16.3648, Review: Dialect/Sociolin g/Historical Ling: LeD û etal(2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3648. Thu Dec 22 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3648, Review: Dialect/Socioling/Historical Ling: LeDû etal(2005)

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1)
Date: 21-Dec-2005
From: Mélanie Jouitteau < melaniejouitteau at yahoo.fr >
Subject: Lectures de l'Atlas Linguistique de la France de Gilliéron et Edmont 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:47:20
From: Mélanie Jouitteau < melaniejouitteau at yahoo.fr >
Subject: Lectures de l'Atlas Linguistique de la France de Gilliéron et Edmont 
 

AUTHORS: Le Dû, Jean; Le Berre, Yves; Brun-Trigaud, Guylaine 
TITLE: Lectures de l'Atlas Linguistique de la France de Gilliéron et 
Edmont 
SUBTITLE: Du temps dans l'espace 
PUBLISHER: Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques 
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2456.html 

Mélanie Jouitteau, University of Nantes

The book is written in French. The prototypical reader is a French 
speaker, described as part of a ''large enlightened public'' (p. 5).

OVERVIEW

The book opens with a preface, followed by an introduction.

The preface states that the goal of the book is not to explain what 
language is, but to propose a description, among others, of 
what ''France'' is, departing from linguistic data collected at the end of 
the 19th century in a rural world, which has now almost disappeared. 
The dialectic develops on the opposition between, on the one hand, 
an extreme diversity of variations illustrated by the data collected in 
the Atlas Linguistique de la France of Gilliéron and Edmont (Linguistic 
Atlas of France, henceforth ALF), and, on the other hand, the 
construction of a common idiom, French.

The introduction begins by exposing the genesis of the book and how 
the decision had been taken to rework Pr. Falc'hun's notes on the 
ALF, following his hypothesis that geography and economy highly 
influence lexical borrowings in a given language. The authors next 
present the methodology of data collection for the ALF, noting that the 
ALF served as a reference for the collection of Breton data by Pierre 
Leroux for the constitution of the Atlas Linguistique de Basse-
Bretagne (Linguistic Atlas of Low-Brittany, henceforth ALBB). The 
authors finally indicate how to read the maps of the following study.

The study proper is divided into three parts, respectively 
entitled ''Time'', ''Space'' and ''Movements''. 

The first part, ''Time'', presents a selection of 40 maps illustrating the 
distribution and variants of different words, revealing their origins, 
from the age of iron to the low middle age. 

The second part, ''Space'', investigates the characteristics of each 
region of the French State, with more than 300 maps. Different 
geographic characteristics are shown to produce different behaviours 
in terms of sensibility to exterior influences. The studied areas 
distinguish mountains, rivers that can sometimes block humans from 
crossing, or longitudinally accelerate human exchanges and thus 
favour borrowings and influences. The study closes on the study of 
linguistic particularities characteristic of isolated areas.

The last part of the book, ''Movements'', is concerned with the study 
and geographical characterization of lines of resistance to external 
influences, providing the reader with about 146 maps illustrating 
movements of lexical exports from the centre to peripheries, from 
north to south, and a typology of other noted movements. 

Most maps concern uses of a particular lexeme for a given object, 
such as the different words used for 'chair' (p. 36). Some rare maps 
illustrate semantic distinctions, such as the geographical repartition of 
the distinction made or not between 'cheveux' ''hair'' and 'poils' ''hairs'', 
(p. 120). As for syntax, information is sparse, but a beautiful collection 
of maps illustrate the northern zone where realised subjects were in 
use, the south zone where null subjects were in use, and the Gascon 
area using the C particle 'que' in place of the subject (pp. 186-7).

