Courtly French, Learned Latin, and Peasant Patois: The Making of a National Language in Early Modern France

FAIN: FT-51890-03

Paul E. Cohen
Université de Paris-VIII (Paris 93526 France)

My current research traces the emergence of French as a national language in early modern France. I am applying for an NEH Summer Stipend to support two months of research in order to help prepare my Ph.D. dissertation for publication as a book. I analyze the profound social and cultural changes that inspired inhabitants of early modern France to abandon regional languages and Latin and adopt French. My work is equally concerned with the invention of the idea that nations should possess a unique idiom invested with official status.