Bilingualism in North-East France with specific reference to Rhenish
Contents
1. tres de part et d autre de la fronti re commune ii le travailleur frontalier occup sur le territoire d une Partie contractante par une entreprise dont il rel ve normalement qui est d tach par cette entreprise hors de la zone frontali re soit sur le territoire de la m me Partie soit sur le territoire d une autre Partie contractante pour une dur e probable n exc dent pas quatre mois conserve la qualit de frontalier pendant la p riode de son d tachement dans la limite de quatre mois Throughout this paper there are essentially three viewpoints which must be borne in mind to allow for an unbiased view of the linguistic situation occurring in the Moselle region a the German linguistic viewpoint which states that Rhenish Franconian is a German rather than Germanic dialect b the French political viewpoint which first listed Alsacien Mosellan in the Poignant Report 1998 and both Lorrain and dialecte allemand d Alsace et de Moselle in the Cerquiglini Report 1999 yet did not mention the term Franconian until 2002 and C the regional politico ideological viewpoint which states that the Rhenish Franconian is Germanic not German The socio political situation It is interesting to note from the outset that in France the French language is defined as a symbol of a country s national unity As Judge 2000 states Article Two of the French Constitution reads La langue de la R publique est le fran ai2. a question or making a transaction at an government office This may affect the use of not only the register of language but also the sub conscious decision of whether to use standard speech or dialect In this paper Russ observations are substantiated but it must be noted from the outset that where switching between languages occurs in the home of the cross border workers it is between French and Rhenish Franconian Over the border at work in the Saarland between standard German with those in authority and Rhenish Franconian or French with cross border colleagues Geographical area under investigation From the following map it can be seen that the Forbach Sarreguemines Volmunster Bitche area of the Moselle d partement of France are within easy commuting distance of the Saarland 141 Fig 3 y Dwers Trier Trer edd 08 ers le 3 Franci fare Am EK 5 Me cT e ALLEMAGNE fast Y ES CERN REY ur etra s ores 1 HOMBURG RELOUTS fos aum M SARREBRUCK 4 b FORBACH 4 According to private correspondence with the cross border workers association Association des frontaliers Moselle Est based in Sarreguemines the most common destination for cross border workers from the Sarreguemines area working in the Saarland is the Saarpfalzkreis and its main town Homburg According to statistics published by INSEE in late 1999 the number of cross border workers increased as illustrated in the following table
3. dialect radio station which broadcasts to the local area Press reading habits varied the younger respondents read newspapers in French older respondents read either French or German and several respondents mentioned the demise of the German language regional newspaper France Journal which had served the needs of those who speak dialect and could read German These respondents now rely on the regional French language newspaper Le R publicain Lorrain for their news When asked about language use with a specific aim in mind it became clear that in some cases there was no conscious decision to switch and the switching which took place was often arbitrary For some respondents the use of French versus dialect became a use of French or dialect depending on the aim to be achieved When being flattering for example respondents were more likely to use French again because of the vocabulary but potentially also because of the prestige of the language Conclusions and perspectives These survey findings go some way to illuminating a little investigated corner of France where the national language and the native tongue are not always one and the same and give an insight into linguistic and cultural diversity amongst cross border workers for whom the idea of mobility of the labour force and the situation of languages in contact are part of daily life The conclusions to be drawn from the history of the area prior to the last five years and the evid
4. trois langues diff rentes dans deux ou dans une seule Whether Rhenish Franconian will continue to be used by cross border workers in the immediate environment with family and friends and indeed as a working language and whether future generations of cross border workers will indeed use it with their children only time will tell but without continued effort to promote it and to encourage the younger generations to speak it the future does not look promising It is to be hoped that support for Rhenish Franconian will increase and that it may one day achieve the status currently accorded to the dialects of Alsace References Amastae J 1978 Sociolinguistic Background of PAU students in Proceedings of the Seventh Southwest Area Language and Linguistics Workshop Boulder University of Colorado Atamaniuk Herv 1998 Note de travail de la F d ration pour le Lothringer Platt l intention de Mme la d put e Nicole P ry charg e d un rapport sur les langues et cultures r gionales Barbour Stephen and Patrick Stevenson 1990 Variation in German A critical approach to German sociolinguistics Cambridge University Press Bortignon E D Laumesfeld S Mebarki J P Ruiz 1987 Les Passagers du Solstice Metz Editions Serpenoise Ball R 1997 The French Speaking World London Routledge Bothorel Witz A et D Huck 1995 Des vari t s dialectales aux locuteurs dialectophones alsaciens tat d une recherche g o et socio
5. variety and a Low variety referred to as H and L throughout a community each of which has a distinct role Contrary to Ferguson Fishman 1967 29 38 hypothesised that diglossia could occur in any situation where two language varieties even unrelated ones are used in functionally distinct ways Though Hudson 1996 pointed out that Fishman s reformulation of the concept of diglossia is problematic because the direction of language evolution in a classic diglossic situation is opposite to that apparent in the case of widespread bilingualism it is clear that when instances of languages in contact are considered where unlike Ferguson s theory the contact in question is not between two varieties L and H of the same language but two different languages then Fishman s language evolution theory L H H holds true In almost all situations of societal bilingualism the L language loses ground to the H language which is usually spoken by those in economic and political power Pooley 2000 142 143 discussing regional languages in France states that Ferguson s view of diglossia as being stable is a rare exception as most cases of societal bi or multilingualism show considerable instability and more open manifestations of tensions and individual speaker choice in the face of perceived norms Pooley also rejects Fishman s perspective of diglossia as a social phenomenon and bilingualism as a psycholinguistic issue He reasons that bilinguals need the comm
