Dedialectalization in France: convergence and divergence

Abstract

This article challenges the received view that geolinguistic variation in France is both imminent and inevitable. It is certainly true that France's ancestral dialects and regional languages are in terminal decline, and that a combination of late industrialization and the dominance of an oversized capital conurbation has engendered regional dialect leveling of a particularly extreme kind. But we will argue that new varieties are emerging, and that these represent independent vernacular norms rather than an ephemeral dialect residue as is generally assumed. While these regional French varieties are often embryonic, they are distinguishing themselves via a number of processes, including notably the creation of interdialect forms, differential adoption of urban variants and/or divergent norms for supralocal variables, the retention of archaisms, and local phonological divergence. Francophone Europe is seeing profound changes to the nature of geolinguistic variation, not the end of diversity.