The authors propose a redefinition of certain linguistic terms. They 
note that the term 'dialect' is linguistically incorrect as it contains an 
underlying reference to a central language, whose very existence can 
be called into question. They add that the term 'dialect' is affectively 
charged (in French) and they consequently militate for its elimination. 
They propose to replace the language/dialect opposition by a 
pyramidal construction. The atomic unit, the 'badume', is the most 
local consistent variety. It is spoken in small communities 
geographically and culturally isolated from exchanges with the 
exterior. The 'badume' is consequently stable and conservative in 
nature. The written form of some badumes adopted in a larger area is 
called 'regional standard'. Finally, over an area larger than that 
of 'regional standards', the normative pressure of centers of influence 
constitutes, over time, a language (such as French). This language is 
constituted from material adopted from different badumes, and new 
creations spreading as fast as the prestige of the central area 
spreads. The authors depict a situation over time where a mosaic of 
non-inter-comprehensible badumes progressively competes with a 
language targeted for communication over larger areas: French. The 
fact that in the territory considered in the book, such very local 
varieties are organized in different linguistic systems such as 
Romance, Celtic, Basque or Germanic, is of no importance, since the 
badumes, the local varieties, are defined by their lack of inter-
comprehensibility.

EVALUATION

Methodology

The main methodological problem is underlined by the authors 
themselves and comes from the material that is used: as we do not 
have access to the questionnaires used to collect the data, it is 
impossible to know how a given word has been obtained. The entire 
results and subsequent analysis rely on a complete confidence in the 
methodology used by three linguists (Gilliéron and Edmont for ALF, 
and Leroux for ALBB) at the beginning of the 20th century. However, 
the profusion and precision of the data coming from such a wide area 
is in itself a treasure that the authors successfully put to use.

The focus on Breton
To Gillieron's inventory of geographic repartition of words coming from 
Romance, Gaulish or Latin, the authors add, whenever they think it is 
accurate, corresponding borrowings in use in Low Brittany, a Breton 
(Celtic) speaking area. The borrowings in Breton are very well 
documented, and they nicely illustrate the authors' assumption that 
words travel without regard to the local linguistic variety in use. We 
could regret in this respect that other documented non-Romance 
languages in the French State were not used to illustrate the same 
point: Basque is for example extensively documented, and adoption of 
Latin words into the lexicon of this non Indo-European language would 
have strengthened the point. 

The global image would also have been more balanced; as it stands, 
Breton seems to be alone in its constant borrowing from Latin. This 
would be no harm if a non-linguist such as the declared targeted 
reader had been provided in the introduction with a brief but clear 
schema of the different languages in use in the French State, clearly 
stating that Breton is a Celtic language, which happen not to belong to 
the Romance languages. In place of that, the non-specialist is left 
alone with assumptions such as ''The Breton language, an essentially 
mixed language [...], has lived for centuries close to 
romance 'parlers'''(p. 227). The status of the Breton data globally 
suffers from this ambiguity. 

The presentation of the Atlas Linguistique de la France of Gilliéron 
and Edmont in the introductory part should clearly state that Breton 
was out of the research area. In place of that, we can only deduce 
from the map on p 20 that Brittany was included into the investigated 
area of the ALF. On the following page, we see that this area appears 
in none of the 8 missions of Edmont. Brittany reappears on p. 22, and 
only High-Brittany remains on the map p. 24. Finally, the authors point 
that Gilliéron had excluded all non-Romance varieties in the French 
State (Basque, Breton, Alsaco, Lorrain). Where thus does the Breton 
data come from? The authors explain that they have added data 
collected 10 to 20 years later by Leroux into the Breton speaking 
area. However, twice in the book (p 37, 103), the authors state with 
force that they restrict themselves to Gillieron's data (that is to an area 
excluding Brittany). The global image remains scrambled and all maps 
in the book differ from the original version and the augmented one in 
including Low-Brittany. 

A clear and brief introduction to the different varieties of languages 
present in the investigated area would also have avoided possible 
confusions for a non-specialist. To cite another example, the map p. 
63 illustrates the Basque influence on Romance, beginning the 
paragraph entitled ''Before the age of iron: Preceltic''. Of course, the 
authors are not claiming that Basque is synonymous of Preceltic, but 
the lack of precise information could lead a sincere but non-specialist 
reader to deep confusions. A glossary is provided at the end of the 
book, giving the reader some definitions of basic notions, but no link 
from the body of the book points toward this glossary, and a reader 
discovers it with surprise as a subpart of the annexes, after reading 
the book.