6. with one common factor they are spoken in areas where they are not dialects of the national language It is a commonly held belief that the number of those who speak dialect in part of the Moselle d partement of Lorraine is decreasing A survey carried out by INED Institut national des tudes d mographiques as part of the 1999 census confirms this According to INED there has been a decrease in the number of those speaking Franconian in Moselle as a whole According to H ran et al 2002 reporting results of the 1999 INED INSEE survey Lorraine Platt or Franconian appears to be being transmitted less and less among younger generations because only 20 of those respondents aged less than 15 speak it According to the 1999 census there were 78 000 speakers in the d partement of the Moselle mainly around Thionville where Luxembourg Franconian and Moselle Franconian not Rhenish Franconian is spoken As previously stated no distinction was made between Moselle Franconian Luxembourg Franconian and Rhenish Franconian This decrease in the number of speakers will undoubtedly have economic social and cultural implications for the area potentially also affecting the frontaliers the cross border workers who live in the dialect speaking areas and who work across the border in the Saarland and in the Rhineland Palatinate and in Baden W rttemberg The potential cultural social and economic repercussions for cross border workers in those area
7. 6 Basque Spain 544 000 Category C Catalan Roussillon 150 000 200 000 56 Frisian NL 400 000 Category D Basque France 86 000 90 000 39 Corsican 125 000 150 000 60 Occitan 2 100 000 1 500 000 12 Breton 180 250 000 600 000 40 Occitan Italy 35 80 000 Category E Irish UK 142 000 Flemish 20 40 000 100 000 29 Berber 25 000 Cornish 1 000 The table shows number of speakers and grouped ranking A E for reproductive potential Nelde et al 1996 compared with Kloss and McConnell 1984 Kloss McConnell and Verdoodt 1989 European Commission 1986 cited in Ball 1997 There is no mention of Franconian Pooley goes on to discuss other languages and cites Ball 1997 as stating that 200 000 people speak Frankish Mosellan It is unclear whether Frankish Mosellan here should be taken to mean Moselle Franconian as distinct from Rhenish Franconian in which case Rhenish Franconian is not mentioned or whether it signifies the three different types of Franconian spoken in the Moselle In the area of France under investigation it will be seen that Rhenish Franconian dialect speakers appear to reserve their languages for different functions dialect in the home with friends and family and French in public This is similar to classic diglossia but over time as will be seen Rhenish Franconian gives way to French Children end up learning what is perceived as the high variety and leaving the low varie
8. Bitche is not only a rich area of natural resources but also had a good income from the crystal works thus making the area under investigation part of an economically very sought after and fought over area The recent crises in the coal and steel industries have however had a profound economic effect on the area leading to an increased number of people from the area under investigation seeking their fortune across the border in the Saarland Linguistic identity and geographic situation With regard as to whether the linguistic community under investigation in this part of the Moselle d partement of Lorraine is bilingual or diglossic Ferguson 1959 325 340 states that Diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which in addition to the primary dialects of the language which may include a standard or regional standards there is a very divergent highly codified often grammatically more complex superposed variety the vehicle of a large and respected body 140 of written literature either of an earlier period or in another speech community which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any section of the community for ordinary conversation Ferguson s definition states that in order for a linguistic community to be described as diglossic then there must be the side by side existence of two structurally and historically related language varieties a High
9. Stephanie Hughes Bilingualism in North East France with specific reference to Rhenish Franconian spoken by Moselle Cross border or frontier workers in Bent Preisler Anne Fabricius Hartmut Haberland Susanne Kj rbeck and Karen Risager eds The Consequences of Mobility Roskilde Roskilde University Department of Language and Culture 135 153 ISBN 87 7349 651 0 http www ruc dk isok skriftserier mobility Stephanie Hughes and the Editors 2005 Bilingualism in North East France with specific reference to Rhenish Franconian spoken by Moselle Cross border or frontier workers Stephanie Hughes University of Antwerp Belgium stephanie hughes ua ac be Abstract This chapter examines the phenomena of bilingualism in the contact zone of the Moselle area of North East France on the border with the Saarland where cross border workers negotiate linguistic identity in the context of interaction with German and French The study presents an extensive historical background and takes up an empirical investigation of this little known corner of France in a survey of language use amongst 120 cross border workers conducted in 1998 The consequences of mobility in this case are that the respondents do not find themselves in a stable diglossic situation but rather in a situation of linguistic flux There are several micro and macro level factors which mitigate against use of Rhenish Franconian dialect in daily life with the result that diale
10. Walter Henriette 1999 On the trail of France s regional languages in P Blanchet R Breton et H Schiffman eds The regional languages of France An inventory on the eve of the XXIst Century Louvain la Neuve Peeters 15 24 Walter Henriette 1994 L aventure des langues en Occident Robert Laffont Weckmann A 1999 Langues d Alsace mode d emploi Strasbourg Lectures Ecritures Wolff Philippe 1970 Les origines linguistiques de l Europe occidentale Paris Hachette Primary sources Private correspondence with Comit des Frontaliers 1 rue de la Paix F 57200 Sarreguemines Joseph F Foster Ph D Assoc Professor of Anthropology Dept of Anthropology University of Cincinnati Ohio USA November 2002 Interview with Dr Klaus ZeDner B rgermeister of Homburg Saar and former Headmaster of the Staatliches Saarpfalzgymnasium Homburg February 20 2002 Websites consulted other than hitherto mentioned See Transcript of debate held on Thursday 21 November 2002 regarding motions for the amendment of Article Two of the French Constitution to include mention of respecting and defending regional languages The motions were not carried http www assemblee nationale fr 12 cri 2002 2003 20030073 asp Overview of the Saar Lor Lux region http www grande region lu html fr saar lor lux index html Flemish in France http www uoc edu euromosaic web document neerlandes an il il html 153
11. an dialect is now spoken almost as a badge of honour amongst middle aged and older inhabitants of the Moselle region When a dialect spoken in an area is not a dialect of the national language then the national language may eventually dominate if it is perceived by the population to be the more important means of communication A dialect can convert speakers of another dialect by being identified with a group of power or money either because of the need to communicate with that group or in order to imitate it Conversely a dialect will lose speakers if the group it is identified with loses its prestige or if another e g standard dialect can be used to communicate with it If a dialect attracts speakers because of its association with some group and manages to keep them for a sufficiently long time then at some point the importance of the association wanes If the prestige of the group falls after this point that alone will not greatly affect the number of speakers given that the dialect is spoken as a dialect of the national language also spoken in the area Where however the dialect is not a dialect of the national language and the national language is deemed to be of greater value or more important then a situation such as that which is developing in Rhenish Franconian speaking Moselle will occur where the dialect is superseded by French As confirmed by the survey results the younger generation are clearly not all capable of speaki
