Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica (review)

This book arrives at an apposite moment. This year (2000) has seen moves towards France granting Corsica limited legislative autonomy in return for a cessation of the ‘liberation struggle’—a move which will have implications linguistically both for Corsican and the other submerged vernaculars of France. Jaffe’s book acts both as a description of the tensions felt when a ‘minority’ language has been partially submerged by a majority one from an external source and also as a caveat describing the problems language activists face even with native speakers of the vernacular they seek to protect and encourage.

J’s book consists of nine interlocking chapters. The first introduces a wide range of linguistic, ethnographic, and sociological concepts, ably illustrated by Corsican vignettes. The second develops this pattern, focusing in particular on the Corsican concepts of village, identity, kinship, and the clan, demonstrating how a population that has always had more natives abroad than resident can maintain an unbroken cord between place and person, language and place, and past and present.

The third chapter steps back a little, discussing the peculiar diglossic problems that Corsica has. J proves that despite the lack of significant linguistic distance between Corsican and Italian, social distinctions in the past have increased the Corsicans’ awareness of the small-scale distinctions between them. In discussing the relationship with French, J demonstrates how the centrist tendencies of the French state have led to a form of schizoglossia in terms of prestige and status accorded to the local vernacular only too familiar to the writer of this notice as a speaker of Scots. She discusses the two outcomes of the contact between the two languages: le français régionale de Corse, French with Corsican features, and Francorse, a much disparaged form of Corsican with strong French influence at all levels.

Chs. 4 and 5 discuss various forms of language activism, in particular since 1968, demonstrating the manner in which demands have been ‘toned down’ in order to make them acceptable to more conservative speakers and the French state: a move away from overt confrontation to acceptance of French on the island in some roles. This is shown most forcibly in Ch. 6, where the problems encountered in teaching Corsican—both social and pedagogical—are foregrounded. Chs. 7 and 8 discuss the ways in which Corsican is used outside the contexts of the language activist movement, concentrating on the Second Annual Spelling Contest of 1988 and use of Corsican and French in the local media and in folk literature and song. The perception by ordinary Corsicans that much of the language debate is academic is highlighted as a primary problem for language maintenance. Ch. 9 picks up a variety of the themes covered and relates them to theory and methodology. Throughout a fascinating study, J’s engagement in the debate is particularly appealing and illuminating.