Ethnic Origins of the French

who exactly are the French according to the French government any citizen of the country should be considered French not recognizing any sort of ethnic religious linguistic or cultural divisions with it even being illegal to take surveys or censuses over such aspects of one's background in the country today this is evidence of the country's surprisingly cosmopolitan background as the fusing of several distinct nations of a quite a long period of time and from the beginning the area that would become the land of cheese Berets and tall towers had already distinguished itself from many other areas of Western Europe but demographically and historically as I've gone over many times in past videos some of the first attested indo-european peoples to have inhabit the west central European region where the Celts who had spread out from the Alpine region of modern Austria and Switzerland to encompass the bulk of the European continent and the Celtic tribes then inhabited the area that would become modern-day France were known as the Gauls the gulls were definitely not a single Empire or nation divided between tribes and France Switzerland Belgium and northern Italy however following the Roman expansion and invasion from the south the Gauls fought a long and incredibly bloody series of battles against the Roman incursion that resulted in massive casualties for the Gaulish population and the introduction of greco-roman culture and people's Greek colonies had already been established on the coast of France for quite some time but the culture that would develop in this region became more of a hybrid of greco-roman and Celtic Gaulish traditions known as gallo-roman with vulgar latin and quickly replacing the indigenous tongues in this area being quite heavily linked and customs and culture with that of the romanized Britons the Celtic culture wouldn't be completely stamped out until several centuries later however and the region of Gaul did attempt a secession from Rome very briefly in the 3rd century AD as a pagan mystic semi latinized empire such as from France to the Netherlands to Great Britain although the Gallic Empire along with the Syriac pal marine Empire situated in the Middle East would quickly be put down and reincorporated as it stands though even all things mighty must come to an end eventually and through a combination of invasions rebellions and internal conflicts the Western Roman Empire would completely dissolve mostly replaced by a plethora of Germanic kingdoms that arose from the Goths and Italy and Iberia where the Vandals of the Maghreb or the keppens Burgundians or suevi scattered throughout Europe although all were the result of mass migrations of Germanic tribes streaming from the north however the major tribe that would take hold in the region of France after all this chaos with the Franks a Germanic tribe from the North Sea region who gradually conquered the entirety of the former region of Gaul wiping out the last vestiges of Celtic influence in the region although the Frankish language did not entirely replace the gallo-romance tongue spoken there for hundreds of years the kingdom of the Franks or Francey as it was known was the dominant power in Western Europe encompassing modern France Switzerland Austria the Low Countries and parts of Germany Iberia and Italy and was originally pagan while switching over predominantly to Christianity before the massive Empire collapsed splitting into three rather odd subdivisions of East Francia correlating with Germany West Francia correlating with France and middle Francia correlating with the Low Countries stretching down to central Italy interestingly during the First Crusade the bulk of Catholics storming the Holy Land of Jerusalem and 11 did indeed originate from these Frankish kingdoms leading to the Franks ruling over not only a large chunk of Europe but the Middle East as well although eventually they were virtually all expelled killed or assimilated into the local Maronite Catholic population this Western Frankish Kingdom would evolved into what we now refer to as France with the Latin based languages clearly becoming dominant in this section of the Empire as opposed to the Germanic tongue spoken further to the north and east ironically although nearly disappearing from France altogether the Frankish language would eventually evolved into the Franconian dialects of Dutch and German we see today although these dialects have almost entirely been replaced in central Germany by standard German although they are still spoken by a good chunk of the population and parts Belgium the Moselle Department of France as well as Luxembourg with the Luxembourgish language actually being quite distinct from the neighboring German dialects so technically the closest nation today to the old Franks would actually be the country of Luxembourg but don't tell anybody that it's kind of similar to how the anglo-saxons of Great Britain were invaded and conquered by relatively small force of Normans from the northern coast of France yet over the generations the latin-based norman language fell out of use even among the upper-class and the entire populace eventually shifted into a hybridized anglo-norman culture the kingdom of France was well known for having its fiercest and longest rivalry of course with England with the too frequently invading warring and undermining each other and nearly every turn although the two actually have much more in common than they would think both being former Roman territories taken from Celtic tribes that would eventually fall to Germanic invaders with the major difference being the English language is derived from Germanic with heavy romance and lesser Celtic influence while the French language is derived from Latin with Germanic and Celtic influence but is there really such a thing as the French language or people this is where it becomes incredibly confusing and the definition of an ethnic group becomes highly distorted as although the French today consider themselves to be a single nation up until the recent past France was highly divided from a cultural and linguistic standpoint there are actually approximately nine ish languages spoken natively throughout the territory of what is now France and countless dialects making it rather difficult to distinguish between them but the three main traditional languages are Occitan our patent also known as franco-provençal and long wheel the latter of which is the family from which the modern standardised French language derives the Occitan language is actually far closer to Catalan than it is to standard French and in fact in the past they were