12. as to agree the principle of a standard form of orthography from Moselle Franconian speaking Thionville to Rhenish Franconian speaking Bitche with the intention of presenting it to the French Ministry of Education In Moselle there is also an absence of large dialect speaking towns Unlike in Alsace where Strasbourg Colmar and Mulhouse still have a significant proportion of dialect speakers in Lorraine Metz and Nancy are almost exclusively French speaking In Alsace Du e 2002 carried out a study which showed the apathy of the younger generations to the dialect however no comprehensive research has been done in Moselle with the exception of a general survey linked to the March 1999 census entitled Family History Survey which resulted in a paper by H ran et al 2002 examining language transmission in France in the course of the 207 Century in which for the first time Platt Lorrain figures in the list of languages as an entry in its own right The book edited by Treffers Daller amp Willemyns 2002 which brings together sociolinguistic analyses of language contact along the Romance Germanic language border shedding light on the variable and universal elements in language contact and shift does not as is claimed cover the whole range of the border from French Flanders through to South Tyrol Though there is comprehensive coverage of Flemish in the North of France the Flemish French language border in Belgium language use and la
13. ct is not being spoken to the same extent as it was in the past There has been a significant decline in the number of native speakers and a progressive erosion of the dialect s underpinning in the community Hence this location presents many cultural social and economic repercussions to be explored By reporting on the usage of and attitudes to the dialect spoken by cross border workers the chapter gives a baseline to which future studies may refer in order to track ongoing developments in cross border workers use of the Rhenish Franconian variety within this border region between France and Germany Introduction According to European Union figures it is estimated that almost 40 million citizens of the Union speak not only the official language of their country but also a regional or minority language that has been passed on from generation to generation This is the case in the Moselle d partement of the Lorraine region of North East France Rather better known examples of this linguistic situation exist elsewhere in France In addition to the numerous studies on Breton Basque and Catalan when focussing on Germanic dialects in particular it can be seen that Alsatian Alemannic has been extensively researched by Veltman amp Denis 1988 Phillipp 1994 Gardner Chloros 1991 amp 1995 Vassberg 1993 and Geiger Jaillet 2001 among others In Northern France research has been done into Flemish by Ryckeboer amp Maeckelberghe 1987 Sans
14. during the eight years before the survey was carried out Fig 4 Movement of Lorraine cross border workers Division of Increase Increase cross border workej 1990 1998 1999 e 1990 1999 1998 1999 into place of work 24 550 3 800 7 600 500 1450 0 deer 31 000 60 300 64 600 433 600 4 300 e Estimated figures drawn from INSEE Arbeitsamt S curit Sociale Luxembourgeoise INAMI Belge CPAM From the previous table it can be seen that whilst in 1990 there were 950 more Lorraine cross border workers employed in Germany than in Luxembourg the figures for 1998 the year the author conducted the survey show that there were 12 700 more Lorraine cross border workers employed in Luxembourg than in Germany Whilst the total number of cross border workers employed in Luxembourg had nearly doubled from 31 000 to 60 300 in the period from 1990 to 1998 the number of those employed in Germany had only increased by 7 100 in that period Whilst the number of cross border workers had doubled in the space of nine years the different employment areas in Lorraine benefited to different degrees from this increase The increase in the number of cross border workers finding employment benefited the Moselle by 73 for two reasons The first is the length of the border stretching from Thionville in the north of the area to Bitche in the south This border makes up 80 of the Lorraine border The second is the development of t
15. e word German when discussing a dialect spoken in France still has historical connotations which are sometimes somewhat unwelcome to the people of Moselle Moreover the Poignant report on the status of languages in France to the Prime Minister of France in July 1998 states L alsacien mosellan Cette formulation qui pr sente l int r t de situer l aire de diffusion de la langue en question ne rend pas compte cependant de la r partition territoriale des vari t s linguistiques en usage dans les acad mies de Strasbourg et de Nancy Metz l al manique et le francique Judge 2000 states that though it now appears to be French government policy to label both Alemannic and Franconian as local spoken variants of German traditionally speakers in the Moselle region have preferred to give Franconian the regional labels of Platt Lorrain dialecte lorrain or dialecte germanique rather than the label German for obvious historical reasons It is however clear historically speaking that Rhenish Franconian has been spoken in the area that is now the Moselle d partement since the Fifth Century As this is after the Upper Germanic sound shift took place it can be said that Rhenish Franconian is a Middle West Germanic dialect belonging to the Germanic dialect family but not a direct descendant of Proto Germanic There are few up to date statistical studies on the use of Rhenish Franconian dialect and what little has been written about the decline
16. en 1988 According to Euromosaic current research on Flemish is being conducted in the region by the University of Ghent in Belgium however this forms part of a study of Dutch dialects in general and does not take any particular account of French Flemish 135 A linguistic community in a similar position to that of the Flemish speakers in Northern France are those who speak something which when examined solely in terms of phonemes morphemes and lexical structure is closer to the official or majority language of a neighbouring State but who live in a country where another language predominates Rhenish Franconian speakers in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine between Forbach and Bitche France are in this position and their native tongue and associated cultural heritage are subject to the pressures associated with minority language speakers for their dialect is not currently recognised as a separate langue r gionale by the French government When discussing the dialects spoken in the Moselle on a general level it is important to recognise that contrary to many popular perceptions including that of the 1999 INSEE INED survey H ran et al 2002 where the census referred to the different types of Franconian by either grouping them together under Franconian or using the term Lorraine Platt there is not one dialect but rather a group of dialects including Rhenish Franconian Moselle Franconian and Luxembourg Franconian all
