Tag: French language

Reading French-Indigenous Encounters from the Francophone Scholarship in Canada

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A maritime map of the explorer Samuel de Champlain, journals kept by the French Jesuits, and a manuscript dictionary of the Iroquoian language … an array of objects unravel multiple facets of French-Indigenous encounters in seventeenth-century New France, the French colonies in North America. In late 2021, amid the ongoing pandemic, I embarked on a transient archival trip across the Atlantic to Canada for my PhD in History at the University of Cambridge. During the journey, I recommended Objets de référence for purchase by Cambridge University Library. All the books mentioned in this blog post feature in the library collections. The exhibition catalogue Objets de référence showcases the materiality of textual and visual sources, including a few treasures that I personally touched, photographed, and scrutinised at the archives of the Musée de la Civilisation in Québec City – a place that bore witness to those profound encounters. Moreover, this catalogue prominently features Indigenous artefacts ranging from the wampum belt to a hunter’s tunic, casting light on Indigenous agency, identities, and their intricate relations with settlers over the centuries.

Laurent, Michel, ed. Objets de référence : 122 témoins de l’histoire. Montréal: Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2011.

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Francophone writing and indigenous literature in Canada 

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Multilingualism is a crucial part of the diversity of library collections, although it presents challenges in terms of linguistic expertise from both librarians and readers. We have written previously about Francophone Quebecois literature and want to highlight here the work of literary societies and the importance of French language literature produced by indigenous writers in Québec, through a list of recently published works.

book coverKwahiatonhk! is an association dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of “la littérature et les livres autochtones”, whose name means “we write!” in the Wendat language. It is based in Wendake, two urban reserves of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Quebec. Kwahiatonhk! organises literary events, such as the Salon du livre des Premières Nations (SLPN), which started in 2011, with the sponsorship of the Wendake bookseller and publisher Librairie Hannenorak. It is the only festival entirely dedicated to indigenous literature in Quebec, offering events in both French and English.

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History and memory: French comic books and graphic novels at Cambridge University Library

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Comic books (bandes dessinées or BDs) and graphic novels (romans graphiques) are a very important and successful part of French and Francophone publications. A report on the Bande Dessinée was commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture and published in January 2019, ahead of BD 2020, l’année de la bande dessinée. It contained several proposals for better symbolic and institutional recognition for the “9th art”: a stronger local, national and international dissemination and promotion, and an ambitious education policy. 2020 is thus officially « L’année de la bande-dessinée à la BnF »: the French national Library has engaged in a series of printed and online publications as well as events on the topic (prolonged up to 31st June 2021 because of the coronavirus crisis) and has even developed an app, “BDnF, la Fabrique à BD“, for you to try and create your own comic book. The app is accompanied by tutorials, and examples of creations in different sub-genres (including comic strip, manga, webtoon…), based on a selection of digital images from archival BnF documents. You can also read entire comic books online: during the lockdown, publishers such as La Boite à Bulles or Dargaud opened up some of their collections; every month, you can access a free volume on the website of Les Humanoïdes Associés. You can also read online comic books on the Institut Français digital library Culturethèque (sign up for free with your email address), or browse the digitised collections of the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image, based in Angoulème, where takes place a major annual International Comics Festival.

1Capture
« La BD à la BnF », Chroniques, 87 (janvier-mars 2020)

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Education and publishing: the legacy of Pierre Larousse (1817-1875)

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dav
GDU’s frontispiece (Z900.a.86.1)

Last week was the Semaine de la langue française et de la francophonie, so it is a good occasion to consider the famous French lexicographer and publisher Pierre Larousse (1817-1875).

The son of a blacksmith and an innkeeper, Pierre Athanase Larousse was born in Toucy (Burgundy) in 1817. He was a very good student and, not surprisingly, an avid reader at a time when books were distributed by peddlers. To some extent he was a free spirit, out of the conventions of his time. He cohabited for many years with Suzanne Pauline Caubel, before marrying her in 1872.

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Français and québécois

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I recently stumbled upon a very interesting article on the Icelandic language and the threats it faces in a modern, English-speaking digital world. This put me in mind of Québec and France, and of the different approaches they have taken against a similar problem.

Take a guess: how was this film’s title translated in France?

With its Académie française, its strict language rules, the huge backlash every time someone proposes a change, any change, to the standard – see for example, the spelling reform of 2016 or the debate around trying to make the language more inclusive – you would think that France would be the best of the two at defending la francophonie, better than a French-speaking province surrounded by two enormous English-speaking cultures. Well that’s not the case. Although France is very good at resisting any attempt at modernising the language coming from within, it doesn’t worry so much about the enemy outside – the great influence of English or American and how it is affecting French vocabulary. Continue reading “Français and québécois” →

Radio broadcasting and the war

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“La chanson des V”. Beethoven’s famous 5th symphonie start was the signature tune for the BBC programme “Les Français parlent aux français”. The rythm of its first four notes equals the letter “V” (for Victory) in morse code. Liberation.b.34

The powerful role of radio propaganda during World War II cannot be overestimated. Information was transmitted quickly to vast populations across borders, overpassing enemy lines. In the UK, the BBC would broadcast in several languages, including French of course, and would even send secret messages to the French Resistance in the form of apparently senseless phrases. The Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection has several publications related to this topic, some of them particularly fascinating.

