The Universality of the French Language (French: Discours sur l'universalité de la langue française) is a 1784 essay by Antoine de Rivarol. He began his discourse by tracing a brief history of the origins of French language, claiming that the Roman conquest and the invasion of the Franks in Gaul contributed to the emergence of a linguistic hierarchy, at the top of which stood Latin. However, the contact between Latin and the idioms spoken by the “barbarian” population generated the vulgarisation of classical Latin, namely a multitude of patois dialects. The writer also highlighted the two major languages which divided French territories: the Picard language, spoken in the north, and Provençal, the language of the south. Although pre-eminence was given to the northern language, Rivarol regarded the northern pronunciation as “a little bit thud” and regretted the eclipse of the southern language, which he qualified as full of sounds “that would have conferred to French more splendor”. Afterwards, Rivarol examined the causes of the universality of the French language. The discovery of the Americas, the passage to India, the invention of the printing press, the development of the trade market and the progress in science gave to Europe supremacy over the world. By consequence, relations between European powers felt the necessity of a common language. In his essay, Rivarol showcased the dominant languages ruling the European continent, and demonstrated why they could not supersede the French language. On June 3, 1784, Rivarol was awarded the Berlin Academy Prize for the essay. Source: Wikipedia (en)