17. ence presented in the survey results are bleak as it has been seen that dialects will begin to form whenever there is a barrier or other factor economic religious political etc isolating one group from another If as appears to be the case in the Rhenish Franconian speaking area there is 148 evidence of the Rhenish Franconian speaking group being in an inferior or weaker position than that of the French speaking group then it is logical that French will predominate over time providing there is little effort on the part of the Rhenish Franconian speakers to defend their language Given the lack of support accorded to their dialect prior to the Cerquiglini Report of 1999 in which Lorrain was mentioned for the first time it is understandable that the respondents do not find themselves in a stable diglossic situation but rather in a situation of linguistic flux Differences have arisen between the prestige and use of dialects in Alsace and in Lorraine because the groups are developing their dialects separately with different levels of support According to Henriette Walter writing in Blanchet et al 1999 15 24 The situation of Alsace is far stronger than that of Lorraine as regards its traditional language Conversely although dialects of the same language will merge and homogenise when brought into contact again this is not likely to happen in Lorraine because the dialect and the national language are not similar and Rhenish Franconi
18. er quota sample according to age and gender breakdown from a much smaller geographical area in order to increase the robustness of the sample data The advantage of the delivery collection questionnaire over a postal survey was that the author had easier access to the respondents The questionnaire research focused solely on cross border workers most of whom are bilingual dialect French speakers Since the research chooses to sample the dialect usage and attitudes of cross border workers working in Germany only those respondents who stated that they could understand French were asked to fill out the questionnaires The sample of respondents chosen was representative of Moselle cross border workers from this area working in the Saarpfalzkreis All of the respondents live in the areas of Sarreguemines Bitche and Saaralbe with many living in villages such as Lemberg and Montbronn The general profile of the respondents surveyed corresponds to the average profile of the cross border worker provided to the author by the Association des frontaliers Moselle Est in Sarreguemines The questionnaire developed for this research was patterned on those used in previous language use and language attitude surveys by Jon Amastae 1978 Wolfgang Ladin 1982 and Liliane Vassberg 1993 and was revised once in the light of comments from the Personnel Directors during the semi structured interviews and again in the light of a pilot survey All questionnaires were in Fre
19. es Universitaires de Valenciennes Muller Pierre 2001 La Lorraine mise en regard de la France de 1975 1999 Economie lorraine n 206 p 8 13 March 2001 Philipp Marthe 1994 L espace lexical haut rhinois essai d analyse systematique International Journal of the Sociology of Language 109 Philipp Marthe 1991 La Moselle germanophone Paris Moselle Philipp Marthe Arlette Bothorel et Guy Levieuge 1977 Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Lorraine germanophone CNRS 152 Poignant Bernard 1998 Langues et Cultures Regionales Rapport Monsieur Lionel Jospin Premier Ministre Paris 1 July 1998 Raynaud Franziska 1982 Histoire de la langue allemande Paris Presses Universitaires de France coll Que sais je n 1952 Pooley T 2000 Sociolinguistics regional varieties of French and regional languages in France French Language Studies 10 117 157 Rene Schickele Kreis 1968 Notre avenir est bilingue Zweisprachig unsere Zukunf t Strasbourg Russ C V J 1994 The German language today A linguistic introduction London Routledge Ryckeboer H And L Maeckelberghe 1987 Dialect en Cultuurtaal aan weerszijden van de rijksgrens in de Westhoek De Franse Nederlanden Les Pays Bas Fran ais Jaarboek Annales 12 129 151 Saar Lor Lux Rheinland Pfalz Wallonie Statistische Kurzinformationen 2001 Bad Ems Statistisches Landesamt http www statistik rlp de Saar Lor Lux Rheinland Pfalz Wallonie Statistische Kurzinf
20. ey feel that the younger generations do not have the same mastery of the dialect as they themselves do This view is substantiated by Frangois Clanch of INSEE 2002 discussing the initial results of the 1999 census Les langues r gionales se transmettent de moins en moins Si la transmission des langues trang res a l g rement progress tout au long du si cle il n en est pas de m me des langues r gionales avant 1930 une personne sur quatre parlait une langue r gionale avec ses parents le plus souvent de facon habituelle Cette proportion passe une personne sur dix dans les ann es 1950 puis une sur vingt dans les ann es 1970 De plus depuis le milieu des ann es 1950 les langues r gionales sont deux fois plus souvent re ues comme langue occasionnelle que comme langue habituelle La tendance ne s est pas retourn e dans les ann es 1980 et 1990 Les enfants n s durant cette p riode n ont pas t interrog s l enqu te n ayant pas atteint 18 ans Mais leur faible contact avec les langues r gionales peut tre appr hend indirectement 3 seulement des adultes interrog s ayant des enfants n s durant cette p riode disent leur avoir parl une langue r gionale La probabilit d avoir t lev dans une langue r gionale est multipli e par dix pour les natifs de Corse ou d Alsace Elle est galement plus lev e qu ailleurs pour les natifs des Pyr n es Atlantiques des Pyr n es Orientales de la Moselle du Fin
21. he flow of 142 cross border workers In 1999 the area from which the cross border workers were prepared to travel to Luxembourg increased in size southward In comparison to the Moselle the d partement of Meurthe et Moselle hardly benefited from the increase in the number of cross border workers at all due to its geographical location According to figures for 2000 published in September 2001 jointly by the five offices responsible for statistics in the cross border region the current total number of cross border workers working in the Saarland and living in Moselle has then reached 24 638 Though this is an increase compared to the published figures for 1998 it is far smaller than the increase in the number of cross border workers commuting to work in Luxembourg in 2000 46 430 According to statistics published in 2003 by the Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland Pfalz from 2000 to 2001 the number of cross border workers from the Lorraine crossing into the Saarland to work increased modestly from 24 638 to 25 900 The number travelling to Luxembourg once again increased by a higher percentage from 46 430 to 52 000 as can be seen on the following map 143 Fig 5 Cross border workers movement 2001 GRENZUBERSCHREITENDE BERUFSPENDLER TRAVAILLEURS FRONTALIERS 2001 WALEEONIE RHEIN EAND 5 Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland Pfalz Given the state of unemployment in the Moselle it is important to note that many cross border wo
22. in the Moselle d partement may become before too long perceived as la langue du voisin rather than the native tongue of the cross border workers ancestors Measures are now being put in place to encourage cultural and economic co operation 150 between the two regions but it remains to be seen whether the dialect spoken in the border region of Moselle will remain the working language of those who travel to the Saarland for employment Despite the decision of the Assembl e Nationale not to support the Bill of November 21 2002 to amend Article Two of the Constitution to include mention of the defence and support of regional languages it would appear that the picture is now slightly less negative than it was at the time the survey was carried out This is thanks to a certain number of measures put in place by the Conseil R gional to support cross border initiatives and to evidence of recent increased awareness of and support for the Rhenish Franconian dialect spoken in the eastern part of the Moselle d partement As Louis Jean Calvet 1999 states De quelles langues les humains ont ils besoins Nous avons tous besoin de trois types de langues Notre langue identitaire celle que nous parlons dans notre environnement imm diat en famille ou avec les amis La langue de l tat celle qui nous permet d acc der la vie politique et sociale Et enfin une langue de communication internationale Ces trois fonctions peuvent s incarner dans