actually considered dialects of the same language but there are in fact many dialects of both the Catalan and Occitan languages some of which are closer than others auch c10 was previously dominant throughout the bulk of southern France known as occitania up until a century ago when it was rapidly replaced the standard French although the occitane e'en culture is still quite distinct and the language lives on in a micro state of monaco very nearby to the French city of nice and today only a fraction of people living in the historical region of occitania have any knowledge of the language at all our patan is a dialect group that is spoken in the east north of occitania yet south of the longed Weald dialects predominantly in the Alps region of France along with parts of Switzerland and Italy and the usage of this language is rapidly declining in favor of French although still has official status in the Alistair Valley in northern Italy an autonomous region recognised for its unique culture and language other linguistic minorities of France of the romance family include a small group of Catalan speakers near the border with Spain and the Corsican language on the island of Corsica which is far closer to Italian that French Germanic languages are also spoken on the borders with Germany and Belgium the Celtic Breton language is spoken on the Breton Peninsula not actually descended from mainland Celtic peoples but rather from brittonic migrants from the British Isles and lastly the Basques are a small but fiercely independent minority on the border with Spain and over time these regional cultures have all at varying rates contributed to and assimilated into mainstream French society on average those from southern France definitely have more of a southern European or Mediterranean phenotype being more similar in appearance with Italian Spaniards at the Portuguese while those from northern France generally have more of a northern European or Nordic phenotype not being very distinguishable from the English Dutch or Germans what's interesting about the French populace is that due to low birth rates for over a century France has had a rather lacks policy of immigration from other regions of Europe especially other Latin nations such as Italy Portugal and Spain and even many from Eastern Europe as well with millions flooding into the country greatly contributing to their history albion assimilating rather quickly today there are more recent immigrant communities from southern Europe as well as from former French colonies in the Middle East and Africa but the rate of emigration if France doesn't really compare to the French diaspora although this is a bit smaller than other overseas communities for Western European powers French speakers not only extent Switzerland however as the southern half of Belgium as well as the capital region of Brussels is dominated by French speakers nana's Walloons with the northern half being Dutch and despite being outnumbered in the country at a ratio of around 3 to 5 the Walloons hold a significant amount of power in the country both historically and in the present-day no doubt in part due to their proximity to the much larger France although the bulk of the French population today is nominally Catholic the majority are in effect irreligious as this was one of the centres of secularism after the French Revolution and there was also a distinct ethno-religious community in France known as the Huguenots a french-speaking Protestant community of the due to persecution they fled to the Americas as well South Africa and other French colonies with their descendants numbering several million today there are communities of French descendants around the globe who have been so far removed from their homeland that they've developed their own distinct cultures and identities the largest and most famous example being the inhabitants of Quebec and the rest of French Canada who unlike many other ethnic communities in North America still retained their original language the Cajuns of Louisiana are actually the descendants of exiled French Canadians who had been expelled by the British following the acquisition of Acadia after the French and Indian War now unlike the other Latin based colonies of Spain Portugal where intermixing with the natives of the Americas Africa and Asia was extremely common and often encouraged by government officials intermarriage with indigenous peoples and French colonies was exceptionally rare with a few exceptions such as with Thema T mixed French and Emmer Indian descendants or in the Mascarene Islands of the Indian Ocean especially on the island of réunion where some of the first settlers married women Malagasy African or Tamil origin creating a unique hybrid population as I discussed in recent video other much smaller French communities who still retained their language culture include the small group and the French West Indies consisting of Martinique Guadeloupe Saint barthélemy and French Guiana the French descendants the Indian Ocean such as those in Mauritius Seychelles and Reunion the latter of which is still a French territory and even Frenchmen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean such as those in New Caledonia and Tahiti making them one of the few diaspora groups with very old cultural connections all around the planet and those in the French diaspora have extremely diverse origins as either political or religious refugees slave owners prisoners or colonial officials so although the French are the result of many different waves of migration conquest and assimilation they have emerged as one of the most iconic and powerful nations of Europe whose influence spans around the globe even if US English speakers make fun of them from time to time so please let me know your thoughts on the French nation and for today's poll let me know which French sub group you find most interesting and would like to learn more about as always this has been Mason thanks for watching everyone and I'll see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 175,877

Rating: 4.915184 out of 5

Keywords: masaman, France, Who are the French, France People, French People, History of French, Ethnic Origins of the French, Origin of the French, French Language, Languages of France, Occitan, Arpitan, French Swiss, Paris, Paris People, Paris French, Paris France, Histoire Française, Frankish Empire, Francia, West Francia, Les Français, Occitania, Quebec, French Diaspora, Belgium, Franks, French Canadians, French Canada, French Empire, French Republic, Origin and History of the French, Suiss

Id: p2pcP_GoVhk

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019