Bilingual Brittany

Before Brittany became part of France in the 16th century (see my post here), it was an independent duchy. The Breton language, a Celtic language related to Welsh, Cornish and Cumbric, was used there for many centuries, since before the year 1,000. It evolved from Old Breton over Middle Breton to today’s Modern Breton. The number of speakers fell dramatically in the mid-20th century due to the national policy of recognizing only French as official language in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, however, the Breton language is part of the regional Breton movement, and there are not only over 50 Breton-speaking schools (Diwan schools) but also numerous private Catholic and public schools with Breton classes.

The Diwan school association estimates the number of Breton speakers at 400,000. (Brittany has around 3,3 million inhabitants.) However, many Breton speakers are elderly people, and few actually use it in everyday life.

Five times so far, France has chosen to be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest with songs in regional languages, twice of those in Breton: in 1996 and in 2022. Numerous books and comics have been translated to Breton, local hero Asterix among them but also Belgian reporter Tintin, as well as the Peanuts.

When you visit Brittany, you won’t see it much until you are about halfway into the region. That is where the bilingual signposts will start, and where municipalities will put up signs with “Welcome” and “Goodbye” (Kenavo). However, the deeper you advance into Brittany, and especially in the département Finistère, you will see pretty much all signage in both languages, whether street names, the tourist office, the train station, or “other directions” (da lec’h all).

If you compare terms, you will be able to figure out some words. Ty, for example means house, and ker means town. So what might a ty ker be? A town hall, of course. My personal favorite is one I discovered this summer, a municipal library, or ty boukin.

The départements of Brittany (including historically Breton Loire-Atlantique)
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Brittany under investigation

Have you ever read a book where the setting was as important as the plot? A book that made you want to jump onto a plane (or train or whatever) and go to the place?
The Commissaire Dupin murder mysteries have just that, and—surprise, surprise—the setting is Brittany.

Commissaire Dupin is a remarkable series for several reasons: First it was written by a German author with a setting in France, second it was written in German but is so wildly popular that it’s been translated into a number of languages, third it’s been adapted for tv and is available in both Germany and France (and maybe even other countries by now?), fourth it’s an excellent murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end, and finally, the Brittany portrayed in the stories is the real Brittany. The author really knows his stuff.

A quick introduction to the series:
Commissaire Georges Dupin has been transferred from Paris to Brittany as punishment (that alone should tell you enough about how Parisians view Bretons, and the feeling is mutual) for a never specified scandal. Once you get to know him, you can make an educated guess that he cared more for catching a murderer than for political sensibilities.

In Brittany, the “province”, everyone considers him as an outsider, a “Parisian” in the worst sense of the term. His team of two very different inspectors and his assistant Nolwenn who seems to know everything and everyone in Brittany, are convinced he can become a Breton over time. Together they solve murders all over Brittany and even down to Guérande in the Loire-Atlantique which only historically belongs to Brittany, even though technically they are based in the southern Finistère town of Concarneau. (It’s beautiful, you should go visit.)

Concarneau – Commissaire Dupin’s favorite hangout is the restaurant with the red awnings

Here’s where each of his cases takes Commissaire Dupin:

  • Death in Pont-Aven (Book 1) – Pont Aven
  • Murder on Brittany Shores (Book 2) – Glénan Islands
  • Fleur de Sel Murders (Book 3) – Guérande
  • The Missing Corpse (Book 4) – Belon River
  • The Killing Tide (Book 5) – Sein Island
  • The Granite Coast Murders (Book 6) – PInk Granite Coast
  • The King Arthur Case (Book 7) – Brocéliande Forest
  • The Body by the Sea (Book 8) – Concarneau
  • Death of a Master Chef (Book 9) – Saint Malo

The following books don’t seem to have been translated yet, but here are their locations:

  • Book 10: Belle-Île Island
  • Book 11: L’Aber Wrac’h (new in 2022)
  • Book 12: Pornic / Grand Lieu Lake (new in 2023)
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Brittany and the Hermine

The hermine, a white weasel, is represented in heraldry by its fur. It is one of the historic symbols of Brittany. Legend has it that Anne de Bretagne, during a hunt, cornered a hermine. The animal had to choose between certain death or getting soiled on a swampy path, and it chose death. Anne de Bretagne was impressed by its attitude and let it live. The hermine became the emblem of Brittany for its courage and gave birth to the motto “Potius mori quam fœdari”, Rather Die than the Stain.

At the royal palace of Amboise, when Anne resided with her husbands King Charles VII and King Louis XII (see the explanation here), the columns in the council hall bear the fleur-de-lys of France and the hermine of Brittany.

The hermine can also be found in the Gwenn ha du, the Breton flag. It consists of black and white stripes and the corner of black hermine son a white background. Gwenn ha Du means “Black and White” in Breton.

