This concise book looks at the external history of the French language from its Latin origins to the present day through some of the analytical frameworks developed by contemporary sociolinguistics. Using the model proposed by E. Haugen, the author examines the basic stages involved in standardization to plot the development of this process in French. The concluding chapter deals with language variability and the wide gulf that has developed between French used for formal purposes and that used in everyday speech, with particular reference to the former Occitan-speaking regions. Concentrating on the ordinary speakers of the language rather than the statesmen or great authors as agents of change, the book combines a traditional history of the language with a sociolinguistic framework to provide a broad, comparative overview of the problem of language standardization.

Paris mushroomed in the thirteenth century to become the largest city in the Western world, largely through in-migration from rural areas. The resulting dialect-mixture led to the formation of new, specifically urban modes of speech. From the time of the Renaissance social stratification became sharper as the elites distanced themselves from the Parisian 'Cockney' of the masses. Nineteenth-century urbanisation transformed the situation yet again with the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants from far-flung corners of France, levelling dialect-differences and exposing ever larger sections of the population to standardising influences. At the same time, a working-class vernacular emerged which was distinguished from the upper-class standard not only in grammar and pronunciation but most markedly in vocabulary (slang). This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through these various phases of in-migration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from medieval times to the present day.

Paris became the largest city in the Western world during the thirteenth century, and has remained influential ever since. This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through various phases of immigration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from the Middle Ages to the present. It reveals how new urban modes of speech developed during periods of expansion, how the city's elites sought to distinguish their language from that of the masses, and how a working-class vernacular eventually emerged with its own "slang" vocabulary.