Breton Language

Mallorquí.   Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:50 pm GMT
Suomalainen, bonsoir,

Non, ni Sarkozy no aucun politicien français ne permettra jamais qu'aucune langue autre que le français n'ait la moindre récognition officielle. C'est impensable.

Le seul morceau de l'Occitanie où l'occitan soit officiel est le Val d'Aran, une partie de la Gascogne dans la Catalogne. Je connais pas mal d'occitant français (des français tout court) qui sont scandalisés par ce fait. Pour eux c'est une absurdité, quelque chose contre nature.

Enfin, il y a des façons et des façons de se conduire, de respecter les langues.

À chacun d'en tirer les conséquences qu'il trouve opportunes.
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Quand j'étudiais à Barcelone, j'avais un copain aranais. Il parlait catalan avec nous, mais je lui ai demandé de me parler occitan. Il n'y a eu le moindre problème de compréhension.

C'était la langue qu'il parlait à la maison et dans son pays. Il en était très fier. En fait, comme la plupart des aranais, il était quatrilingue: occitan, catalan, espagnol et français. J'ai parle avec lui tout récemment au téléphone: il a parlé occitan à ses enfants, et ceux-la aux leurs. La transmission de la langue est assurée. On l'entend à la radio, à la telévision, à l'ecole, et on y publie pas mal de livres. Le gouvernement catalan le garantit.

J'ai toujours trouvé cela très enrichissant.
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:11 am GMT
How many people do speak Breton ?
OïL   Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:34 am GMT
< How many people do speak Breton ? >

Estimations sont très variables, de 150 000 à 350 000.

Disons, autour de 250 000 qui le parlent +/-.
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:22 am GMT
Which amount of native speakers signals the inevitable decline of that language until it finally dissapears? I would say 10 000.
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:26 pm GMT
<< Could we ask Sarkozy to admit official recognition and administrative use for Breton and tell that preservation of minority languages is a duty of honour for civilized countries? >>

Who are you to ask the French President for such kind of demand when you're not even French citizen?
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:52 pm GMT
<<Who are you to ask the French President for such kind of demand when you're not even French citizen? >>

Breton belongs to World Heritage. Everybody has the right to ask for its preservation.
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 7:41 pm GMT
Sarkozy declared while campaigning for French presidency: "I don't give a flying fuck for the Bretons!"
He is much more interested in preserving Hebrew and Yiddish.

"dans le livre (1) que Yasmina Reza consacre à Nicolas Sarkozy. Les propos, tels que rapportés, remontent au 1er mai, lors de sa visite de campagne au Cross-Corsen de Plouarzel (Finistère): «Qu’est-ce qu’on va foutre dans un centre opérationnel sinistre à regarder un radar ? […] Je me fous des Bretons."
http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/politiques/274377.FR.php
Guest   Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:58 pm GMT
If the French are so proud of their Gallic heritage, why don't they try to preserve Breton, which is the only living language related to Gaulish?
Skippy   Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:06 pm GMT
That's not quite true... Welsh is as closely related to Gaulish as Breton is (maybe more so, when one realizes that Welsh and Breton came from the same place, either one of them could be more closely related to their more distant cousin, Gaulish). Welsh and Breton, in turn, are more closely related to Scots Gaelic and Irish than they are to Gaulish. (Scots Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and Breton are all Insular Celtic languages while Gaulish was from the Continental Celtic branch).
OïL   Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:31 pm GMT
"Welsh and Breton, in turn, are more closely related to Scots Gaelic and Irish than they are to Gaulish. (Scots Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and Breton are all Insular Celtic languages while Gaulish was from the Continental Celtic branch)"

— Probablement inexact.
La langue gauloise était encore répandue en France lors de l'arrivée des Bretons en Armorique, et devait être spécialement présente dans cette région.
En fait il se pourrait que le breton soit 100% du gaulois.

Forum de réellement haut niveau sur ce sujet:
http://bretagne-passion.forumactif.com/Linguistique-En-Breton-et-Gallo-f4/Breton-gaulois-immigration-bretonne-t1150.htm
Visiteur   Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:01 am GMT
Actaully, the preservation of Breton language lies on its speakers.

In the middle of the 20th century, there were 1.5 million Breton speakers. But in the late 20th century it has gone down to more or less 600,000.

The French government need not to be blamed for this becuase very few non-Bretons settled in Brittany so that the assimilations of the locals there could be hastened as happened in ireland during the Potato Famine. The Bretons themselves voluntarily switched to French by speaking to their children in French and never in Breton because according to them they wanted their children to grow up as ordinary French and they are so happy about that decision.
suomalainen   Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:45 am GMT
"Who are you to as the French president for such kind of demand when you are not even French citizen?"

I´m an ordinary Finnish teacher. I tell at school to my students how both biological and linguistic diversity are seriously threatened on the earth, what a definite loss for us the extinction of any species or language is and that the duty of every human being is to do what he can to help to preserve our invaluable treasure. Therefore I could refer to president Lula da Silva of Brazil concerning preservation of the rainforests. I hope he and other Brazilians wouldn´t feel offended if a Finn would say this; on the contrary, I hope they could feel proud that they are able to do something so important, to preserve such a wonderful part of our common heritage. In the same way, I hope that the French would feel proud that they who have so many linguistic minorities in their country, can play so big role in preserving the rich linguistic diversity of our world.
Guest   Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:48 am GMT
"If the French are so proud of their Gallic heritage, why don't they try to preserve Breton, which is the only living language related to Gaulish? "


the french are not that proud of any "gallic" heritage. culturally there is not much of gallic origin since 2000 years, and "etnically" a lot of (most of?) nowadays french people have no gaulich ancestors.
Visiteur   Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:46 pm GMT
suomalainen,

Then why don't you do the same with the Finland Swedish and Lappish languages in your country.

Ask the Finnish government to preserve them!
suomalainen   Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:16 pm GMT
"Then why don´t you do the same with the Finland Swedish and Lappish languages in your country. Ask the Finnish government to preserve them."

I have tried to do this. When the Finnish Minister of Culture visited my home town, I addressed her and proposed that we would do the same as Norway and offer state and municipality officials working in northernmost Finland the opportunity to study Lappish (Saami) so they could serve local people in their own language(s). Previously in my home country Lappish children could be punished if they spoke their mother tongue at school. The result was that when the children were grown-ups, they switched "voluntarily" to Finnish because the Finnish society didn´t give any room to Lappish. I think it is fortunate that the situation has changed a lot: now the Lappish children may attend schools where Lappish is the instruction language, Lappish is used in road signs, there are Lappish newspapers, radio and even TV broadcasting. The worst shortage is that the Finnish officials often don´t care to learn Lappish, and this is something that should be improved. The better position for Saami doesn´t threaten in any way the state of Finland, but it can help Finns to accept difference and appreciate diversity.