How to explain the silent revolution which took place in Brittany in XXe century, that is to say the disappearance of Breton in favor of French ? Repression and humiliation through the republican school, or strategy on the part of the Bretons themselves ?
This work is taken from a sociology thesis defended at Rennes 2 University in 2022. Its author, Rozenn Milin, spent most of her career in the media. She is currently president of the Institut Culturel de Bretagne, which is dedicated to the defense and promotion of Breton culture. In this research work, Rozenn Milin seeks, after others, to analyze the reasons for the “ linguistic substitution » which took place in Brittany during the XXe century, that is to say the rapid replacement which occurred there of Breton by French.
Genealogy of the symbol
To do this, she adopts a particular angle: the study of the symbol, this stigmatizing object that certain Lower Breton schoolchildren were forced to wear, sometimes to exhibit, as punishment for speaking Breton within the school grounds. Rozenn Milin bases most of her demonstration on testimonies. She personally collected 200: a hundred in Lower Brittany, a hundred in the former AOFmainly in Senegal, which serves as a secondary field of investigation. Added to this, with regard to Lower Brittany, are more than 400 other testimonies that Rozenn Milin has patiently collected, particularly in investigations prior to her own. It should also be noted that she makes abundant use of existing scientific literature in order to contextualize her analysis.
One of the originalities of the work, and one of its interests, is that it places the history of linguistic repression in Lower Brittany within a broader framework of analysis, which, moreover, its subtitle immediately suggested. In the first part, entitled “ The spread of the object of shame », Rozenn Milin undertakes to reconstruct – partially – what we could call the genealogy of the symbol.
She locates her distant origins in theasinus in use in certain Germanic schools at the end of the Middle Ages: it was then a piece of wood, which the student who had failed in his duty to express himself in Latin was forced to carry. Shortly after, the Jesuits developed a similar coercive device, the supporting object of which was called signumwhich will later give the “ signal » in the south of France.
In contemporary times, the avatars ofasinus and of signum are spreading. Rozenn Milin finds them in Senegal, but also in the United Kingdom and Japan. It is striking to observe how the process is similar everywhere: the student guilty of having expressed himself in his mother tongue – forbidden – is adorned with an infamous object. He is supposed to spy on his comrades, with a view to catching one of them at fault and getting rid of the object at his expense. ; because, often, only the last bearer receives punishment at the end of the day. This does not exclude some differences relating to the nature of the object (for example, Senegal stands out for its frequent use of animal bones and horns) or even the existence of a period of time granted to new schoolchildren to get used to the linguistic ban.
This is an interesting study of comparative history, which is coupled, on occasion, with forays into the field of connected history. So it could be, says the author, that the symbol was introduced to Senegal by the Brothers of Christian Instruction ; that the hōgen fudain use in the Ryukyu archipelago, has a dual origin, Japanese and Western. The investigation continues.
Latin model and central model
The entire analysis leads to a summary essay, presented in the second part of the work, more precisely in chapter 9 entitled “ Language as a tool of domination “. The subject is no longer limited here to the symbol and its equivalents. More generally, it aims to expose how, in these different territories, the dominant language was imposed.
Rozenn Milin identifies a certain number of constants, in particular the key role of the educational institution, but also differences, which form the basis of a typology: she first distinguishes a model called “ Latin “, characteristic of the modern West, a model called “ central ”, characteristic of nation-states under construction, finally a model called “ colonial “.
In the first and last models, linguistic repression only serves the training of a literate elite ; in no way does it aim to eradicate vernacular languages. The second, on the other hand, intends to impose the dominant language on the entire population, but the author maintains that it is divided into two sub-models, one embodied by France and Meiji Japan which, according to Rozenn Milin, aimed at the eradication of regional languages, the other embodied by the United Kingdom, which did not pursue this objective.
This classification effort is commendable. It is conclusive in its broad outlines, but it deserves to be qualified, especially with regard to the model “ central “. We only have to think of the way in which Irish Gaelic was fought at school, which prohibits the rigorous opposition of France and Japan on the one hand, and the United Kingdom on the other – which, moreover, the author recognizes.
The trauma of the cow »
The heart of the book, however, remains the analysis of the Lower Breton case, which Rozenn Milin particularly develops in chapters 3 and 7. This analysis can be summarized as follows: the French Revolution gave birth to the project of eliminating regional languages, considered essential to the unification of the nation ; However, it was not until the 1880s that this project was really implemented through mass primary schools which, by resorting to coercive processes, first and foremost the symbol – often called the “ cow » (ar vuoc’h) in Lower Brittany – arouses among Breton schoolchildren a feeling of shame that can turn into trauma ; This feeling of shame explains why those concerned massively stopped transmitting Breton to their children following the Second World War.
