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Comment by laurentoget | Hacker News Reader

This is not true. The standardization of the french language started with Francois I, centuries before the revolution.

The ordinance of Villers-Coterets[1] was limited to legal documents, whereas the efforts led during the Terror were aimed at eradicating local languages[2], seen as so many shackles keeping the peasants from being enlightened.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_Villers-Cotter%C3... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_France#Fren...

I'd like to know more. In New France, the majority was from northwestern France (Normands, Poitevins, etc.) but somehow they managed to settle on a language that is surprisingly similar to Parisian French despite the accent and informal terms whose northwestern roots are clear (according to the linguists that I've read). So did the colonists of New France build on the efforts of François 1er?

The version of French that became standard French was not exactly the language spoken in Paris (the local Parisian accent has mostly disappeared now but it can be heard in old movies) but the one spoken in Western France, where the French nobility lived and spent time (the Loire valley is now known for the castles they built there).

In addition, when the colonists settled in New France and mixed together, standard French (the concept probably wasn't there at the time, but administrative French maybe) was the natural common denominator for them.

The language divide was mostly north/south with also a few other languages at the margins (Breton, Basque, Alsacien).

Normands spoke French long before some emigrated to North America. Just ask the English.

True, but I think of the French author who visited Québec in the 19th century long after the conquest and noted that the purity of the language was better than in much of France at the time. Or something like that, I can't find the reference right now. Was the author talking of the division north-south or of a greater diversity than you suggest? Hard to tell.

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