23. ist re ou des C tes d Armor Le simple fait d tre n dans le m me d partement que ses deux parents augmente aussi la probabilit d avoir re u d eux une langue r gionale de m me que le fait d avoir eu des parents ouvriers ou plus encore agriculteurs The attitudes of the survey respondents towards the use of the dialect clearly indicate that without support from the authorities and without a change in attitude from those who are currently speaking French to their children it is only a matter of time before the linguistic border will shift yet further towards the political Franco German border Given the current industrial infrastructure in this particular area of the dialect speaking Moselle d partement of Lorraine and excepting major investment in the area in years to come future generations of cross border workers will no doubt still make the journey to the Saarland to work The language of communication remains a very different question Hughes 1987 predicted that the French news German language newspaper France Journal would cease publication and two years later it did It may well be that unlike their ancestors the future generations of cross border workers will have learnt German as a foreign language at school just as they currently learn English and that they still perceive German to be important if not a necessary in order to find employment over the border Yet without increased support Rhenish Franconian spoken
24. linguistique In J F Bonnot ed Paroles r gionales Normes vari t s linguistiques et contexte social pp 45 96 Bothorel Witz A 1995 Vers une red finition des dialectes alsaciens Des concepts cat goriques aux vari t s d un espace plurilingue In J F Bonnot ed Paroles r gionales Normes vari t s linguistiques et contexte social pp 217 252 Boulanger G 1987 Histoire d une langue le Francique Bouzonville Gau un Griis Brasme Pierre 2000 La population de la Moselle 1815 1914 Metz Editions Serpenoise Calvet L J 1999 Pour une cologie des langues du monde Paris Plon Cerquiglini Bernard 1999 Les Langues de la France Rapport au Ministre de l Education Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie et la Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication C N R S April 1999 Christophory J 1978 Les Luxembourgeois par eux m mes Luxembourg Clanche Frangois 2002 Langues r gionales langues trang res de l h ritage la pratique Division Enqu tes et tudes d mographiques Paris INSEE Clyne Michael 1984 Language and Society in the German speaking Countries Cambridge Cambridge University Press Cocher C 1999 Frontaliers lorrains 4000 emplois de plus in conomie Lorraine no 192 D cembre 1999 12 14 Cocher C et J L van Gheluwe 2001 De plus en plus de frontaliers au nord est de la France in conomie Lorraine no 208 Mai 2001 19 22 Duee M 2002 L Alsacien deuxi
25. ly dialect E Generally dialect E French and dialect O Generally French E Only French E Generally German O Only German O French and German grandparents parents partner children Language spoken with Fig 6 It can be seen from the above graph that where a total of less than 10 per cent of respondents generally or only use the dialect as a means of communication with their children where the same cross border workers were asked to state their feelings with regard to the transmission of the dialect 146 58 3 per cent agreed completely and a further 26 6 per cent agreed with the statement that parents should teach dialect to their children Fig 7 Parents should teach dialect to their children Agree Agree Not sure Disagree Disagree No response completely completely General language use in the street mirrors that used at home in the case of the incidence of dialect used with senior citizens and with children The picture painted by the respondents answers indicates that the younger generations do not have the same linguistic profile and that the children of bilingual parents are being brought up monolingually due to the prestige of the French language and the lack of support for or interest in the dialect at the time of the survey Again this does not bode well for the future of the dialect Moreover any contact with the authorities for exa
26. me langue r gionale de France in Chiffres pour L Alsace Revue no 12 INSEE Strasbourg December 2002 D rrenb cher P et W Br cher 2000 Espace transfrontalier et culture mixte l exemple Sarro Lorrain in G ographie et cultures 36 December 2000 57 70 151 D rrenb cher P et C Schulz 1999 Cultural and Regional Integration The Case of the Saar Lor Lux Cross Border Labour Market In Koter M and K Heffner eds Multicultural Regions and Cities Lodz 125 139 European Treaties 1972 ETS No 78 European agreement on Social Security Paris December 14 1972 Fasold R 1984 The Sociolinguistics of Society Oxford Blackwell Ferguson C A 1959 Diglossia Word 15 325 340 Fishman J A 1967 Bilingualism with and without diglossia diglossia with and without bilingualism The Journal of Social Issues 23 29 38 Fishman J A 1991 Reversing Language Shift Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages Clevedon UK Multilingual Matters Fishman J A 2001 Can Threatened Languages Be Saved Reversing language shift revisited a 21st century perspective Clevedon UK Multilingual Matters Fourquet Jean 1968 La situation linguistique en Allemagne in Andr Martinet Le langage Encyclop die de la Pl iade Paris Gallimard Fourquet Jean 1969 Langue Dialecte Patois in Andr Martinet Le langage Francescato G 1965 Structural comparison diasystems and dialectology Zeitschrift f r
27. mple the police is mainly carried out in French From the respondents answers it appears that the dialect is not as commonly used with children as with senior citizens In commerce the language of preference is French above all in large shops and with market traders One reason for this is that the respondents are not necessarily aware of the linguistic profile of their interlocutor and therefore often choose the language of communication most likely to be mutually understandable French It is interesting to note that when the respondent is aware of the linguistic profile of their interlocutor such as when talking to a friend in the same situation then there is a higher incidence of dialect use In other situations in Moselle outside work the language spoken often depends on either the situation the respondents knowledge of the linguistic profile of the interlocutor or both It is interesting to note once again that the respondents language use often changes depending on the situation they find themselves in If they feel the need to use French either because their interlocutor is using it or because it carries more weight in a particular situation then they will code switch In a bank or in a caf the respondent is more likely to use French than dialect with the bank teller or waiter With friends in the same situation the respondents tend to use more dialect It is as if the dialect speakers belong to an in group and the in gr
28. nch and consisted of questions where the respondent had to give a numerical answer depending on his or her response What follows is a brief summary of some of the research findings based on delivery collection survey response data from 120 respondents each of whom answered sixty nine questions on their language use and twenty three questions on their attitudes to Rhenish Franconian The results which follow examine what the respondents themselves report is happening The author does not attempt to answer the question Why is this happening in great detail for unlike anthropological research such survey data does not usually provide information about cultural values and it is 145 therefore necessary to take into account other measurable causes such as migration urbanisation or economic shifts which are outside the remit of this research General findings One comment encapsulated the views Moi je suis frontalier et je comprends le Platt mon p re l tait et il parlait le Platt mais mon fils lui il ne parle pas le Platt alors je ne sais pas il n y a pas de boulot pour les jeunes ici alors il doit aller sur Metz pour en trouver The majority of the respondents were male and in the case of the older cross border workers generally left school after primary school The younger cross border workers generally started work after finishing secondary school and or technical school Most respondents were either dialect speaking or a
