Early Seventeenth-Century Spoken French and Héroard's Journal

A review of Gerhard Ernst's Gesprochenes Franzosisch zu Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts: Direkte Rede in Jean Heroards "Histoire particuliere de Louis XIII," 1605-1610 ([Spoken French at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century: Direct Speech in Jean Heroard's "Histoire particuliere de Louis XIII," 1605-1610] Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie, 1985, 204, Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1985). This work is based on a journal kept by Jean Heroard, the personal physician of the Dauphin, later Louis XIII, from 1601, the year of the Dauphin's birth, to 1628. Excerpts from the journal between 1605 & 1610 that contain utterances made by the Dauphin are analyzed. The journal is said to be a valuable source of information in the study of spoken French of earlier periods, as the lack of usable texts makes research difficult. Spontaneous seventeenth-century French speech &, more particularly, the Dauphin's idiolect are the focus of Ernst's study. Ernst's observations about phonetics & grammar are described, several of which are confirmed by other sources from the time period. This study is said to be unusual in its treatment of the language of someone who was neither a writer nor a philosopher, but a child from approximately the age of three to nine. 8 References. B. Haapa