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| Authored by: kg on Wednesday, December 12 2012 @ 01:31 AM EST |
Yes, I've heard it said by people who should know this kind
of thing that the French have signed every treaty to protect
minority languages. Thing is, they unilaterally declare that
there are no minority languages or dialects in France. Ask
French people, and they will admit that their parents or
grandparents may speak a dialect, but they do not.
France has been particularly successful at virtually
eradicating minority dialects, such as Alsatian (a dialect
of German). Go to Alsace, and you may be able to find a few
elderly people who may be able to speak the dialect, but
young people don't have a clue.
I guess something similar happened voluntarily in New Mexico
(and probably to a lesser extent in Arizona), where in the
mid-20th century, the people voluntarily gave up Spanish to
learn English as a first language. The result is that the
New Mexican Spanish dialect has nearly died out.
Oddly enough, during the New Deal's WPA (Works Progress
Administration), those writers who faithfully captured the
dialect were told by their Washington handlers that they
shouldn't be so careless with their Spanish, and no amount
of protest could persuade the powers that be that New Mexico
did not have the same vocabulary and syntax as standard
Spanish.
---
IANAL
Linguist and Open Source Developer[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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