29. ng the dialect of their grandparents or even in some cases their parents and where they do not consider it important to speak it Trask 1997 states that one might ask why individuals do not simply remain bilingual learning and using their traditional language at home and using the local prestige language with outsiders In Moselle it takes a great effort to maintain Rhenish Franconian It becomes increasingly expedient for dialect speakers to slip into the prestige language in all domains precisely because the prestige language French is the language of education publishing broadcasting films and the law Trask adds that many minority language speakers are currently trying to maintain a policy of bilingualism despite these considerable pressures Increased communications may also encourage the development of a standard language to bridge the dialects and languages as has been seen with the use of English as a language of communication on the Internet Having seen the results of this survey and the attitudes of the younger generation to the dialect viewed by many as une langue des vieux one may ask the question whether in the generations to come the language of communication between the people of Moselle and their neighbours in Germany will not be a different one English Already amongst the younger generation there are those of dialect speaking parents who no longer speak the dialect themselves and for whom English is their fir
30. nguage contact in Brussels German in Belgium with specific reference to linguistic variation from a contact linguistic point of view Luxembourg as a multilingual society on the Romance Germanic language border the book then jumps geographically to Alsace before continuing its journey southwards examining the German Romance language borders in Switzerland and German and Italian in South Tyrol There is no separate mention of either Moselle Franconian or Rhenish Franconian spoken in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine Though Lorraine has its own sense of cultural identity which is not as strong as that of Alsace the situation in Lorraine mirrors that of the rather better known Alsace region to some extent According to Simmer 1995 the roots of the dialect in the current Moselle d partement of France can be traced back to the Fifth Century and the events of the past 250 years have defined the dialect speaking area of Moselle Lorraine The current political borders of the Moselle are recent and the d partement is divided into two by a linguistic border This linguistic border coupled with the factor that there 1s no large dialect speaking town sets the Moselle apart from the two d partements Bas Rhin and Haut Rhin of Alsace and makes it unique The Moselle dialect speaking towns of Thionville and Forbach both lie in an area rich in natural mineral resources Forbach lies in the coal basin Sarreguemines is the home of the pottery industry and
31. of the Rhenish Franconian dialect in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine such as work by Laumesfeld 1996 and on a more prolific scale about Alemannic in Alsace is often subject to regional bias Previous studies on Alsace Lorraine concentrate almost exclusively on the dialect situation in Alsace and point to a definite shift from the use of dialect to the use of French Vassberg 1993 echoing Tabouret Keller 1985 states that many additional field studies are necessary in order to arrive at a more accurate overview of how the dialect situation is developing Tabouret Keller states that the existing studies whilst clearly indicating the fate of the dialect are too few in number to allow researchers to come to definite conclusions and make assertions based on them and calls for more empirical evidence to broaden the understanding of the complex dynamics of language change in Alsace and Lorraine This lack of evidence is far more apparent in Moselle for the following reasons In Moselle there is a lack of official written forms of any of the Franconian dialects whereas in Alsace there is a standardised orthography of Alemannic To rectify this situation on May 15 2004 Albert Hudlett of the University of Mulhouse Alsace and around forty dialect speakers had their first meeting in 139 Saint Avold Moselle to attempt to set down a charter for the harmonisation of the orthographies of the different Franconian dialects The aim of the meeting w
32. ormationen Statistiques en bref Saar Lor Lux Rh nanie Palatinat occidental Wallonie Statistiques en bref 2003 Bad Ems Statistisches Landesamt Koblenz G rres http www grande region lu html_fr Sansen J 1988 Le flamand Une langue fronti re mal connue In G Vermes ed Vingt cing communaut s linguistiques de la France tome 1 Langues r gionales et langues nonterritorialis es Paris L Harmattan pp 169 187 Schorr A 1998 Grenzregionen und Interferenzr ume in Reinhard Schneider ed Grenzg nger Saarbr cken Saarbr cker Druckerei und Verlag Simmer Alain 1995 L origine de la fronti re linguistique en Lorraine la fin des mythes Knutange Fensch Vall e Tabouret Keller A 1985 Le Frangais en Alsace Actes du Colloque de Mulhouse Geneva Editions Slatkine Tonnelat Ernest 1927 Histoire de la langue allemande Paris Armand Colin 2e d 1941 6e d 1962 Toussaint Maurice 1955 La fronti re linguistique en Lorraine Paris A et J Picard Trask L 1997 http linguistlist org ask ling archive 1997 7 msg00609 html Treffers Daller J and R Willemyns eds 2002 Language Contact at the Romance Germanic Language Border Clevedon Avon Multilingual Matters Vassberg L M 1993 Alsatian Acts of Identity Clevedon Avon Multilingual Matters Veltman Calvin and M N Denis 1988 Usages linguistiques en Alsace presentation d une enquete et premiers resultats International Journal of the Sociology of Language 74
33. oup only admits other members when it is sure that they belong to the group i e that they are dialect speakers Many interviewees bemoaned the current employment situation in and around Sarreguemines but again they did not appear to be concerned for the future of cross border employment One younger cross border worker boasted of the fact he had obtained employment in the Saarland via a private employment agency although he did not speak dialect and only spoke schoolboy German When asked how he communicated he shrugged his shoulders and said that there were other cross border workers who translated for him if necessary but that it was not often necessary because others on his part of the production line were also cross border workers so he could speak to them in French At work in the Saarland the respondents identify with the in group more than when they are in 147 Moselle This becomes apparent when they respond that they speak German rather than dialect in situations such as with superiors or with colleagues or employees 1 e with those who consider the respondents to be their superiors Despite the fact that the dialect of the Saarland and the dialect of the respondents are in the main mutually intelligible the respondents make a distinction between what they speak with others from Moselle the other members of the in group and what they speak with the Germans the members of the out group Many of the dialect speakers appear to be a
