study and preserve the Monegasque language
Its president, Claude Passet, hopes to interest young generations in the language of the Principality.
” The guarantor of the originality of a people is its language: to remove it is to destroy this originality. “. This is how Prince Rainier III, on May 15, 1982, inaugurated the Academy of Dialectal Languages, created precisely 40 years ago, even if the origins of this creation date back nearly a century.
It all started in 1924. So that “ traditions are not lost », Monegasques had the idea of creating the National Committee of Monegasque Traditions. The goal: to maintain important parts of the Principality’s culture and heritage, such as Sainte Dévote and Saint Roman. ” Already, in 1924, it was estimated that many traditions were gradually disappearing », smiles Claude Passet, president of the Academy of Dialectal Languages.
Despite the Committee’s founding act, which provided for the creation of a Monegasque language commission, the latter never saw the light of day. It took almost 60 years for the Academy of Dialectal Languages to appear in 1982. But in the meantime, big names, non-linguists but passionate about the language, had undertaken to codify Monegasque.
” In 1927, the members of the Traditions Committee asked Louis Notari, who spoke Monegasque very well, to write The Legend of Saint Devote. He wrote it and collected old vocabulary, by questioning people, to bring it all together and produce a vocabulary and grammar essay which was published in 1927says Claude Passet. In 1947, Robert Arveiller, a former high school teacher, wrote a thesis on Monegasque: it was the first purely linguistic work on the language. Twenty years later, the Committee wanted to study the language and brought together scholars from different countries, they organized several colloquia. Then, in 1981, the committee revealed that it was going around in circles and wanted to create what had been planned since 1924: an organization to study the Monegasque language, but also Latin languages. »
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Monegasque, a once forbidden language
Chaired in turn by Robert Boisson, René Novella, then by Paulette Cherici-Porello, the Academy is now directed by Claude Passet. The members are spread over seven countries and about fifteen universities, and organize a symposium every three years. The objective is to study and understand the origins of Latin languages, including Monegasque: ” languages evolve, Monegasque finds its origin in the Ligurian languages », underlines Claude, who met the premises of the Academy at the disposal of the Traditions Committee, to offer courses in Monegasque.
The language is also taught today on school benches. Ironically, when he was a schoolboy, Claude Passet was forbidden to speak the language he defends today: ” my generation did not learn Monegasque. It was forbidden at the time to speak at school, it was considered a vulgar, popular language. How many times did I have to copy lines, writing ” I must not speak patois “. In Monaco-Ville, people spoke Monegasque in the street in the 1960s and 1970s. And the children repeated, that’s how I learned. »
From now on, and since 1973, thanks to Canon Georges Franzi, learning Monegasque is compulsory up to third grade. But for Claude Passet, even if it’s positive, it’s still not enough: ” it’s only two hours a monthhe regrets. It’s not a lot. There are only two hours of Monaco history and two hours of Monegasque. (…) It’s a shame: the students learn it as a subject, as if they were learning Latin. They don’t talk outside of school. But it is already very good that they know that the language exists, that they speak it in the playground. (…) It’s the same for the Monegasque language competition: the students write small texts, but they are not published, it’s a shame, they should! »
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Preserving the culture and identity of Monaco
For his part, Claude Passet would like to give a new dynamic to the Academy: ” the Commission for the Monegasque language was notably to create a Franco-Monegasque dictionary, which was never completed. I would like this project to be relaunched, but also to bring new blood to the Academy. There have been attempts to attract younger people. For example, the Academy of Music tried to create a choir in Monegasque, but it only lasted a year. There was also talk of launching a Monegasque bistro, so that people would meet in a bar and speak Monegasque, but the Covid stopped the project. It would be nice to revive it. If we want the language to perpetuate itself, even if it’s not perfect and literary, we have to speak it. »
Because for Claude, as for the Academy, preserving regional languages – in the Principality or elsewhere – is important in more ways than one. ” We must ensure that the language is not lost: the language is part of the culture, of the identity of a country. If you lose your language, you lose a bit of your identity “, he believes, also recalling that the Monegasque once had nuances.
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” In Monaco, there was not one, but SOME Monegasque languages: the Monegasque of Monaco-Ville, the one spoken in La Condamine and that of Saint-Roman, more popular and close to the Provençal of Roquebrune and Menton. (…) Today, Monegasque is a silent language, which is only spoken in the classroom. Or, an oral-only language is dangerous. »
But Claude Passet does not lose hope: between conferences, publications and future projects, he hopes that the new generations will gradually rediscover the desire to learn this language, which, far from being a simple patois, is an integral part cultural and historical heritage of the Principality, echoing, here again, the words of Prince Rainier III: ” To let a language die is to forever tarnish the deep soul of a people, it is to give up forever one of the most precious legs of its past. »