French repression of minority languages

Why are the French so afraid of minority languages?

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/lenguas/regionales/atentan/identidad/nacional/elpepucul/20080616elpepucul_10/Tes

Menuda carcundia habita en la Academia de la lengua Francesa. En España es al contrario, suele ser habitual algún tipo de colaboración entre la RAE y las academias del valenciano, el gallego, el catalán ,etc. También sucede que los Institutos Cervantes dan clases de estas lenguas además de español.

Why can't people go on speaking whatever they like in their private lives and leave it at that?? Why do they need to be officially recognized?

Why not? After France recognices Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Basque, Catalan and Occitan, USA will do the same with Spanish.

<<USA will do the same with Spanish. >>

Does the US officially recognize English?

Not at the federal level but each State does recognize English as the official language.

"Why not? After France recognices Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Basque, Catalan and Occitan"

What the hell for?? Nobody is stopping those people from speaking those languages in their personal lives; why can't they be happy with that, and shut up? This is all a bunch of whining.

This constant bickering over regional 'languages' in France, Spain, and other european countries, is so ridiculous.

The point is that nobody knows why the French are so paranoid! Do they reallly think that some 130.000 people who speak some regional language are going to threaten their 'national identity'?

French in antimoon are paranoid too.

What most foreigners and especially the Americans in their ignorance do not realize is that in France, the language spoken by most of the people is French. Or to put it in a way that any American can understand it: Check it out mofos, we are officially speaking French here Homie. We are also liking very much to be down with all the American cool slangs and we're digging it to listen to the black artists like M&M and Nat King Cole (for old school negro jams). But it is another thing for French because after all French was the first language spoken in the world. And even if we're not so down with the other more inferior languages or dialects some of the backward people speak in France, you know that's cool in the gang jack because those are not like the hip languages any way. Hey it's normal for all to notice that mostly the people that talk those other languages are old and had not the education of the university, for sure bro! In the contraire, those old speakers of odd countryside languages are living the harsh life way off in the hills and rocks where there is hardly any work to find or books to read so theyre not watching the tv and learnning about the world and knowing other things outside of their village up in the cliff so they never get out to learn or have exposure to real languages where you can say more things and make your brain grow. So mostly those dudes that are only talking those odd languages are like the unhip mountain peeps in the American movie film Deliverance where they dig it to drink the wisky made in shack, play the banjo all day and rape some of the other dudes out in the field when they get too much wisky.

Whenever I find myself out in the countryside where there hick people I make sure I'm packing some major firearms to shoot away the countryside rapists and any banjo players that might try to check it out my badass for sodomy raping.

Mate, that's not really very funny. It was kind of good the first time but now you're just a pain. I bet you're just a native English speaking troll anyway.

I see from your text that you're probably a British dude, People have to understand the dynamic at work to keep one dialiect being a dialect another diaect becomes the official language. Normally we say the dialect that controls the army gets to be the language. But the people outside of our country especially the fuckers that don't live here or in our region don't understand that you can't just give a ceremony to create an official language to a bunch of dudes who don't speak french and make their daughters marry the man choose from the father's list and they fucking sell her for the marriage. These are des backward peqnots dudes and these are found in des coins de France perdu. It's as bad in these places as living in Iran or some bullshit place where there's no dancing to the black american beats and going out with friends for the hip jiveman talking like a straight G and then gettin it on like Marvin Gay. If you go to some of the French hicks and lay it on them some of that hip talking, they won't even dig out one serial word.

I don't "dig out" one serial (sic) word.

<<Mate, that's not really very funny. It was kind of good the first time but now you're just a pain.>>

you know I was thinking.....They should make Cockney an official language in England, and make learning it compulsory in all schools, I'm sure you all wouldn't mind...after all, we shoul cherish linguistic diversity; its not sufficient for any country to have just one official language.

Linguistic diversity is an invaluable treasure of the mankind, comparable with biological diversity. If you say that people may speak their (minority) language in private if they want, you could as well say that polar bears and Sumatra rhinoceros may live and reproduce if they want. But if the speakers of minority languages can´t get education and other services from the society in their own language, or if we cut down the rain forests and cause the polar ice to melt, we in fact destroy something the value of which can´t be measured in money.
We should give linguistic minorities the same rights as we like to have ourselves if we are somewhere in minority (like the French are in Canada, Belgium and Switzerland). If minority languages don´t have vocabulary for things concerned with modern society, fault is not the primitiveness of the language but the perverse attitude of majority language speakers who have not given space to the minority language to develop. This is clearly seen in the marvellous rise of Saami (Lappish) since the Nordic countries stopped suppressing their unique minority, and began instead supporting them as a irreplacable national inheritage.