French Geolinguistics and Linguistic Atlases From nascency to the status quo

This report on research trends gives a brief sketch of the history, development, and status quo of French geolinguistics. The first chapter defines the language distribution within and outside France. In the second chapter, the nascence of French geolinguistics as a new branch of linguistics and the importance of Atlas linguistique de la France are considered. We also highlight the contribution of Albert Dauzat in disseminating geolinguistic theory and methods not only to dialectologists but also to researchers from a broader field. The following chapter depicts the relation between the extension of standard French in the early 20th century and the new projects of the Atlas linguistiques de la France par régions. Today, the main research subjects related to French geolinguistics are the studies of ancestral forms, that is, patois and of regional French forms. The fourth chapter describes the emergence of full-scale studies of regional French in the 1970s. The fifth chapter focuses on the digitalization of pre-existing linguistic atlases as corpus. Some notable digitalized atlases are given as examples. The last chapter explores the on-going attempts of constructing two comparative linguistic atlases: Atlas Linguarum Europae and Atlas Linguistique Roman. In conclusion, we addressed some current concerns of French geolinguistics.