language and accent question about Napoleon

[Forward Observer]

Napoleon was Corsican and of Italian noble decent, so of course his native language was Italian. His family originally came from Genoa, and I have read that he started learning French at around age 9 when attending school. I also read that he never excelled at it and spoke the language with a heavy Corsican accent.

I assume he may have also spoken other languages, and did read that he learned a little English at some poiint in his formative years.

Of course, for English speaking audiences, when he is portrayed in film and TV, if his charater is speaking English, it is always with a French accent.

If he spoke English at all, wouldn't his accent have been Corcican/Italian, which was his native tongue, and not French?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Napoléon spoke Corsu, not Italian. His family was originally from Italy, but had been living in Corsica for centuries.

Nobody spoke French at this time.
Perhaps 10%-15% percent of the population spoke French, the remainder some patois. Napoléon is exceptional for speaking French at all, for having learned it at an early age, more than for French not being his first language.


As for Napoléon not being 'real' French by virtue of distant foreign ancestry and peripheral birth: very few would qualify as Frenchman if these are the criteria, because the collection of loose territories with mutually unitelligable, or barely intelligable, languages WAS France. The Revolution came first, then the nation-state, which was created by it. Napoléon was not so much an outsider to France, as, rather, crucial for shaping a French nation. Napoléon helped make France, made it a unified nation by standardising law, education, conscription, and, above all, by spreading that most profound and prized possesion of French identity: language.


I suppose la paille au nez would've spoken English with a mixed Corsu/French accent.

[Louis VI the Fat]

What Napoléon sounded like, never mind his English, is difficult to reconstruct, except from what people wrote about his accent.

We do have, however, his personal writings. They help to establish his language. http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/napoleon.htm

Here's a love letter he wrote to Joséphine:

Napoleon to Josephine, Spring 1797

To Josephine, I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. you are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment!

What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover? What attachment can be stifling and pushing aside the love, the tender and constant love which you promised him? Who can this wonderful new lover be who takes up your every moment, rules your days and prevents you from devoting your attention to your husband? Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be.
In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy.

I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.

See, this is why I adore him. What spirit! What a burning mind! What literature!


now to wait for Brenus, who abhors this terrible tyrant of a man...

[Beskar]

I love how he goes from one moment cursing her to hell, to "I shall alvish upon you a million kisses..." etc.

[Azathoth]

Napoleon to Josephine, Spring 1797

To Josephine, I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. you are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment!

What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover? What attachment can be stifling and pushing aside the love, the tender and constant love which you promised him? Who can this wonderful new lover be who takes up your every moment, rules your days and prevents you from devoting your attention to your husband? Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be.
In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy.

I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.

I'm pretty sure the outcome of such a correspondence today would be a restraining order.

[Subotan]

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[al Roumi]

Napoléon spoke Corsu, not Italian. His family was originally from Italy, but had been living in Corsica for centuries.

Nobody spoke French at this time.
Perhaps 10%-15% percent of the population spoke French, the remainder some patois. Napoléon is exceptional for speaking French at all, for having learned it at an early age, more than for French not being his first language.

As for Napoléon not being 'real' French by virtue of distant foreign ancestry and peripheral birth: very few would qualify as Frenchman if these are the criteria, because the collection of loose territories with mutually unitelligable, or barely intelligable, languages WAS France. The Revolution came first, then the nation-state, which was created by it. Napoléon was not so much an outsider to France, as, rather, crucial for shaping a French nation. Napoléon helped make France, made it a unified nation by standardising law, education, conscription, and, above all, by spreading that most profound and prized possesion of French identity: language.

From thence (or the principles of the revolution) the French sense of social equality: everyone entitled to the same and to be the same. Very different to the British sense of social equality: everyone entitled to the same right to be different.

Napoleon(e) went to a military school, which is where he learnt the Lingua Franca (ha) of France: French.

[Meneldil]

Napoleon was Corsican and of Italian noble decent, so of course his native language was Italian. His family originally came from Genoa, and I have read that he started learning French at around age 9 when attending school. I also read that he never excelled at it and spoke the language with a heavy Corsican accent.

I assume he may have also spoken other languages, and did read that he learned a little English at some poiint in his formative years.

Of course, for English speaking audiences, when he is portrayed in film and TV, if his charater is speaking English, it is always with a French accent.

If he spoke English at all, wouldn't his accent have been Corcican/Italian, which was his native tongue, and not French?

Tell a Corsican he's Italian and he'll probably blow up your house, your car, your dog and your office to avenge his honor :D

[Strike For The South]

So what did the French speak before "The Greatest Event In All Of Human History" ™ happend? German?

[Flavius Clemens]

So what did the French speak before "The Greatest Event In All Of Human History" ™ happend? German?

Lots of mututally incomprehesible dialects / languages.
See e.g. 'Langauge' in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_France

[Louis VI the Fat]

So what did the French speak before "The Greatest Event In All Of Human History" ™ happend? German?

In the periphery, non-Romanic languages like Flemish, Alsatian, Basque, Breton.

The big linguistic divide is that between the langue d'oïl in the north, and the langue d'oc in the South.

A bit simplified, the langue d'oc is the 'missing link' between Spanish, Italian and French. Almost a shame the Occitan languages have all but dissapeared. There is a huge cultural divide in France, separating the southern third from the rest. From the famous example of the rooftops, to the language, food and customs.

The langues d'oïl of the north are the basis of standard French. From theses languages, especially that of the Île-de-France, a standardised French was formed. Which only by the 19th century was understood by a majority of people, never mind their first language.

France was centralised to such an extent, that one would quickly forget that the linguistic divides of France are as complicated as that of Iberia. French languages differ as much as Portuguese from Castillian from Catalan. Even the oïl languages themselves differ as much as Danish from Swedish or Norwegian.


http://www.lexilogos.com/france_carte_dialectes.htm

[TinCow]

Napoleon was as French as Arnold Schwarzenegger is American. Both clearly originated in foreign cultures, but were so heavily integrated into their adopted culture that they actively help define it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Napoleon was as French as Arnold Schwarzenegger is American. Both clearly originated in foreign cultures, but were so heavily integrated into their adopted culture that they actively help define it.

Schwarzenegger? I'd say Napoléon was as French as Abe Lincoln was American.

Both had distant immigrant ancestors, both were born in the periphery of their country, in territories that had only shortly before their birth been accepted as part of their country.