Zantedeschi Roussillon Clergy
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© SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without Vernacular culture as a religious rampart: Roussillon clergy and the defence of Catalan language in 1880s Francesca Zantedeschi The aim of this paper is to analyse the attitude of Roussillon secular clergy towards Catalan vernacular culture in the second half of the nineteenth century. I will explore the clerical response to Third Republic anti-clerical politics to point out that the recovery of vernacular culture by Roussillon clergy was suggested by a largely defensive attitude. France’s attitude towards dialects in the long nineteenth century At the beginning of nineteenth century, patois , a socially unworthy language, acquired new authority by becoming subject of investigation. In fact, since its early appearance, the word “patois” had had a negative implication. In the 1694 edition of Richelet dictionary, besides the distinction between language and dialect – a purely denotative distinction, dialect being considered a non-institutionalized language –, we could find the distinction between dialect and patois . It was a socio-qualitative distinction, and patois possessed a negative connotation, since it was defined as a «sort of coarse language of a particular place which is different from the language spoken by honest people» 1. Since the French language had two definitions, one of a legal nature and the other of a social nature, it follows that French language without a juridical legal status which belonged to the masses was a patois 2. The 1789 Revolution, due to its will to establish a new world also through language, confirmed and deepened this distinction between French and patois by institutionalizing it. Even though a real language politics was not part of the Revolutionaries’ original plans, their resolution to transform social reality had an important repercussion also on the linguistic field. Their need to fix their ideas and visions of the new reality went through the use of fetish words and their fixation in dictionaries, the invention of neologisms, and created a «nomination’s fever» which 1 F. Garavini, Parigi e provincia , Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 1990, p. 112. 2 S. Branca, «Espace national et decoupage dialectal: deux étapes de la construction de la dialectologie au XIXe siècle», Trames, Histoire de la langue: méthodes et documents , Actes du colloque du groupe d’étude en histoire de la langue française, Limoges, 1982, pp. 43-53. 1 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without showed the importance both symbolic and political of their action. In order to externalize the Revolutionaries’ political ideals, the French language was therefore to be rethought so that it could reach the people and not be locked up in a bourgeois logic 3. According to the French linguist Sylvain Auroux, the political aspect of the language is probably the most outstanding element within the French tradition. The amount of “stories” about the French language shows its political use, typical of the French tradition, in which there was no place for a spontaneous linguistic evolution 4. Along these lines, Grégoire’s enquiry on patois was one of the first measures taken 5. This enquiry, which began on 13 August 1790, prepared a turnaround in the linguistic politics of the members of the 1789 Constituent Assembly, which did become more significant from 1794. Since the attitude of Assembly’s members towards regional languages was dictated by the necessity to spread as much as possible the revolutionary ideas and to propagate all the decrees by translating them into local idioms, until then a real linguistic politics did not exist 6. The National Assembly’s members considered the language as a communication tool and had a strictly instrumental idea about it. In 1794, the Convention elaborated an intervention programme in order to clear up the «chaos» generated by linguistic multiplicity 7. The Grégoire’s enquiry had the purpose to define precisely the number and extent of patois within the République ’s territory, their linguistic forms, their use and the ideas they spread. The 43 questions in total of the questionnaire, combined a scientific enquiry with an opinion analysis, and were sent to Republic’s commons, to Sociétés des Amis de la Révolution and numerous members of the clergy. Grégoire’s inquiry was to have some important repercussions on how local idioms would be considered. The linguistic and ideological distinction between “language” and “patois” took for granted a «geographical difference» between Paris, the capital, and the rest of France 8. The written report by abbé Grégoire was therefore the 3 A. Rey, Mille ans de langue française , Perrin, 2007, p. 931 ss. 4 See S. Auroux, « Langue, Etat, Nation : le modèle politique », in P. Sériot (ed.), Langue et nation en Europe centrale et orientale, du 18 ème siècle à nos jours , Cahiers de l’ILSL (Univ. De Lausanne), n. 8, 1996, pp. 1-20. 