ABSTRACT
If the Revolutionary ideal of educating all citizens to read and write French had little immediate effect, the Revolution nevertheless influenced the development of the language, and notably the lexicon, as fresh terms and new meanings were required to reflect the rapidly changing political situation. The opening up of the literary language to a wider range of registers, already begun in the eighteenth century, gathered pace in the following century, as expressed in Victor Hugo’s celebrated lines from Réponse à un acte d’accusation: Je fis souffler un vent révolutionnaire. Je mis un bonnet rouge au vieux dictionnaire […] J’ai dit aux mots: Soyez république! soyez La fourmilière immense, et travaillez! croyez, Aimez, vivez! … (Hugo 1973: 43, 46) Since 1945 especially, this has proceeded further as distinctions between written and spoken usages, standard and popular terms have become increasingly blurred.
