Forget dry timelines of kings and battles. Des variations du langage français tells the secret history hidden in the words themselves. François Génin, a 19th-century scholar, takes us on a tour of French from the 1100s to his own day, but he’s not just cataloging changes. He’s building a case.

The Story

The book’s core idea is a surprising one: a lot of what makes French spelling complicated isn’t on purpose. Génin points a finger at medieval scribes, many of whom were Italian monks trained in Latin. When they had to write down French, they often Latinized the words, adding letters they thought belonged. A word like 'fait' (done) might get an extra 'c' because the Latin root is 'factum'. Over centuries, these scribal habits hardened into official spelling. Génin walks us through old texts, showing how spellings shifted, pronunciations simplified, but the written form got frozen—or fossilized—by these well-meaning errors. It’s the story of how the written word sometimes stopped listening to the spoken one.

Why You Should Read It

What I love is how this book makes you see language as something alive and messy, not a set of perfect rules handed down from on high. It’s oddly comforting! Every time you struggle with a silent 'h' or a 'ph' that sounds like an 'f', Génin suggests there’s a human story—a tired scribe, a regional accent, a printing quirk—behind it. He gives you permission to see the 'typos' in your own language. It turns the frustration of learning French grammar into a series of little historical puzzles. You start to see the language not as a wall to scale, but as a living record of all the people who ever used it.

Final Verdict

This is not a breezy beach read. The 19th-century prose takes some getting used to, and it’s packed with examples. But if you’re a language nerd, a history lover fascinated by everyday life, or a French learner who has ever yelled 'why?!' at a textbook, this book is a revelation. It’s perfect for anyone who likes the idea that the past isn’t just in castles and paintings—it’s hiding in plain sight, in every sentence we write. Think of it as the true-crime podcast for etymology fans.