintaining the dominance of French language and culture by encouraging or compelling people of other ethnic groups to adopt the French language and culture, and to develop a French identity.
National minorities
The term can be applied to the Francization of the German-speaking inhabitants of Alsace-LorraineAlsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
after this region was reannexed by France following the First World War, to the Flemings in French Flanders
French Flanders
French Flanders is a part of the historical County of Flanders in present-day France. The region today lies in the modern-day region of Nord-Pas de Calais, the department of Nord, and roughly corresponds to the arrondissements of Lille, Douai and Dunkirk on the Belgian border.-Geography:French...
, or to the Occitans
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
in Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
, as well as to Breton
Breton people
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...
s, Catalan
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
s, Corsicans and Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
s.
It began with the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France on August 10, 1539 in the city of Villers-Cotterêts....
under king Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
, that prescribed the official use of the French language in all the documents. The other tongues like Occitan began to disappear as written languages.
Everything was francized step by step : surnames, place-names, etc. Nowadays it still continues but people can change their names to bretonize (replacement of 'Le' by 'Ar' for instance Le Bras becomes Ar Braz 'the tall') or occitanize it again. The city signs for example, must be spelled in the French way, but the local authorities are now allowed to add the historic version.
Francization in Quebec
The Government of QuebecGovernment of Quebec
The Government of Quebec refers to the provincial government of the province of Quebec. Its powers and structure are set out in the Constitution Act, 1867....
has francization policies intended to establish French as the primary language of business and commerce. All businesses are required to provide written communications and schedules in French, and may not make knowledge of a language other than French a condition of hiring unless this is justified by the nature of the duties. Businesses with more than fifty employees are required to register with the Quebec Office of the French language
Office québécois de la langue française
The Office québécois de la langue française is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage...
in order to become eligible for a francization certificate, which is granted if the linguistic requirements are met. If not, employers are required to adopt a francization programme, which includes having employees, especially ones in managerial positions, who do not speak French or whose grasp of French is weak attend French-language training.
As part of the francization programme, the Quebec government provides free language courses for recent immigrants (from other countries or other provinces) who do not speak French or whose command of French is weak. The government also provides financial assistance for those who are unable to find employment due to being unable to speak French.
Another aspect of francization in Quebec regards the quality of the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
used in Quebec. The Quebec Office of the French language has, since its formation, undertaken to discourage anglicisms and to promote high standards of French language education in schools.
The francization programmes have been considered a great success, since 1977 (date of the vote on the Charter of the French Language.) the number of English speaker has decreased from 14% in 1970 to less than 6.7% in 2006, also in the 70's the French languages was understood by only native French speakers, (80%) of the population of Quebec, in 2001, French was understood by more than 94% of the population.
Also the number of immigrants choosing English schools for their children fell from 80% in 1970 to less than 4% in 2006.
French is also becoming increasingly attractive to foreigns speakers suggesting that the francization programmes have been successful.
Montreal is a particular case, because unlike the rest of Quebec, the French speaking proportion of the population diminished however this does not mean that the francization programmes failed, as the level of English speakers diminished too; it seems more likely that the decrease was caused by the fact that 93% of new immigrants choose to settle in Montreal, with a corresponding rise in languages other than English and French. The government of Quebec estimate that the next 20 years will see the French-Speaker proportion of Montreal going back up.
But those estimations seems to underestimate the Francization of Montreal for some experts because statistics shows that the proportion hass already risen from 55.6% (1996)to 56.4% (2001)
The success of the Francization of Quebec can also be seen over the borders of its territory, in Ontario the proportion of English speakers dropped from 70.5% in 2001 to 68% in 2006 whilst the proportion of French speakers went up from 4.06% (488 815) in 2006 to 4.80%(580 000) in 2009.
The policy has been even more successful in New-Brunswick, where entire cities became French speaking, for example: the city of Edmundston, which went from 89% of French speaker in 1996 to 93.4% in 2006, the city of Moncton (from 30,4% in 1996 to 33% in 2006), Dalhousie (from 42,5% to 49,5%) and Dieppe (from 71.1% in 1996 to 74.2% en 2006). Some cities even passed over the 50% of French speaker between 1991 to 2006 like Bathurst, which passed from 44,6% of French speaker in 1996 to 50,5% in 2006, or Campbellton, (from 47% in 1996 to 55% in 2006).
The Charter of the French Language has been a complete success according to Hervé Lavenir de Buffon (general secretary of the « Comité international pour le français, langue européenne »), who said in 2006 : "Before the bill 101 Montreal looked like an American city, now Montreal look like a French-speaking city ,that proves how well the bill 101 worked!"
Rates of francization may be established for any group by comparing the number of people who usually speak French to the total number of people in the minority language group. See Calvin Veltman
Calvin Veltman
Calvin Veltman is an American sociologist, demographer and sociolinguist at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He previously worked at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh...
's Language Shift in the United States (1983) for a discussion.
Francization of Brussels and the Flemish periphery
In the last two centuries, BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
transformed from an exclusively Dutch-speaking
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
city to a bilingual city with French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
as the majority language and lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
. The language shift began in the 18th century and accelerated as Belgium became independent
Belgian Revolution
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....
and Brussels expanded beyond its original city boundaries. From 1880 on, more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual, resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century the number of monolingual French-speakers carried the day over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants. Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use. The francisation of the Flemish periphery still continues because of the continued immigration of French-speakers, coming from Wallonia and Brussels.
Francization of the language
There are many examples of francization in history and popular culture:- Crème anglaiseCrème anglaiseCrème anglaise is a light pouring custard used as a dessert cream or sauce. It is a mix of sugar, egg yolks and hot milk, often flavoured with vanilla....
replacing the word "custardCustardCustard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk. Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce , to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used as...
" on restaurant menus. - Anne BoleynAnne BoleynAnne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
choosing the French spelling BoleynBoleynFrancization of traditional english "Bullen", Boleyn is the surname of a noble English family particularly prominent in the Tudor period, members of which include:*Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII...
over the traditional English Bolin or Bullen. - Mary, Queen of Scots, choosing the spelling StuartHouse of StuartThe House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...
over Stewart for the name of her dynasty. (The Scottish had dual nationality.) - The common "-escu" final particle in RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
being traditionally changed to "-esco" in French spellings and being occasionally adopted by the persons themselves as a French equivalent of their names (see Eugène IonescoEugène IonescoEugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
, Irina IonescoIrina IonescoIrina Ionesco is a French photographer born in Paris, France. She was the daughter of Romanian immigrants. She spent her childhood years in Constanţa, Romania before she moved to Paris. She traveled and painted for several years before discovering photography...
, Marthe BibescoMarthe BibescoMarthe, Princess Bibesco was a Romanian-French writer of the Belle Époque...
).
The same exists for other languages, for example English, in which case objects or persons can be anglicized
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
.
See also
- French colonial empiresFrench colonial empiresThe French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
- GallicismGallicismA Gallicism can be:* a mode of speech peculiar to the French;* a French idiom;* in general, a French mode or custom.* loanwords, words or phrases borrowed from French....
- AnglicismAnglicismAn Anglicism, as most often defined, is a word borrowed from English into another language. "Anglicism" also describes English syntax, grammar, meaning, and structure used in another language with varying degrees of corruption.-Anglicisms in Chinese:...
- AfrancesadoAfrancesadoAfrancesado was the term used to denote Spanish and Portuguese partisans of Enlightenment ideas, Liberalism, or the French Revolution, who were supporters of the French occupation of Iberia and of the First French Empire.-Origins:...
, Spanish followers of French culture and politics in the 18th and 19th centuries.