What are the causes of French language expansion?

[rockyxu]

What are the causes of French language expansion? Evidently it is historical that languages are evolved and expanded into new territories or countries. However, are there any other causes for that French language expansion specifically? or are there any literature discuss this topic at all? It seems difficulty for me to do research on this topic, and I want to learn more about it and write about it for my French history class.

If anybody know and would like to help out, I appreciate it a lot!

[Jeff L.]

A good place to start looking would be French colonialism -- it benefits from having happened at different points and in different ways, which means you would have interesting things to discuss. (I had a course in undergrad that looked at varieties of French and we spent several classes just discussing the geographic expansion and its attached social context where relevant for how those areas developed as French-speaking regions. Interestingly enough, my class on the history of the French language actually provided less of that, but mainly because it was focused on the historical events leading up to and "generating" French in France rather than the events that lead to French being as it is in different areas worldwide.)

[rockyxu]

Thank you very much for you great response !! I'd start talking about the french colonialism for sure.

And one more qs, do you think that the language expansion happens due to political and economical causes? or are there any other causes for that to happen?

Thank you again

[Corybobory]

Lucky lucky, Wikepedia has a page on it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French

[rockyxu]

Thank you! I will have a look