| The Picard language is spoken in a geographical area that includes Haute Normandie, Picardie, Pas-de-Calais and Nord in France, and part of Hainaut and Wallonie in Belgium. Today, the language and literature of this linguistic region, tangential to standard French, are recognized and valued only within these territories. However, a careful examination of Picard literature shows that it has more in common with Francophone literature than French literature. The objective of this dissertation is to show that the language and literature of Picardie should be considered within the wider Francophone world, though this process necessitates a reconsideration of the standard typologies that have been developed to describe that context. The author also proposes that Picard literature would be best treated as an emerging francophone literature, its first emergence (in the early Middle Ages) having been appropriated into the French canon, and its more recent emergence having been relegated to the status of regional literature. The author traces the history of the language and briefly describes its various forms of literary expressions. For Picard to be considered within the Francophone world, the normative French center would have to open its consideration to include multilinguism and linguistic variability, not only of the types of French spoken in the exterior Francophone world but also within its own borders. By articulating the basic concepts necessary to this conceptual expansion, this study hopes to contribute to the process of integrating Picard into the context of Francophone Studies. |