Maurice Van Moppès was an illustrator, Free France member and broadcaster who worked for “Les Français parlent aux français”, one of the BBC radio programmes that transmitted news from the Front (for more on this check the 5 volumes of Ici Londres, 1940-1944: les voix de la liberté, 539:1.b.820.2-6). The programme was also supposed to boost the French people’s morale and send code messages to the Résistance. Continue reading “Radio broadcasting and the war” →

Constantin Joffé: the fate of a prisoner-of-war

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Liberation.c.930
Liberation.c.930

One of the most striking aspects of the Liberation Collection is the huge number of books consisting of personal narratives, containing the memories of people involved in and affected by World War II. Through dealing with these books one becomes very intrigued by and connected with their authors, their experiences and their suffering. Instances of personal narratives in the Liberation Collection vary widely, in terms of the backgrounds to which the authors belonged, in terms of the topics they choose to address or the quality of the publications themselves. But they all share a deeply human and personal view of the tragic conflict. Here is one example. Continue reading “Constantin Joffé: the fate of a prisoner-of-war” →

Youth Culture at the Liberation: Résistantes and Résistants in Cardboard Cut-Outs

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We are grateful to the Managing Editor of the French History Network Blog for permission to reproduce the article by Southampton doctoral student Emily Hooke on a set of cardboard toy theatre scenes depicting the Liberation of Paris. The University Library has these in its Liberation Collection, and they featured prominently in the exhibition which we mounted in 2014.

Emily-Hooke-Fig-1
Roland Forgues, Le Général de Gaulle à l’Arc de Triomphe, 26 août 1944 (Paris: Edition de l’Office Central de l’Imagerie, 1944). Liberation.a.110. See bibliographic record here. Click on the image to enlarge.

On a trip to Paris a few years ago, I was wandering along the Seine, glancing casually at the bouquinistes when I spotted something interesting: three pieces of cardboard illustrated with scenes from the Liberation of Paris — 19-26 August 1944 — and dated later that year.[1] Looking closer, I could see these sheets were cardboard cut-outs, as the tabs under the figures show (fig. 1, fig. 2, fig. 3). They also contained the only information I have been able to find of them: They were illustrated by Roland Forgues and commissioned by l’Office central de l’imagerie, Paris.

Researching further, I found that these were far from the only representations of the Resistance aimed at youth during the Liberation. Indeed, there was a boom in children’s literature at the Liberation — despite the paper shortages. These sought to repair the damage done by children’s comic books under the Occupation such as Le Téméraire, which framed the Resistance as villains – ‘without morals and without courage’.[2]

The cardboard cut-outs sparked my interest in popular culture, and added a new dimension to my research: youth. Following the Liberation the Resistance became seen as ‘military, patriotic and essentially masculine’ despite evidence to the contrary, and I wanted to see how they fitted into the construction of this gendered narrative.[3] Continue reading “Youth Culture at the Liberation: Résistantes and Résistants in Cardboard Cut-Outs” →

German for French soldiers stationed in Strasbourg

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Recently added to the catalogue is a charming introduction to the German language for soldiers stationed at the Citadelle of Strasbourg. Published in 1731, this anonymous work, entitled L’art de bien parler allemand : qui comprend tout ce qui est necessaire pour apprendre facilement & en peu de tems cette langue, à l’usage de messieurs les cadets gentils hommes de la Citadelle de Strasbourg, stands at 7001.d.230. It is clearly a very rare item –we have been able to locate no other copies in the United Kingdom or the United States, and only one in Germany, in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe. The catalogue collectif de France gives a further three locations. The Cambridge copy contains a few manuscript notes, and the contemporary ownership inscription of a young soldier, “Liercour, cadet”, on the back cover.

En joue
En joue

The work begins with a brief general introduction to grammar, which is followed by German phonetics, German grammar, declination, regular and irregular verbs etc. The main section contains extensive topical bi-lingual word lists and glossaries. Terms for food and drink, with descriptions of the separate parts of the meal – starters, main courses, desserts – are explained in detail, and are clearly aimed at a sophisticated French audience. The word lists which follow cover parts of the human body, illnesses, clothing, politics, history, fortification and nature. A special section is of course devoted to war and military vocabulary, ranging from “pressing a soldier into service” to “fighting battles” and “standing guard”.

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