Николас Остлер - Empires of the Word - A language History of the World

ibid., quatrième partie: ’je jugeai que je pouvais prendre pour règle générale que les choses que nous concevons fort clairement et fort distinctement sont toutes vraies …’

Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 154).

ibid.: 150.

Leclerc (2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760) , pp. 2,4) gives an estimate of about 2500 French in 1663, as against 80,000 English and 10,000 Dutch even in 1627. In 1754, his figures are 69,000 French (55,000 in Nouvelle-France, 10,000 in Acadie, and 4000 in Louisiane) against 1 million English colonists with their 300,000 slaves.

‘ Colbert qui rěvait de voir ces indigenes et ces Français de la Nouvelle-France ne former «qu’un mesme peuple et un mesme sang», se plaint à Talon en 1666 qu’on n’ait pas obligé les sauvages à «s’instruire dans notre langue, au lieu que pour avoir quelque commerce avec eux nos français ont été nécessités d’apprendre la leur»’ Dorion and Morissonneau (1992).

He was Le Sieur de Bacqueville et de La Potherie, and he actually wrote: ’On y parle ici parfaitement bien sans mauvais accent. Quoiqu’il y ait un mélange de presque toutes les provinces de France, on ne saurait distinguer le parler d’aucune dans les canadiennes’ (Leclerc 2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760) , pp. 4, 5).

’Les paysans canadiens parlent très bien le français’ (Leclerc 2001: La Nouvelle-France (1534-1760) , p. 9).

Barraclough (1978: 208).

Picoche and Marchello-Nizia (1989: 64).

Grimes (2000). The figure for Pondicherry comes from Leclerc (2001, Les États où le français est langue officielle ou coofficielle , ).

Unfortunately for them, the Muslim majority was also growing at a comparable rate, from 2 to 8.7 million in the same period (Picoche and Marchello-Nizia 1989: 86, 104).

F. M. Dostoyevsky, Collected Works , vol. 21, in Writers Diary for 1880-81 , iii, pp. 517-18. The Cyrillic spelling has not been modernised. These words were written in reaction to a celebrated Russian victory over the Turkmens at Gök Tepe (’Blue Hill’), on which Lord Curzon also commented: ‘The terrifying effect of such a massacre as Geok Tepe survives for generations’ (Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question , London: Frank Cass, 1967, p. 386).

Hosking (1997: 5-6).

ibid.: 379.

ibid.: 369.

Lieven (2000: 334).

Hosking (1997: 18): Gen. Rostislav Fadeyev, 60 Tbilisi 1860, p. 9.

These figures are calculated from those in Grimes (2000). Evidently, Russian is very widely known and used as a second language in these countries (e.g. Grimes quotes 30 per cent for Armenia).

Roy (2000: 30-31).

ibid.: 32.

This figure is calculated from those in Grimes (2000).

This figure is calculated from those in ibid.

Archpriest Avvakum, quoted in Hosking (1997:69).

Lieven (2000: 255, 435, 278 and 437); he relies strongly on Gudrun Persson’s 1999 London University PhD thesis: The Russian Army and Foreign Wars 1859-1871.

Hosking (1997: 187).

ibid.: 36, quoting Erik Amburger, Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 , 1966, pp. 502-19, and Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany , 1965, pp. 40-1.

Hosking (1997: 309-10).

ibid.: 402; Comrie (1981: 28).

Hosking (1997: 311), quoting Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia learnt to read: literary and popular culture , 1985.

Fisher (1978: 100-4).

Comrie (1981: 28).

ibid.: 1.

M. I. Isayev, National Languages in the USSR: Problems and solutions , 1977, pp. 300-1, quoted in Comrie (1981: 36-7).

Roy (2000: 169).

Barraclough (1978: 140).

Tsurumi (1984:277).

Chen (1984: 242), quoting Ken’ichi Kondō (ed.), Taiheiyō senka no Chōsen oyobi Taiwan , ‘Korea and Taiwan during the Pacific War’, Tokyo, 1961.

Tsurumi (1984: 303), paraphrasing Aoyagi Tsunatarō Keijō (Seoul), Shin Chōsen , ‘New Korea’, 1925.

See Miyawaki (2002): he notes a married couple in Micronesia, still using Japanese as a convenient means of communication that their children will not understand.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (1942), ‘Little Gidding’, part 2.

Brandt (1969: 374).

Smith (2000: 164).

Crowley (2000: 15). The original Norman French reads: ’III. Item ordine est et establie que chescun Engleys use la lang Engleis et soit nome par nom Engleys enterlessant oulterment la manere de nomere use par Irroies et que chescun Engleys use la manere guise monture et appareill Engleys solonc son estat et si nul Engleys ou Irroies [conversant entre Engleys use la lang Irroies] entre euxmesmes encontre cest ordinance et de ceo soit atteint soint sez terrez et tentz sil eit seisiz en les maines son Seinours immediate tanque qil veigne a un des places nostre Seignour le Roy et trove sufficient seurtee de prendre et user la lang Engleis…et auxiant que les beneficers de seint Esglise conversantz entre Anglois use la langue Engleis et sils ne facent eint leur ordinaries les issues de leur benefices tanque ils usent la langue Angloise en le maniere susdit et eient respit de la langue Engloise apprendre et de celles purvier entre cy et le feste seint Michael prochin avent.’

Act of Union 1536, section xvii, as quoted in Evans (1992: 298).

S.P.Hen. VIII to the Town of Galway, 1536, as quoted in Evans (1992: 296).

Crowley (2000: 19).

Proclamation of Henry III, 18 October 1258; Patent Rolls, 42 Henry III m. 1, n. 1, Public Record Office, London; as reproduced in Mossé (1962: 234).

Trevisa re. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden , i, 59. The text is given in the (London) form published by William Caxton in 1482, since this is substantially easier to read than Trevisa’s own Cornish dialect. The punctuation and capitalisation are also adjusted for ease of modern reading. The relevant words of Higden are: ’Haec quidem nativae linguae corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus; quod videlicet pueri in scholis contra morem caeterarum nationum a primo Normannorum adventu, derelicto proprio vulgari construere Gallice compelluntur; item quod filii nobilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad Gallicum idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines assimilari volentes, ut per hoc spectabiliores videantur, francigenare satagunt omni nisu.’