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117-511: La Baule-Escoublac ( French pronunciation: [la bol ɛskublak] ; Gallo : Écoubiâ , Breton : Ar Baol-Skoubleg , [ar ˈbawl ˈskuːbleːk] ), commonly referred to as La Baule , is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department , Pays de la Loire , western France . A century-old seaside resort in southern Brittany with villas, casino, luxury hotels and an original mix of old Breton and seaside culture with

234-509: A langue d'oïl , Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard , and the Poitevin dialect among others. One of the features that distinguish it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence. There is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais . However, as

351-524: A 9 kilometre long sand beach , La Baule has long been home to French high society's seaside residences. During July and August each year, the population of La Baule increases dramatically with many Parisians staying for weeks and regular day-trippers from Nantes. Parisians can take the train in Paris Montparnasse Station and it is about 3 hours to go to La Baule. Despite this, La Baule is still virtually unknown outside France. In 1779,

468-490: A Celtic language descended from Old Irish. Gallo is typically not mutually intelligible with French, primarily due to its differing phonology and vocabulary. This is in spite of what Paul Sébillot wrote in 1878: "[Gallo] is a dialect of French (...): it contains a considerable quantity of old words, a very small amount of words borrowed from Breton, and is, except for several local expressions (...) very easy to understand." The study of language has evolved considerably since

585-581: A French keyboard (ó, ú and r̃). The Vantyé spelling system was developed again by the Bertègn Galèzz association in the early 1980s, and is notable for its attempt to be closer to Breton . The letters k and w are not native to French, which prefers q and o plus a vowel to represent [k] and [w], respectively. Breton, however, uses k and w regularly, so the Vantyé system does as well. For example, ke ("that') and wézyaw ("bird"), compared to

702-550: A baseline and adjusting it to fit Gallo’s unique phonetic features, such as using lh to indicate palatalization and ë to represent schwa. Since then, other systems have emerged, such as ELG, MOGA, ABCD, and BAP. The ELG system (short for " écrire le gallo ", French for “write the Gallo [language]”), the oldest system, was proposed in 1978 by Alan-Joseph Raude and completely eschews French orthography. Raude based his writing system on medieval texts written in Gallo, therefore creating

819-433: A college for boys), Sainte-Therese (historically a college for girls). The high schools educate 6,000 pupils into 11 lycées, with the mainstream education and technical school Aristide Briand having some 2,500 pupils, one of the largest lycée of France; an experimental lycée, public lycée managed jointly by the teachers and the pupils; the private lycée of Saint-Louis mainstream education; the hotel private lycée Sainte-Anne;

936-519: A constant target of Allied air forces, in the face of determined Luftwaffe fighter opposition to raids by United States Army Air Forces Eighth Air Force bombers. On 3 January 1943 Colonel Curtis LeMay led 85 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 1st Bombardment Wing against the U-boat pens at Saint-Nazaire, on the Eighth Air Force's sixth raid against the facility. LeMay also introduced

1053-764: A direct consequence of the Revolution. During this time, the Jacobins viewed regional languages as a way in which the structural inequalities of France were perpetuated. Accordingly, they sought to eradicate the regional languages to free their speakers of unconstitutional inequalities. Under the Third Republic , public education became universal and mandatory in France, and was conducted exclusively in French; students who spoke other languages were punished. Well into

1170-607: A group to create a permanent memorial, in the form of Stolperstein , to the 32 Jewish deportees since, although there was a memorial in La Baule to 40 named war victims, there was no mention there or on any other memorial of the 32 Jewish deportees. The Mayor refused to allow a request for the Stolpersteines to be installed, claiming that to do so might infringe the French constitutional principles of secularism (" laïcité ") and freedom of opinion (" liberté d'opinion ") and that

1287-439: A group which also includes, among others, Catalan , Italian , Spanish , Portuguese and Romanian . Gallo has not just borrowed words from Breton, but also aspects of grammar; the use of the preposition pour as an auxiliary verb is said to be of Celtic origin. The relationship between the two is comparable to that of the two languages of Scotland: Scots , an Anglic language closely related to English, and Scottish Gaelic ,

