Was French ever really the language of diplomacy? If so was it before or after the Congress of Vienna? If after was it due to Talleyrand’s coup?
thanks,
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It was both before and after the Congress of Vienna. Due to France’s very dominant role in politics on the European continent in the 18th century, it became the prevalent language in international diplomacy and kept this status until after WWI at least, when English became #1.
Relics of this are still visible. French is a very important language in discussions and literature about international public law and is the dominant language in European Community law.
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Except, of course, that those words are (now) bona fide English words…of French origin (just like a huge percentage of our regular vocabulary). So no need to look for “English” equivalents.
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God, yes, absolutely.
You have to remember that through most of the 19th century France was a top rival to the British empire, the greatest political and military force of the era. It built a world empire including vast territories in Africa which were freed up only in the 1960s. When the UN was founded, French was made one of its five languages of official communication, no doubt as a result of the country’s importance as a world power territorially speaking, and of its historical importance. On the other hand, that decision may have been a bit out of proportion with France’s condition at the time, and inconsistant which the fact that the age of territorial empires was on the wane.
True about England too. A dinky little island of no importance whatsoever these days.
At least the Frenchies aren’t lackies of the good old US of A.
England isn’t an island…Great Britain is!! :wally
By that logic, neither is Ireland. Or Haiti.
Indeed, Haiti isn’t. Neither is the Republic of Ireland. They are located IN islands.
But in any case, back to OP, indeed French as the international language of Western politics does date back to the period of the last few Louis when France was THE hegemonic power of Continental Europe, and was reinforced by Napoleon. Also recall that even after N’s fall, such things as the metric system and the Civil Law Code became widely adopted throughout the West, reinforcing French influence.
And of course it’s in a U.S. passport.
Isn’t it one all passports?
True enough. But GREAT Britain is an oxymoron these days.
No. Mine for instance is in Norwegian and English only.
When Catherine of Aragon got to England, one thing that stumped her and her accompanying ladies was that those barbarians didn’t speak decently either French or Latin.
None of them had expected Spanish, but geez…
And of course, none of the ladies spoke English.
The term is, of course, purely geographic and always has been. As Wikipedia puts it:
… the island of Great Britain was referred to as Britannia maior (“Greater Britain”), to distinguish it from Britannia minor (“Lesser Britain”), the Gaulish region which approximates to modern Brittany. The term “Bretayne the grete” was used by chroniclers as early as 1338, but it was not used officially until King James I proclaimed himself “King of Great Britain” on 20 October 1604 to avoid the more cumbersome title “King of England and Scotland”.
I guess a bit like the GOOD old U S of A :rolleyes:
Maybe if we could keep the politics out of this, we could all pat ourselves on the back in whatever language we wish.
Somehow, I doubt it, but I had to try.
Being a history major, I find this incredibly interesting. I’ve been tracking the interesting phenomenon of a vast number of peoples/nations that use a totally different language for political purposes.
Seems to be a common thread throughout European history.
Just to mention that a famous example of this is the UN resolution that used a deliberatly ambiguous wording to urge Israel to withdraw from occupied territories, and by omitting the definite article didn’t specify whether it was referencing to all, or only to part, of the occupied territories, leading to unending arguments about its meaning (once again, it was written this way on purpose). It’s impossible to keep this ambiguity in french, an article being necessary (either “des”, which would have meant “all of the territories” or “de” which would have meant “part of the territories”).
(For the record, the french version of the resolution, which isn’t authoritative, clearly refers to all occupied territories).
It’s indeed clearly much easier to write an ambiguous sentence in english than in french.
And why is “lingua Franca” an Italian prase?
On the same note, “Swahili”, although it’s the (mainly Bantu) lingua Franca of Africa, is an Arabic word for “Coastal.”
You’d think that any self-respecting lingua Franca’s name for itself would be in lingua Franca.
I sure don’t know. I’m still working on why the writers of Star Trek chose the Turkish word for “Frank” (used for any Western European) as the name for a planet of greedy merchants.
Quite agree but hey I never started it I just felt as an Englishman and damn proud of it that I had to fight back.
Now then where were we?..ah yes!
French may welll have been a language of diplomacy in years past but let’s face it French as a language is as dead as the Dodo.
The only language worth knowing is English…why?
'cos when we see a word we like we quite simply and without asking just adopt it into our own and before very long it is recognised as an English word despite its origin.
A bit naughty of us but that’s what makes our language so bloody adaptable and great 