There is there, believes Rozenn Milin, a real “ linguistic suicide “, an expression which refers directly to the study that Canadian linguists David Beck and Yvonne Lam devoted around fifteen years ago to the abandonment of their language by the Totonacs of Mexico. The testimonies produced in the work support this reading in certain respects. They prove that repression through symbols was more widespread than other sources, particularly school regulations, suggest, and they participate, in this sense, in a salutary work of reevaluation.
Abundantly and precisely cited, they also show all the cruelty and perversity of the process. One of the five testimonies cited in fullin the appendix on p. 355-364, is truly unbearable, which depicts a man beating his son in the schoolyard itself, in front of the teacher and the other children: “ The father shouted insulting remarks at his son in Breton. He literally insulted her for not speaking French as the school required. » (p. 360). It was in 1949, in the west of Morbihan…
Critical discussion
The fact remains that Rozenn Milin’s demonstration does not completely win our support. Let us note, to begin with, that the extent of the practice of the symbol remains difficult to estimate. Rozenn Milin indicates that 266 of her testimonies mention this (i.e. 43 % of its Bas-Breton corpus), which is a lot ; but she herself recognizes that such a proportion is exaggerated to the extent that, given the way in which it was constructed, her corpus is partially selective.
The same conclusion is necessary with regard to the extent of linguistic repression in general, which is not reduced to the punishment of the symbol. No doubt such figures allow us to affirm that this was not marginal ; but can we go much further ? This would certainly be reckless, especially since other recent investigations reveal a lesser presence of the symbol and, beyond that, a lesser presence of the punishments suffered for non-compliance with the linguistic ban.
Secondly, it is difficult to follow the author when she makes the action of the school, republican in particular, the main cause of linguistic substitution. She does not deny that other factors played a role in the abandonment of Breton (first and foremost, the all-out opening up of Lower Brittany and the desire for social advancement of Lower Bretons) ; but clearly she considers these other factors to be secondary. In them she sees only the elements of a “ framework conducive to language change » (p. 225), whose school is alone, ultimatelyL'” effective tool » (p. 234). To tell the truth, we do not understand the reasons for this reduction. We find ourselves more in the more balanced analysis that Fañch Broudic made of substitution, in his reference work.
Thirdly, it seems to us that such a reading, which overvalues the action of the school – compared to that of the other factors at work – ends up making the Bas-Bretons only the victims, necessarily passive, of their history. However, shame was not the only driving force behind substitution. We think that the “ religion of utility », according to the striking expression of Mona Ozouf, also led a number of Lower Bretons to judge pragmatically, rationally, that in the world that was coming (perceived by contemporaries as a world of progress), they had interest not to pass on Breton to their children.
At the beginning of XXe century, Lower Brittany has two particularities: the overpopulation of its countryside, which pushes people to emigrate, and the weakness of its industrial system, which diverts professional aspirations towards the tertiary sector and the public service – two superimposable horizons which, both of which, require minimal mastery of the French language. We can go further and hypothesize that at least part of Lower Brittany society, far from allowing itself to be trampled by advancing modernity, has rather managed to use it to its advantage. How else can we understand the remarkable educational performances of the region from the 1950s which, it must be remembered, are the fruit of a centuries-old effort ?
A stimulating reflection
In summary, if we agree with Rozenn Milin that the death agony of Breton is an infinitely sad event, as the disappearance of any human language is infinitely sad, we do not analyze in the same way the process of linguistic substitution which took place in Lower Brittany during the last century.
The key to this divergence lies in his corpus of testimonies, which overvalues rural people of modest circumstances, who carried a feeling of inferiority not simply linguistic and cultural, but also social. However, the Bas-Bretons of the 1930s were also city dwellers, sailors and seaside traders, they were the “ people of the town » and all their “ marks of superiority » with regard to peizantedso many fractions of Lower Breton society whose relationship with Breton has certainly not been marked by the same negativity as that of the small farmers of Poher.
Never mind, we repeat, this book opens up stimulating perspectives for reflection and it usefully relaunches an old discussion which, in Brittany, has never remained confined within the university. In short, it makes you think, which is no small merit.