The French government tried hard to suppress local dialects and only French was taught at school for many years, as result of which many regions lost their local languages. However in recent years there has been a distinct wish from people to reconnect to their roots. Breton and Basque in particular have managed to survive and the people of langue d'oc and Corsica also have made great efforts to keep their dialects alive. Some language specialists have deliberately canvassed the old people from various regions and put the information they culled in writing to keep them for the next generations. For instance I have a friend who has made studies of Picard and and northern French dialects and written several dictionaries of local expressions. What some people do is to use old local expressions within modern French. My mother, from Northern France, for instance always uses the term "mucher" instead of "cacher"( it means "to hide"). In Alsace a form of German is still used by older people.
Of course not...Everybody use french in France. But recently local dialect have known a certain success ans some of them are now learnt in schools. This is a good way to avoid forgetting the country's deep rotes.
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
The French government tried hard to suppress local dialects and only French was taught at school for many years, as result of which many regions lost their local languages. However in recent years there has been a distinct wish from people to reconnect to their roots. Breton and Basque in particular have managed to survive and the people of langue d'oc and Corsica also have made great efforts to keep their dialects alive. Some language specialists have deliberately canvassed the old people from various regions and put the information they culled in writing to keep them for the next generations. For instance I have a friend who has made studies of Picard and and northern French dialects and written several dictionaries of local expressions. What some people do is to use old local expressions within modern French. My mother, from Northern France, for instance always uses the term "mucher" instead of "cacher"( it means "to hide"). In Alsace a form of German is still used by older people.
See:
http://www.france-property-and-information.com/dia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_France
Of course not...Everybody use french in France. But recently local dialect have known a certain success ans some of them are now learnt in schools. This is a good way to avoid forgetting the country's deep rotes.