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History of Legal French: Beginnings 842 Oath of Strasbourg: Latin and Old French 12th and 13th c: Use of vernaculars in the chancelleries of State began spreading throughout Europe Philip the Fair (1268-1314) introduced French to the royal chancellery; the kings example spread to the chancelleries of dukes and counts, city administrations and private documents The king stresses the importance of dropping Latin from the administration of law and government

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History of Legal French: Beginnings In 13th c. French widely used in northern France Mid-13th c. French was established language for legal documents, at least in the north 13th c.: over 2,000 documents drawn up in French Judicial matters pleaded in French in the Middle Ages in northern France

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History of Legal French: Beginnings Parlement of Paris, the royal court going back to the Kings Council, became a specialised court organ in mid-13th c. Sittings of the Parlement held in French from its foundations, its judgments delivered in the same language, but recorded in Latin in order to be enforced throughout the country; witness statements recorded in Latin advocates formally forbidden from pleading in Latin; even those representing the University of Paris had to use French

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History of Legal French: Beginnings Expansion of French began after the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), which had increased the power of the king of France Linguistic unification highly useful from the standpoint of the exercise of power

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History of Legal French: Beginnings Legal and administrative language of Paris began to challenge Latin earlier than any other language Therefore, the government and the courts played a role of prime importance in the development of French; a large part of their vocabulary transmitted to ordinary language French orthography also goes back to the practices of administrative and judicial organs

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Modern times Status of Latin weakened as a result of the Reformation The Humanists set up the style of the Roman classics as the model crippled the use of Latin for everyday purposes 16th and 17th c. French ousted Latin in government and courts

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Language legislation Decree of Villers-Cottert (1539): judgements and procedural acts were to be pronounced, recorded and delivered to the parties in the French mother tongue and not in any other form. 1629 French became the language of Church courts Language of culture, literature, science

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Universities At universities, the change was slower In mid-17th c. French law faculties still used Latin, traditional language of Roman law, ius commune and canon law In 1679 Louis XIV had French law included in law faculty programmes; somewhat later, ordered that this law should be taught in French Teaching of French law in French - only truly launched in 18th c. Legal theses still written in Latin in 19th c.

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Discarding Regional Languages Decree of Lyon (1510) still refers to langue de pays Decree of Viller-Cottert (1539) speaks explicitly of French - end of the use of the Romance languages of the Midi Judgements and other legal documents had to be drawn up in French, old languages of provinces excluded; protests in non-French speaking regions At the time of the Revolution, 25 million inhabitants: 6 million did not understand French, 6 million understood it at the basic level, 10 million had a passable knowledge of French

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Discarding Regional Languages Revolutionary decrees obliged civil servants to use French and draw up all public documents in it French the language of the army Compulsory military service, the press, postal services and railways increased the movement of the population and consolidated the central administration

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Quality Assurance of Legal Language Legal French gradually became petrified and increasingly difficult to understand 1635 establishment of the Acadmie Franaise care for quality assurance Acadmie found the style of law courts out of fashion, over-technical and even incomprehensible; this led lawyers to stick to their traditional language even more strongly

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Style of judgments Until the Revolution, French judgments lacked grounds; reasons: 1) Parlement of Paris a high court, and strenghtening its position brought about power struggles with the king; these struggles would have been aggravated by explicit presentation of grounds for judgment, which the king might have felt provocative; 2) Requiring grounds would have been insulting to the authority of senior judges; as a result, publicastion of decisions was considered useless, even banned

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Style of judgments During the Revolution, judges began motivating their decisions again, but grounds were laconic, even formal Court reasoning consisted essentially of articles of law In the new ideology, in a judges work the question did not even arise of independently creating law it involved only the mechanical application of statutes Formal grounds refer only to statute articles, concealing the creative aspect of their activities, the formation of law by cases

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Style of judgments Statute articles occupy a central place in the grounds of judgments: grounds of other kinds less common The fact that the Civil Procedure Code requires judgments to be reasoned is not reflected in the content of the grounds

