home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08970_Field_TCGG T735.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
910b
|
16 lines
printing press, and other instruments of education,
provided that these employed one and the same
language. Confronted with the historic fact that France
was not a linguistic unit—that, in addition to widely
variant dialects in different parts of the country, “foreign”
languages were spoken in the west by Bretons, in the
south by Provençals, Basques, and Corsicans, in the north
by Flemings, and in the northeast by Alsatian Germans—
they resolved to stamp out the dialects and the foreign
languages and to force every French citizen to know and
employ the French language. (80)
Hayes in this passage makes it quite clear that the
passion behind the vernacular drive was homogenization, a
matter which the Anglo-Saxon world has always understood is
much better managed by price rivalry and consumer goods. In a