5 From the name of Henri-Baptiste Grégoire (1750-1831), an ex-abbé , the constitutional bishop of Blois and later a Convention’s member. 6 M.-C. Perrot, « La politique linguistique pendant la Révolution française », Mots. Les langages du politique , vol. 52, n. 1, 1997, p. 158-167. 7 See B. Schlieben-Lange, Idéologie, révolution et uniformité de la langue , Liège, Mardaga, 1996. 8 M. De Certeau, D. Julia, J. Revel, Une politique de la langue , Paris, Gallimard, pp. 49-51. 2 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without «mark of a historical moment» 9. It sanctioned a new idea of patois as an indication of prejudices and reactionary ideals, thus creating an obstacle to the spread of revolutionary ideals and democratic participation. It also legitimised the study of etymologic history of languages as the history of the human spirit’s progress. According to Grégoire, the knowledge of dialects correlated directly to the origins of the nation 10 . The concept of local idioms promoted by Grégoire’s report would have enormous repercussions in the future. By treating patois as “monuments”, it eliminated them from everyday usage, however it promoted their study as traces of the history of the nation. The Coquebert de Montbret’s enquiry (1806) had the same purpose to rescue and save a dying heritage. It had political and administrative interests, and required all one hundred and thirty prefects of the empire to know the dialects used in their portion of territory and so to be able to draw the limits of French in relationship to different languages, such as Flemish, Breton, Basque, Catalan, Italian, Germanic Alsatian and German 11 . In France, at the beginning of the 19th century, a new interest in gathering cultural and “ethnic” data took place; beliefs and customs, languages, monuments were all collected as fundamental factors for interpreting and explaining popular life. After the 1789 Revolution, a sense of disappearance concerning the ancient world lead to the will of saving the collective heritage which belonged to the history of France 12 . Popular culture gained a new dignity as the «conservatory of collective heritage» 13 . Interest in national antiquities led towards various directions: enquiries into origins, the writing of a national history, exploration of all that was considered to be an historical heritage of the nation. Archaeological remains, art, architecture, manuscripts, traditions, customs and local idioms, became the object of a new attention and worthy of being recorded. It is in this political and cultural context, greatly marked by the recovery of national antiquities, that neo-Latin studies originated. At the beginning of 19th century, the works of François-Juste-Marie Raynouard (1761-1836), Henri-Pascal de Rochegude (1741-1834) 9 Abbé was the title formerly used in France for members of the secular clergy. 10 De Certeau, op. cit ., pp. 339-340. 11 This enquiry, made under Napoleon I's reign, was led from the Office of the Statistics of the Ministry of the Interior, which was created in 1801 by Napoleon to know the effects of the Revolution and be able to direct the action of the new regime, the Consulate. See, T. Bulot, « L’enquête de Coquebert de Montbret et la glottopolitique de l’Empire française », Romanischen Philologie , 2-89, Auftr. 659/Sch. 1/tr79, Spreu, p. 287-292. 12 F. Mélonio, Naissance et affirmation d’une culture nationale , Paris, Seuil, 2001, p. 150 sqq. 13 A.-M. Thiesse, La création des identités nationales , Paris, Seuil, 1999, p. 50. 3 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without and Antoine Fabre d’Olivet (1767-1825) helped to restore the dignity of troubadours’ language and of all neo-Latin languages. At the same time, Romanticism stimulated the study of history, folklore and popular poetry and therefore of philological studies. During XIXth century, language became a relevant matter for dominant elites. According to Herder’s theory, language was a fundamental symbol of the innate nature of a nation which expresses its spirit by means of its literature, and so turned into a fundamental tool to exercise power. A first step towards political awakening of a national community, literary revival has to highlight the literary dignity of the people, before language is converted into a facilitator of ethnic, social and political claims. In France, the slowdown of the centralising assimilation process brought about by Romanticism encouraged the rise of dominated cultures, which found their own momentum by means of their literary revival (as it was the case of Britons, Occitans, Catalans, Basques and others). These cultural movements led an action different from the simple activity of classification and "monumentalisation" of the local languages and cultures. After being inventoried as “national monuments” belonging to French history, local languages and cultures became the object of comparative and scientific studies, and were used to express values inherent to secular civilizations, whereas the stories of the ancient provinces were celebrated as passing on a particular national character.