Kitchen Language

Only 12% of the World’s population could read and write in 1820. Today, French is an official language in 29 countries. Vulgar Latin was a range of local dialects with the common stock of Latin, but influenced by the conquered local languages. Being verbal, it differed by region and time. Although History tells of the conquerors, politics, borders and rulers, we know less about the lives of the normal people just doing their thing. Linguist Anthony Lodge says 90% of the Gaulish population remained indigenous during Roman settlement, and it was just the ruling classes whose children learnt Classical Latin in Roman Schools. French raised its head with the later Germanic invasions whose Military class took on the Gallo-Vulgar Latin. In the 17th century French replaced Latin as the main international language (Lingua Franca), and it kept this role until the US became the dominant World Power after the World Wars. Crowning English. Napoleon only began learning French aged 10 (his spelling was apparently atrocious) and in 1790, only an estimated 3 million people out of a population of 28 million spoke Standard French. Our ideas of “correct language” are very new. Language is born in the kitchen, borderless, with local flavour… unless you are trying to impose control.