Again, such confusions are particularly of importance considering that 
the targeted reader is typically a non-linguist of French education. 
More clarity in the introduction would have added value to the fact that 
integration of the Breton facts for illustration of lexical spreading is 
indeed very interesting, showing that, where there was a route for 
human's exchanges, there also was a route for lexical exchanges, 
whatever the linguistic distance of languages in contact. 

As it stands, the confusion in linguistic affiliations leads to unclarity in 
another of the proposals that the authors advocate for: ''the historical 
displacement of linguistic features in geographical regions beyond 
linguistic boundaries'' (p. 43). For example, the map p. 42 is 
entitled: ''Area of conservation of the consonant that became final''. 
This synthesis of maps is used to illustrate the evolution of final 
consonants, with six lines of comments on the different variants of the 
ending in the word for 'cat'. A flashy yellow area, in the Western part 
of the actual French State, calls attention to a final /s/. This notation is 
not commented on, and the targeted reader defined above cannot but 
conclude that in this area, the fate of the final syllable in the 
Latin 'cattus' let place to a final -s (leading to 'cas'?). This area was 
not present in the Atlas Linguistique de la France de Gilliéron et 
Edmont that the main title of the book claims the authors comment on, 
because this area is the Breton speaking area, that Gilliéron and 
Edmont consequently didn't investigate. The authors here have added 
data from the Atlas Linguistique de Basse Bretagne. The -s notation 
thus must refer to the ending of the Breton word 'kazh' (/kas/), and not 
to the variety of French spoken by the (rare) bilinguals in Brittany in 
the beginning of the 20th century. It is up to the reader to fill in, or not, 
that Breton kazh reflects borrowing also of Latin cattus, like the 
Romance words for 'cat', but into Brythonic. 

A central assumption of the authors is here not spelled-out: the 
authors assume that generalizations on the evolution of consonant 
endings can be built without regard to the particular linguistic system 
from which the data is extracted (here Romance vs. Celtic). The map 
treats a word borrowed from Latin and integrated into a Celtic 
language on a par with development of the same Latin word in a 
Romance language: pronunciation such as treatment of a consonant 
ending is taken to be a 'feature of language' that travels as easily as a 
given word. This hypothesis is also presupposed for treatment of initial 
consonants (map 11, p. 44) or the treatment of vowels (map 12, p. 
45), with total disregard to the entirety of the linguistic system in which 
the borrowing takes place (intonation, liaison, sandhi, etc.). As this is 
not exactly a standard assumption, it would have been interesting 
here that the authors spell-out and develop their hypothesis. Does it 
mean that all variation has to be attributed to external influence? If 
not, what is the contrast with evolutions not triggered by an external 
influence? Do they mean that historical linguistics should never take 
entirety of a given linguistic system into account? Then how to explain 
the remaining differences between languages in contact for long 
periods such as, for example, Basque and the different surrounding 
Romance varieties? How to explain resistance to some feature, like 
resistance of Breton to the massive French palatalization? To what 
influence should the French palatalization be attributed? etc.

Moreover, the information also lacking in this map p. 42 is that the 
principal sound-change in question, /tt/ into /th/ (as in English 'thin') is 
in fact a Celtic feature, supposed to have occurred in the ancestor 
Celtic language spoken mainly in Britain before the sixth century (cf. 
Welsh 'cath', Cornish 'cas'). This Celtic sound change has been 
followed by much later (and dialectally divergent) change of /th/ (from 
various sources) to /s/, /h/. As the issue of the linguistic 
characterization of Breton is mentioned in several places of the book, 
the reader could appreciate that the authors make precise that this 
Latin borrowing is not an argument for Breton being closer to other 
Romance languages (but, in this case, to other Celtic languages).

If the geographical constraints applying to lexical spreading and the 
quasi-immunity of this lexical expansion to linguistic boundaries is 
straightforward and nicely illustrated, the application of this hypothesis 
to phonological properties is not clearly spelled out and would have 
merited more discussion. 

