The translation state

Abstract

This chapter argues that translation represents a central dimension of state-formation. Rather than resuscitate the nation-state-focused teleologies of older historiographical narratives, the chapter examines the early modern relationship between the state and language on its own terms, arguing that a historically specific politics of language, grounded in particular cultural, political, and linguistic contexts, existed, which little resembled modern forms of linguistic politics. Taking early modern France as a case study – an intensely polyglot society in which French competed with Latin and a host of regional languages and dialects –, I argue that the French monarchy was as invested in the mediation of linguistic difference in its multilingual kingdom as it was in its better-known promotion of French. To this end, this chapter reconstructs the central place translation occupied in law, administrative procedure, the social life of government, and royal ideology. This emphasis on translation rather than imposition, on mediation rather than language planning aimed at language dissemination or maintenance, should be seen, I argue here, as a characteristic feature of early modern linguistic politics.