ABSTRACT
As we have seen in the previous chapter, France has a history of policymaking about language, both overt and covert, that has involved the construction of a myth about the French language. The myth involves such metaphors as ‘brilliance’ and ‘radiance’, and the French language is supposed to be seen radiating its brilliance out from the centre, illuminating other languages, idiomes, patois and so on, both within France and in other nations. The history of France has been one of expansion from this core around Paris (the region known as Ile de France) to the marginal areas, by which is meant the territories lying between the core and the ‘natural’ boundaries: the Atlantic, the Rhine, the Pyrenees, the Alps. In areas where the boundaries are not notably ‘natural’, such as the north of France, the political boundary almost (but not quite) corresponds to the linguistic boundary between French, Netherlandic, and various Germanic dialects. What is left over constitutes la Wallonie, the French-speaking part of Belgium, and la Suisse romande the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