34. ournal struggle for survival unpublished final year thesis Coventry Polytechnic Hughes S P 2000 Germanic dialect spoken in Lorraine with reference to the use of dialect by cross border workers in Germany and Luxembourg in G Newton ed Essays on Politics Language and Society in Luxembourg New York Ceredigion The Edwin Mellen Press Judge A 2000 France One state one nation one language in S Barbour and C Carmichael eds Language and Nationalism in Europe Oxford Oxford University Press Krier Fernande 1996 Vari t s et normes linguistiques Actes du 21e colloque international de Linguistique Fonctionnelle la i Ladin W 1982 Der els ssische Dialekt museumsreif Strasbourg SALDE Laumesfeld Daniel Marielle Rispail et Didier Atamaniuk 1984 Le francique in Henri Giordan ed Par les langues de France vol 1 Paris Centre Georges Pompidou Laumesfeld Daniel 1984 La diglossie en Lorraine luxembourgeophone Pratiques id ologies Th se 3e cycle Universit Paris V Laumesfeld Daniel 1996 La Lorraine francique culture mosaique et dissidence linguistique Paris and Montr al Editions L Harmattan Martinet Andr ed 1968 Le langage Paris Gallimard Encyclop die de la Pl iade Muller Jean Claude 1992 Le Luxembourg Du dialecte la langue nationale le luxembourgeois in Jos Carlos Herreras ed 1992 Situations linguistiques dans les pays de la Communaut europ enne Valenciennes Press
35. rget this group as they are the people who potentially need the Rhenish Franconian dialect most of all In theory they use it as a working language as a means of communicating not only with their families but also with their employers and fellow workers across the border in the Saarland It must be stated at this point that the views of the subgroup chosen may not be representative of dialect speakers in the Moselle in general as it was expected that the dialect would be more richly maintained by the cross border workers than by other groups It is however clear that the subgroup is representative of those cross border workers who go to Germany and who need to use dialect as a working language The official statistics for 1998 indicate that the number of cross border workers living in the area under investigation and working over the border in the Saarpfalzkreis is 2500 Estimates from the Association des Frontaliers Moselle Est the cross border workers association based in Sarreguemines put the total number of those working in the Saarpfalzkreis at about 2800 a figure which may include some of those working under the then DM630 rule 315 and thus not part of the target group Like Schorr 1998 the author relied on the self assessment of the cross border workers surveyed In contrast to Schorr s approach however the author decided to implement delivery collection questionnaires in order to increase the sample size to choose a larg
36. rkers have been able to find work in large companies in the Saarpfalzkreis such as Bosch Michelin Schaeffler due in part to the fact that they speak the Rhenish Franconian dialect The third favourite destination for all Lorraine cross border workers but the most popular destination for the Moselle cross border workers under investigation is the Saarpfalzkreis which attracted approximately 2700 cross border workers according to a 1999 INSEE report The cross border workers working in the Saarpfalzkreis are mainly employed in industry and more particularly in metalwork Bosch Schaeffler Krupp Gerlach or in the production of tyres Michelin This industrial specificity explains why the area under investigation appeals to more male than female cross border workers 144 The reasons for choosing to look at the dialect spoken in Moselle are outlined in the introduction to this paper For practical reasons it was decided that the research would focus on the current linguistic situation of the cross border workers in the area between Forbach and Lemberg working across the border in the Saarpfalzkreis Compared to other groups of dialect speakers the group chosen was homogenous compact and more accessible to the author than other groups of dialect speakers The group chosen is representative of cross border workers in the area and the results provide a picture of their language use and attitudes towards the languages they use It was decided to ta
37. romanische Philologie 81 484 491 Gardner Chloros P 1995 Code switching in community regional and national repertoires the myth of the discreteness of linguistic systems In L Milroy and P Muysken eds One Speaker Two Languages Cambridge Cambridge University Press 68 90 Gardner Chloros P 1991 Language Selection and Switching in Strasbourg Oxford Clarendon Press Geiger Jaillet A 2001 Nationale regionale und sprachliche Grenzen Das Saar Lor Lux Modell Asgard Verlag Bausteine Europas VIII Goossens Jan 1977 Deutsche Dialektologie Berlin New York de Gruyter Goudallier Jean Pierre 1981 Phonologie fonctionnelle et phon tique exp rimentale Exemples emprunt s au luxembourgeois Hamburg Helmut Buske Grimes Barbara 2000 Ethnologue languages of the world Dallas Summer Institute of Linguistics 2 volumes see website www ethnologue com Guelen E 1939 Die deutschlothringischen Mundarten Forbach Hartweg F 1996 Sur les bris es du dialecte Saisons d Alsace 133 20 26 Hawkins John A 1990 Germanic Languages in Bernard Comrie ed The Major Languages of Western Europe London Routledge 1st Editio London Croom Helm 1987 H ran F A Filhon et C Deprez 2002 Language transmission in France in the course of the 20th Century Population amp Soci t s No 376 February 2002 Hudson R A 1996 Sociolinguistics 2nd edition Cambridge Cambridge University Press Hughes S P 1987 Platt and France J
38. s and though this was originally the result of a debate around 137 the anglicisation of the French language it is interesting to note that the Assembl e Nationale now uses a different argument when discussing any amendment to the said Article namely the threat to the unity of France When the Rhenish Franconian dialect spoken in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine is considered in the light of these observations it is clear to see that tensions may arise Though the linguistic situation apparent in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine is by no means unique in France nor in Europe as a whole it is also interesting to note that the Rhenish Franconian dialect spoken in Moselle has up to now rarely been considered in its own right In most of the literature hitherto consulted it is referred to both linguistically and geopolitically as Alsacien Alsacien Mosellan dialecte allemande d Alsace et de Moselle or Lorrain Moreover Rhenish Franconian does not appear in the following table on the vitality of minority languages in Europe Pooley 2000 132 Fig 2 Vitality of Minority Languages in Europe Category capaci Number of speake Number of speake for reproductivi Nelde et al 1996 cited in Ball 1997 on Scale A to E percentage Nelde et al 1996 population Category A Catalan Catalonia 4 065 000 Luxembourgish 350 000 Category B Alsacien 1 800 000 1 000 000 629
39. s comfortable switching from dialect to German as from dialect to French When questions were asked with regard to specific subjects in such a way that it was clear that the interlocutor was a dialectophone the main factor contributing to the decision whether to use French or dialect was the availability or lack of subject specific vocabulary at the respondents disposal Where the subject matter was technical and there were fewer dialect expressions there was a greater tendency to use French If the subject was one which the respondents had learnt about at school such as religion or one they had learnt about from the media through the medium of French such as politics then there was a higher tendency to use French This confirms the views expressed by Hughes 1987 when considering the newspaper France Journal which though published in German was geared to an ever ageing dialect speaking readership Though the newspaper published articles in German they contained French vocabulary specific to their readership who read about der Maire die d put s etc Even then the dialect speakers were reading French terms Generally the respondents selected the television programmes they want to watch for reasons other than linguistic ones They are as undiscerning when listening to the radio Few mentioned the existence of the dialect radio station Studio Bitche Younger respondents chose to listen to French music stations rather than the
