Linguae Europaeae

by Emily Swisher  Emily Swisher is a third-year doctoral student in French Studies at the University of Illinois. Emily hopes to become a professor of French and incorporate research from her subfields of Translation/Interpretation and European Union Studies into her professional work. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021. The Arabic language has an undeniably strong hold in France. It is currently the second-most spoken language in the country with approximately four million locutors, far surpassing the combined number of speakers of France’s 25+ regional languages. Historically opposed to education initiatives in any language aside from the recognized national standard, France is now starting to reevaluate its policies toward the instruction of minority languages, and Arabic in particular. With a growing population of Arabic speakers on the mainland, the impetus for change seems to follow the adage, if you can’t beat them, join...

by Ash Carter Ash Carter is a graduate student in French sociolinguistics at the University of Illinois.  She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities' in Spring 2019. In late February of this year, France became the last country in the French-speaking Western world to add feminine working-titles to their language repertoire after centuries of masculine-dominated professional titles. The French Academy, which serves as the executive body of French language policy and planning in France, decided to accept feminine work titles as ‘correct’ and suitable for ‘standard’ French. And this is news because…? Well, this is news because Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada all adopted feminization as early as 1979. The reluctance of the French to follow in the footsteps of francophonie in this matter in earlier years is explained by the Academy’s belief that the proposed changes to the language were ‘barbaric’. While former French president Jacques Chirac encouraged the mov...