The Gwenn ha Du floats on Brittany town halls

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River power in Brittany

In the north of the département Ille-et-Vilaine, two rivers hold extraordinary powers of very different nature: the Rance and the Couesnon.

The Couesnon is a coastal river of just 100km length. Still it crosses three départements that coincidentally belong to three different regions.
Its source is in Mayenne (53) which belongs to the Pays-de-la-Loire region. Then it runs through Ille-et-Vilaine but finishes in the Normandy département Manche (50) just west of the Mont Saint Michel.

As famous 19th-century French writer Chateaubriand put it, “Le Couesnon dans sa folie a mis le Mont en Normandie” – the foolish Couesnon put the Mont into Normandy.
While the Couesnon does not officially constitute the limit between Brittany’s Ille-et-Vilaine department and the Norman Manche, it is true that the river despite its irregular course has always flown into the Mont Saint Michel Bay west of the Mont. Now that its banks are artificially consolidated, there is no longer any doubt about the affiliation of the Mont Saint Michel – it is located in Normandy, and no Breton protest will change that.

The Rance
The Rance is another coastal river only a little longer than the Couesnon. Its source lies in a village in Cotes d’Armor and it flows into the Channel between Dinard and Saint Malo in Ille-et-Vilaine.

The extraordinary power of the Rance is quite literally power, as in electricity, and the Rance owes it to the high tides on this part of the coast, which are in fact the third-highest in the world.

The difference between high and low tide is especially visible on the beach of Saint Malo

In the 1960s, France harnessed the power of the tides by building a tidal power station across the mouth of the Rance that remained for 45 years the largest tidal power station in the world. It has a peak output of 240MW, supplying 0,12% of the power demand of France.

The mouth of the Rance (red) and of the Couesnon (blue)
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Brittany in France

Brittany is the westernmost part of France, jutting out into the Atlantic ocean. It has over 1.100km of coastline, double that if you include the numerous islands.

Traditionally, you distinguish between the Armor or Arvor, the coastal or maritime area, and the Argoat, the interior.

The climate in Brittany is temperate, with more rain than the French average, but the southern coast and its beaches get less rain and more sunshine than the Monts d’Arrée mountains in the interior. (Mountains being a big word, as they culminate at 385m.)

The administrative region Brittany is divided into four départements: Ille-et-Vilaine (35) in the east, with the regional capital Rennes; Cotes d’Armor (22) in the north, Finistère (29) in the west, and Morbihan (56) in the south.
Historically, the département Loire-Atlantique (44) with its main city of Nantes, also belongs to Brittany. Actually, Nantes was the seat of the Duke of Brittany, the château des ducs de Bretagne is still there to prove it.

Château des Ducs de Bretagne (Ducal Palace), Nantes

Fun facts:
The numbers behind the département names correspond to their numbers in French nomenclature, which includes the first two numbers of the postal code and the number on the right side of the license plate, above the regional logo. Many Bretons living in the Loire-Atlantique replace the Pays-de-la-Loire regional logo with a sticker of the Brittany logo (the Gwenn ha Du).

The Morbihan is the only French département (of which there are 94 in mainland France (not counting Corsica and the overseas ones) whose name is not in French. Morbihan means “little sea” in Breton and refers to the Golfe du Morbihan.

Brittany was annexed to France in the 16th century. King Charles VII married Anne de Bretagne who brought her Duchy into the marriage. In order to make sure Brittany was attached to France no matter what, the wedding contract included a clause that if Charles died without a heir, Anne would have to marry his successor.
Which is exactly what happened – Charles VII died an untimely accidental death (he hit his head against a door frame despite being only 1,52m tall) and Anne married his successor Louis XII. They didn’t have any male children either. Louis’ successor François Ier married the daughter of Louis and Anne, Claude, who inherited the Duchy of Brittany from her mother but who couldn’t inherit the throne of France from her father.
Long story short: François and Claude had several sons, and in 1532 Brittany became officially part of France.

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Letters from Paris goes to Brittany

It’s that time of the year again – August approaches, and those who haven’t taken their annual leave in July are packing their suitcases for summer holidays. As I explained last year, many factories and businesses close down in August, resulting in a majority of people taking their summer vacation in August rather than in July, the two months of school holidays.

I’ve decided this is as good a time as any to leave Paris for an excursion to my favorite region in France: Brittany. For the next few weeks, my posts will be Letters from Brittany.

As an introduction, have a look at my Twitter feed from early 2020, when I supported the campaign for a Gwenn ha Du (flag of Brittany) emoji by tweeting daily using the hashtag #emojibzh from January 17 to February 09.

This link will show you those tweets in reverse order.

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