40. s are issues which have not yet been investigated and which demand fuller investigation This analysis of the usage of and attitudes to the dialect spoken by cross border workers in the border area between Forbach and Lemberg in the Moselle d partement of Lorraine carried out in 1998 one year before the 1999 census serves as a marker to which future studies may refer in order to chart the development of the cross border workers use of Rhenish Franconian This paper examines the situation in this little investigated corner of north east France on the border with the Saarland Germany and discusses language use amongst cross border workers 136 Fig 1 Area under investigation linguistic Excerpt from Linguistic Map of Alsace Lorraine published in Notre avenir est bilingue Zweisprachig unsere Zukunft Strasbourg Ren Schickele Kreis 1968 Map adapted by author According to European Treaty No 78 1972 the European definition of a cross border or frontier worker is as follows Le terme travailleur frontalier d signe un travailleur salari qui est occup sur le territoire d une Partie contractante o il retourne en principe chaque jour ou au moins une fois par semaine toutefois i dans les rapports entre la France et les Parties contractantes limitrophes pour tre consid r comme travailleur frontalier l int ress doit tre occup et r sider dans une zone dont la profondeur n exc de pas en principe vingt kilom
41. s in the case of younger respondents capable of understanding the dialect One thirty five year old cross border worker wrote the following unsolicited comment on the questionnaire regarding the implications of a breakdown in communication for the cross border workers from Moselle unable to speak the dialect Il y aura une barri re si cette barri re n existe pas d j S ils n ont pas un moyen de compr hension avec les chefs ils peuvent se faire exploiter Ca peut tre aussi un probl me pour certains pour trouver un emploi en Sarre car il n y aura pas de moyen de communication orale The results of the survey showed some interesting trends It was interesting to note for example that the findings of the survey correlated with those of other surveys done in Alsace and that the younger the interlocutor was the more likelihood there was that the respondents though often perfectly capable of speaking dialect would nevertheless speak French This does not bode well for the future of the dialect as the survey has shown that though the dialect is still spoken at home with grandparents it is not spoken so frequently with partners and less still with the respondents children in the area under investigation It is also important to note that sometimes the respondents attitudes belie their behaviour The following graph indicates what the current situation is with regard to the transmission of the dialect 45 04 E On
42. st foreign language rather than German It is also important to note that across the border in the Saarland which as a legacy of the Second World War traditionally taught French as the first foreign language schools now have the choice between English and French as the first foreign language 149 and according to Klaus Zefner B rgermeister of Homburg Saar and former Headmaster of the Staatliches Saarpfalzgymnasium Homburg more than 5096 choose English It is clear from the results of the survey that Rhenish Franconian is clearly not being spoken to the same extent as it was in the past As in other regions of France where dialects or regional languages are spoken there has been a significant decline in the number of native speakers and a progressive erosion of the underpinning in the community There is clear evidence of increased use of French not only depending on circumstance but also depending on the age of the interlocutor The evidence clearly suggests that the use of the dialect is not as widespread amongst younger generations as amongst older ones Pooley 2000 states that with regard to general competence in regional languages the speakers of regional languages are clearly on the wrong side of the young old urban rural divide Speakers of Rhenish Franconian spoken in the Moselle are certainly in this category as the research by H ran ef al 2002 shows The cross border workers attitudes to their dialect also indicate that th
43. ty behind When investigating this part of France where the native language and the national language are not one and the same one must recognise the fact that the speakers of the dialect are members of an out group and that the native language they speak is 138 spoken in isolation with members of the linguistic in group of the Moselle speaking French The speakers are not German and therefore do not have Standard German as the language of the linguistic in group unlike the Saarl nder over the border In addition the strong views of the Acad mie Fran aise with regard to the purity of the French language coupled with the second article of the French Constitution stating that the language of the Republic is French have led to a fascinating linguistic situation For many it would be unthinkable to do as the Moselle cross border workers do travel daily to another European country to work dealing with a different language different customs and a different political social and cultural system The Moselle cross border workers appear to have a similar culture identity to and currently a means of communication with their counterparts on the other side of the political border which means that travelling to work over the border in the Saarland is a perfectly normal occurrence for them Though the Rhenish Franconian dialect spoken by the cross border workers in question is linguistically a German dialect or a dialect of German the use of th
44. unicative competence to know when to use the varieties at their disposal appropriately Rhenish Franconian currently enjoys little of the prestige of the French language nor of the Standard German language As Jan Goosens 1977 51 states Will man die germanischen Dialekte dieser Randgebiete deutsch nennen so kann man das auch nicht ausschlieBlich auf Grund der Feststellung dass sie eine gewisse Ahnlichkeit mit der deutschen Hochsprache aufweisen die es erm glicht sie mit Hilfe einer Anzahl von Regeln daraus abzuleiten Das w rde voraussetzen dass eine bereinstimmung zwischen zwei Sprachsystemen a und b gen gte das eine a als zum anderen b geh rig zu betrachten ohne dass dieses Verh ltnis umgekehrt werden k nnte If as Goosens quotes Francescato 1965 as saying Dialects do not belong to a language they are a language then it could be argued that they can be considered German dialects if German is the language normally used alongside the dialect thereby fulfilling the sociological and political dimension This is not the case in the Rhenish Franconian dialect speaking part of the Moselle where French is the national language Russ 1994 states that spoken language is multifaceted and that there may also be the question albeit unspoken of the status of participants in any dialogue For instance they may be equal as in a dialogue between friends or one may be in the role of authority for example someone asking
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