Au revoir, mademoiselle!

Feb 29, 2012 by

Au revoir, mademoiselle!

French government has recently announced that the word “mademoiselle” would no longer be used in its official documents. Up until now, women were forced by government departments, banks, and private companies to...

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Languages of France: part 2

Sep 3, 2010 by

In yesterday’s posting we reviewed a number of languages spoken in France which are not closely related to (Standard) French, such as Basque and Catalan (mostly spoken in Spain), Walloon and Flamand (mostly spoken in the...

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Languages of France

Sep 2, 2010 by

In yesterday’s posting I mentioned that nation-states, which are typically conceived of as having “one nation, one language”, are rarely if ever so. And what better example of a nation-state than France! When I ask...

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