Henriette Walter is said to be one of the (!) linguists in France, yet I had never heard of her. Thanks to an interview on France Inter, see here, my interest in the French language was peaked. Not knowing which of her works to start with, I found three of them, one being this one here, 'Le français dans tous les sens', reissued in 2016.

This is thus a reissue, though reworked/updated here and there. Minor updates, I'd say, as I saw only one or little more mentions with regards to the 21st century. This book remains aimed at a general public, not academics or amateurs interested in the technical aspects of French.

The book is divided into six digestible parts, each of which interspersed with maps, tables, a focus on specific topics or examples of said changes or evolution:

01) Where does French come from?
- A trip back in time, to the language's origins, conquests, Latin, dictionaries, l'Académie française, and so on. Very interesting to see the evolution and various changes throughout the ages. It has to be said, though, that (especially) the 17th century has been very important for the French language.

02) Dialects and patois
- There is no general version of a language without knowing where it comes from, and how people speak it in France and around the world. In addition, the written version always differs from the spoken version(s). Even today, regional languages/dialects are still under threat and have been since several centuries.

03) Le français en France
- Very much related to the previous chapter, yet with a focus on France in particular. Pronunciation, dialects, differences between the various regions, ...

04) Le français hors de France
- French is also spoken (and written) in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, Africa, the USA, Asia, ... all this has its historical reasons and causes. Each country/city/region also has its own vocabulary for the same things.

05) Qu'est-ce que le français?
- What makes French... French? What are its characteristics, its structures, ...?

06) Où va le français?
- As the French language too has been under the influence of other languages (English, Arabic, ...), and thus continues to change/adapt/evolve, just like other languages, what will French be like in the future?

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As Laélia Véron and Maria Candea wrote in their highly recommended work, 'Le français est à nous !' (see my review here): "LE français n'existe pas." (Rough translation/interpretation: THE French doesn't exist, there is not ONE version of French, which is also the case for other languages, like English, Dutch, ...) That's why their book and Henriette Walter's 'Le français dans tous les sens' are perfectly compatible and complementary, especially for the general public. ( )

This was an excellent book on the origins and peculiarities of the French language. It's great reading for anyone studying French, even though it can be a bit hard going. Credit to this author, she does well to avoid getting too technical, and taking the reader through a broad look at the French language, it's origins, its particularities, and even it's evolution in the future. A lot of what she says can easily apply to other languages. It is funny to think that French as it is today, is actually based on the spoken dialect from I'le de France, where the French royalty once resided, that was imposed on all of France, like a common linguistic currency. ( )

Look at the French language, its origins and the remains of other languages which influenced and continue to influence it. This is linguistics light – entertaining, but often reads like a catalog, an inventory of interesting words and their origins, without much etymological or comparative analysis. It was still interesting to see that although Latin in origin, French has many of loanwords from Celtic and Germanic languages, as well as from regional and other romance languages. ( )

La fabuleuse aventure du français, ses étymologies, emprunts, son évolution; présenté avec des jeux et des anecdotes; fascinant et très facile à lire ( )