Publish at February 01 2022 Updated February 10 2022
"A long, long, long time ago, France was called Gaul and the French, the Gauls."
Does this phrase ring a bell? Perhaps set to music and sung by the Belgian Annie Cordy (1928-2020) in 1978, it would refresh your memory? If not, feel free to go listen to this little nugget that tells the history of France in a funny and amusing way (video)
But then, why did they change the name of Gaul to France? And then, in the same kind of existential questions, why do we speak of the language of Molière to designate French? Two beautiful questions on which we will try to shed light, in order to seek the why of the how of these bizarre lexical, linguistic and historical transitions!
Before being the France we know today, the territory was called Gaul. Around 475BC, during the Second Iron Age, Gaul even extended from the Atlantic to the Danube and was occupied by Celtic peoples. "Celte" is, by the way, the Latin translation of "Gallus", to refer to the Gaulish, and their country, Gaul (Gallia).
Etymologically, linguists lean toward gal-meaning strength, power, warlike fury, or something like the people of the "mighty" or "furious". In the Renaissance, an analogy would also be made with the Latin homonym gallus, which means rooster. Recall that the rooster is still the emblem of France today! Another little wink, the radical gal- would be at the origin of the words jaillir and gaillard!
During all of Antiquity, we therefore speak of Gaul, or rather of the Gauls, considering the extent of the territory. It is only with the arrival of Clovis - and his famous baptism on December 25, 498 - that the transition is made. To better integrate his new role as king of Gaul, but also king of the Franks, not to mention obtaining the support of the Gallo-Roman clergy, Clovis gave the name of his people to his country. Gaul became France, the kingdom of the Franks. But the Franks, it is above all a Germanic people!
This said, it is appropriate to set the record straight: it is not a German invasion that we are talking about, but rather a people, the Franks, who were transformed by the Gallo-Romans, who were able to integrate the customs and traditions, but also the religion of those they conquered, suggesting then a kind of successful transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Lexically speaking, Gaul "dies" at the moment France appears, at the time of the advent of the Merovingians, at the dawn of the year 500.
The English language is said to be the language of Shakespeare, German the language of Goethe, Spanish the language of Cervantes, Italian the language of Dante, and French... the language of Moliere?
But in what honor, exactly? Why not the language of Hugo, Racine or Voltaire, who have nothing to be ashamed of when compared to their colleague, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin known as Molière (1622-1673), author of the famous Avar, Tartuffe or Ruy Blas?
To explain this antonomasia (the process of taking a proper name for a common name, or the other way around), we have to go back to the eighteenth century, nearly two centuries after the playwright's death in 1673, when performing, reading and watching Molière's plays was particularly popular.
He was then the star and the reference in French language and literature, without forgetting that for the intellectual elite of the time, but also according to contemporary linguists, it was during the 17th century, called the Classical Age, that the French language would have known its apogee and that it would have been "the most perfect." Through the cultural influence of France in Europe, the "French spirit" was especially honored: works (of Molière in particular) were performed in the great European courts and the political and diplomatic elite conversed in French.
It was then fashionable to express oneself in French, it was a matter of a certain quality and pomp, both financial and intellectual and social. Molière was then the light of the French language, hence the nod to his person!
Finally, the French language has never stopped evolving and still does today. Whether it is through its spelling, its grammar, its syntax or even its vocabulary, it develops day by day. How then to make this transition between what we learned on the school benches and what is practiced today?
From Gaul to France, from Latin to French, from the perfect French of the Classical Age to the one mixed with English that we speak today, it is difficult for teachers to perpetuate the rules of propriety of French. The quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns that has been shaking up the French Academy since the seventeenth century has never been as intense as it is now.
And you, are you one of the purists who continue to write island and August with the circumflex accent, or would you go for the millepatte on the nenufar that eats a ognon? Either way, both spellings are accepted... while the transition is being made!
Sources and illustrations
Clovis, ce Barbare qui a fondé la France, Le Monde Histoire et Civilisations, November 2020, https://www.histoire-et-civilisations.com/thematiques/moyen-age/clovis-ce-barbare-qui-a-fonde-la-france-2068.php?fbclid=IwAR1Y60hz6O2KsR3VfEYJtWNmxUFudD4WW5QUak8DESY6GV9cUpC8zYvkEZQ
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