Finally, another assumption would have called more discussion. The 
authors posit an irreducible difference between languages and local 
linguistic varieties (be they called dialects or badumes). I see no 
linguistic argument illustrating this point: the differences that the 
authors point out between the two seem all extralinguistic to me. 
Orality is not a linguistic feature because so-called oral languages 
become written languages as soon as someone writes them. A 
pejorative/laudative attitude toward a linguistic variety has nothing to 
do with the linguistic material in itself. Moreover, the authors 
themselves fully demonstrate that a given linguistic feature can be 
freely adopted or rejected for extra-linguistic (political) reasons.

Accessibility

The maps are colourful and precise. Provided that the user handles 
the subject well enough to avoid misinterpretations, the pedagogical 
use of the maps (wished for by the authors) is easy. The comments on 
the maps are usually clear, but some maps could gain from a more 
careful treatment. In particular, a definition of the semantic content tied 
to the studied word could have clarified many readings. It could also 
have opened the readership to non-Contemporary-French specialists 
and ensured complete intelligibility in the coming years. For example, 
the map entitled ''traire'' p. 30 shows a large yellow area covering half 
of the actual French State (the so-called central area included), where 
the word 'tirer' was in use, the rest of the territory using 'traire' 
or 'molzer'. The explanatory notice indicates: ''The two words [traire 
and tirer] covering two close meanings, Central French has 
spread 'traire' in the restricted meaning that we know.'' The 
convention adopted by the authors is that a map tracing a lexical 
variation is entitled by the corresponding lexical item which survived in 
Standard contemporary French. We thus know that 'traire' is the form 
that survived in Contemporary French because it stands as the title of 
the map. But what does here 'Central French' refer to, because the 
central area is precisely not marked with this form? Is Central French 
spoken in the Central French area and if so, did the use change there 
or did the zone 'tirer' select 'traire' for another restricted meaning, in 
addition to the mentioned 'tirer'? What is exactly this meaning that 'we' 
know, and who is 'we'? 

In general, the reader needs to be already familiar with French 
administrative departments and geography. As physical geography is 
a central factor for the spread of a given word in the author's 
hypothesis, an additional map giving the names of rivers and precise 
locations of mountains could have helped a non-Franco-French 
reader to follow the argument. The reader may also be surprised that, 
in a linguistic book concerned with socio-linguistic factors, the human 
groups are persistently and specifically qualified as men (p. 7, 32, 34, 
41, 55, etc.). Finally, the potential reader will also need to handle 
some French lexical subtleties such as 'Fille aînée de l'église' ''elder 
daughter of the Church'' standing (without explanation) for 'French 
State' (p. 56).

Stylistically, some aggressive metaphors could have been avoided. 
The authors for example posit that ''It is necessary, once for all, to 
twist the neck of the common place that pretends that a language is 
merely a language that has been successful'' (''Il faut une fois pour 
toutes tordre le cou au lieu commun qui prétend qu'une langue, c'est 
un dialecte qui a réussi'', p. 327). In fact, the authors choose to reject 
one interpretation of this sentence among others. They reject the 
interpretation of the sentence being ''any official language come from 
one and unique more local linguistic variety'': they insist with reason 
that the present-day standard French cannot be analyzed as coming 
from one and unique linguistic ancestor, which one could localize on 
the map within the actual linguistic territory of influence of French. 
However, the targeted sentence has another, more acceptable 
interpretation: ''the difference between something defined as a dialect 
and something defined as a language resorts to politics, not to 
linguistics''.

Finally, I do not comment on presuppositions that I do not share, such 
as the association of linguistics signs to a particular meaning resorting 
to (social)-psychology (p. 7), or the stated necessity for a standard 
language to eliminate all competing idioms within its area of influence 
(p. 91). 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The reviewer, Mélanie Jouitteau, is affiliated with the University of 
Nantes (laboratory LLING). She completed her PhD thesis on the 
comparative syntax of Breton in 2005.





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