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Globalisation of Legal French: Diplomacy Up to the 17th c. Latin was the main language of inter- state relations Bilateral and multilateral treaties drawn up in Latin Following the rise of France to a dominant position, the use of French spread in the international arena as a language of diplomacy and international law

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Globalisation of Legal French: Diplomacy The Holy Roman Empire insisted on the use of Latin, while French ambassadors presented documents in French The Convention of Vienna (1736) and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) drawn up in French From 1676, all ambassadors of France spoke French in their countries of accreditation

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Globalisation of Legal French: Diplomacy French spread to international treaties to which France was not a party 18th c. international treaties in Latin increasingly rare Dominance of French so strong that it was used in cases where action was directed against France or even in cases involving her defeat: at the Congress of Vienna (1815) French remained the language of negotiations and Treaty language 1871, during peace negotiations following Franco- Prussian war, Otto von Bismarck used French

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Globalisation of Legal French: Diplomacy End of 18th c: the US decided to use only English in their diplomatic relations; 20th c. English began to threaten the position of French in international relations, and acquired dominance in this field

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Colonisation: Canada 16th c. France became a colonial power: colonies in North America French Canada (1534-1760) British Canada (1760-1867) Canadian Canada (1867)

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Colonisation: Canada History of legal language closely linked to legal translation Before the British conquest - Canadian French high quality After the British conquest - poor translators corrupted the language

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Colonisation: Canada End of 18th c. public law and the judicial system in Quebec were anglicised; this required rapid translation into French of a large number of laws and other legal English texts, to be applied to the French-speaking population Laws were prepared exclusively in English until 1867 Translators no specialised training Fastidiousness and repetitiveness of legal English repeated in legal French of Quebec (e.g. il sera lev, peru et pay sa Majest it shall be raised, levied and paid to His Majesty repetition of synonyms)

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Colonisation: Canada Between the early 1790s and the mid-19th c. legal French in Canada moved very far from that in France French-Canadian legal language became increasinglyEnglish Legal English expressed a completely different legal culture French-Canadian legal texts full of anglicisms (acte loi (act), dlai retard (delay); vidence preuve (evidence), offence infraction (offence)

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Colonisation: Canada Act of Union (1840) prescribed that English was the only official language in Canada Strong resistance of French speakers Recognition of French by public authorities The Constitution of 1867 recognised the language rights of French speakers 1960s Peaceful Revolution the status of Quebec consolidated

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Colonisation: Canada Importance of legal translation decreased thanks to autonomous preparation of laws in French Today: French is the only official language in Quebec Quebec National Assembly adopts all its laws in French

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Colonisation: Canada Both English and French official languages of Canada, but only at the level of the federal government and its institutions Legal texts of the Canadian parliament always translated into both languages Drafts of Canadian federal laws worked out simultaneously in English and French: co-drafting The quality of the original draft more easily revealed by comparing the two language versions than by examining a single version

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Colonisation: Canada Terminological work and the principle of co-drafting have freed Canadian French from the patronage of English Canadian legislative work brings fresh elements into the French language becasue the specific conditions imposed by legal texts oblige the Canadians to be creators, surrendering the mental comfort created by preserving what is old and certain

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Colonisation: Africa 19th c. French colonies in North Africa and Black Africa The Maghreb (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) multilingual regions French the sole official language of the region in 19th c.

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Maghreb In todays Maghreb, only Arabic is the official language; more people today with a command of French than at the end of the colonial era (French- language of higher education and upward social mobility)

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Sub-Saharan Africa French sole official language in Benin, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Chad, Togo Traditional justice, based on customary law and administered by village elders African languages In Rwanda and Burundi- government and local courts use regional languages, while the central authorities and higher courts use French

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Sub-Saharan Africa Djibuti: justice is administered in four languages; higher courts only operate in French, while the Islamic courts (sharia courts) always use Arabic In courts applying traditional customary law, procedural languages: Arabic, Somali or Afar. In all cases, judgments are drawn up in French so that they can be enforced

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Radiation of French Legal Culture University of Paris founded in 13th c. Professors contributed greatly to the development of Canon law and ius commune Added impetus to the theory of international private law, esp. in 16th c. Many French legal works translated into Italian in 19th c.

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Radiation of French Legal Culture From the early 19th c. several foreign countries have received French codes, particularly the Civil Code (1804) The Civil Code - a model for corresponding codes in various countries (Rhineland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland, Rumania; Quebec, Louisiana, Latin American countries; Egypt, Ethiopia, Maghreb)

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Radiation of French Legal Culture French administrative justice contributed to the birth of German administrative legal science in the late 19th c.

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Defending the Position of French The Age of Enlightenment French was so widespread that the expression French Europe was used Political dominance of France collapsed with the defeat of Napoleon French language retreat in Europe Importance of English and German on the rise

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The Link between Related Languages French law model abroad French legal influence esp. strong in Italy Italian law and legal science developed in the direction indicated by French models New Italian legal terms often came from France In Italian regions annexed to the French Empire (Piedmont, Parma, Piacenza, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, Corsica) decrees and administrative circulars published in both French and Italian

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The Link between Related Languages Rumanian Civil Code almost a direct copy of the French Civil Code Not repealed even during the Communist period Rumanian civil law terminology based on French The legal order systematised in the same way in all Romance countries; similarities in legal terms not misleading

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Legal English Royal courts of medieval England used law French, developed on the basis of Norman French French used as judicial language in 13th and 14th c. Legal English and legal French often use the same terms, but the legal systematics and conceptual systems different Terms that appear identical do not necessarily express the same concepts

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International Homogeneity of Legal French: Belgium Homogeneity of the legal languages of France and Belgium French-speaking part of Belgium has tended until recently to look for inspiration almost exclusively to the legal culture of France, and not to the legal culture of Dutch-speaking Belgium, not to mention that of the Netherlands

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Legal French of Switzerland partly original with respect to Legal French of France legal traditions essentially Germanic German the language of preparation of laws Zivilgesetzbuch (Civil Code) translated into French Fusion of Germanic and Romance legal cultures French-speaking legal circles imitate the language of the dominant Germanic legal culture Belief that concordance of content of the German and French variants of laws can only be guaranteed by literal translation of terms International Homogeneity of Legal French: Switzerland

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Sometimes, the meaning of legal terms differs between Switzerland and France Decisions of the Swiss Federal Court correspond in their basic structure to the French tradition; as to syntax, arranging the text in numbered paragraphs in accordance with the progress of argumentation they follow the Germanic tradition; decisions delivered in both French and German

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International Homogeneity of Legal French: Canada Quebec: common law of English origin intermingles with law of French origin: mixed law Public law comes from common law, private law is mainly continental A French-style notarial profession an important element of the Quebec legal system Hierarchy of sources of law - continental

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Quebec legal French: the need to express traditional common law concepts in French and vice versa In some cases terms from French law obtained a meaning different from that in France: danger of mistakes and misunderstandings in communications with France International Homogeneity of Legal French: Canada

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At the time when English common law was created, legal circles were using French Institutions peculiar to common law expressed in French By highlighting the original form of common law terms, it is possible to fashion terms that are authentically French, with a character at once old and new International Homogeneity of Legal French: Canada

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Terminological work enabled compilation of legal dictionaries containing, in French, the terminology of various branches of common law (e.g. law of property, trusts, torts) The mixed character of Quebec legal French is also in evidence in the fact that Latin maxims appearing in this form of French come both from the traditional Latin of common lawyers and from the Latin used as established in France. International Homogeneity of Legal French: Canada

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Sub-Saharan Africa customary laws The French colonial power codified some of these Customary laws inadequate for modern society; completed by French law France abolished customary rules if they were in contradiction with the fundamental European values, esp. in criminal law French Criminal Code applicable throughout French-ruled Africa International Homogeneity of Legal French: Africa

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French used in Black Africa. The same as that in France North Africa Islamic tradition; Arabic quotations in legal French of Maghreb, notably in traditional branches of law expressing concepts from the sharia Local traditions and conditions also reflected in African legal French International Homogeneity of Legal French: Africa

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Origin of vocabulary Latin terms transmitted from Antiquity by continuous tradition (loi