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1404-544: A large number of phonemes varying from word to word and region to region. The many pronunciations of mai , from the Latin mé , illustrate this diversity: [maj], [ma], [me], [mɛ], etc. The pronunciation of Latin [o]/[u] in closed stressed syllables is more authentic in Gallo than in other langues d’oïl. Gùla , for example, is pronounced [gul] in Gallo, but [gœl] in French. Some terms, however, are influenced by neighboring langues d'oïl, and astour [astuʁ] ("now", from Latin hóra )

1521-645: A major submarine base for the Kriegsmarine , Saint-Nazaire was subject to a successful British raid in 1942 and was heavily bombed by the Allies until 1945. Being one of the Atlantic pockets , Saint-Nazaire was one of the last territories in Europe to be liberated from German occupation, on 11 May 1945. The town was one of the most damaged in France during World War II . Archaeologists believe that Saint-Nazaire

1638-546: A memo to General John Pershing offering a compromise: American medical authorities would control designated brothels operated solely for American soldiers. Pershing passed the proposal to Raymond Fosdick , who on giving it to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker promptly responded: "For God's sake, Raymond, don't show this to the president or he'll stop the war." Only after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, when

1755-632: A miracle, was deterred and the village thenceforth took the name of Sanctus Nazarius de Sinuario. After this point, the history of Saint-Nazaire, like much of Europe during the Dark Ages, is not well documented. Battles occurred, such as in 1380 when Jehan d'Ust defended the city in the name of John V, Duke of Brittany (known in France as Jean IV) against the Castilian fleet during the Hundred Years' War . After this time, Saint-Nazaire became

1872-453: A play La fille de la Brunelas (1901). In the 1920's, Jeanne Malivel wrote Les Sept Frères , a story which was inspired by her grand-mother and was written in Gallo. This, in part, inspired the creation of the artistic movement Seiz Breur . It was in the 1970s that a concerted effort to promote Gallo literature started. In 1979 Alan J. Raude published a proposed standardised orthography for Gallo. The consonants in Gallo are almost

1989-487: A poetical text of 336 quatrains and the earliest known Romance text from Brittany, and to Le Roman d'Aquin , an anonymous 12th century chanson de geste transcribed in the 15th century but which nevertheless retains features typical of the mediaeval Romance of Brittany. Gallo is a language of oral tradition, whose history is rich with stories, fables, and legends. Gallese legends frequently address recurring characters, such as Gargantua and Morgan le Fay , or questions of how

2106-404: A purpose, which means that the silent h and double consonants are eliminated, except in certain specific cases (ll to indicate palatalization, etc.). Aneit has the same difficulties as ELG, since a speaker with a different pronunciation needs to know the standardized spelling to be able to decipher the written system. Another problem faced by Aneit is its use of diacritics not easily accessible on

2223-422: A schwa ([ ə ]) in most regions. This distinction between [e] and [eː] makes it possible to differentiate past participles by gender and number. While in standard French, chassé , chassée, and chassés are all pronounced the same, most Gallo speakers make a phonemic distinction between the masculine chassé [ʃasə] and the feminine chassée or plural chassés [ʃase]. In this example, the pronunciation of é

2340-433: A schwa, and elsewhere it's a [ɛ] or an [e] (the geographical distribution is the same as for [e]/[eː]). The Latin [o] in open stressed syllables became a ue , then monophthonged in both French and Gallo around the 12th century, becoming [ œ ] in French, [ə] in Gallo. Cór thus became qheur . The evolution of the Latin [e] in closed stressed syllables is much more diverse, and the original diphthong éi has been replaced by

2457-559: A system authentic to the language without reference to other modern writing systems. Regional differences were less pronounced during the Medieval era, meaning ELG’s spelling choices are based on a more standardized form. In the words for finger, evening, and me (in French: doigt, soir, moi), which display regional pronunciation differences, the “oi” found in French is written as “ei”, giving the forms: deit, seir, mei, though [ei] will not be

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2574-530: A tendency to underestimate their competence and choose thus to not report speaking it. This makes estimates of the number of speakers vary widely. Although a written literary tradition exists, Gallo is more noted for extemporised story-telling and theatrical presentations. Given Brittany's rich musical heritage, contemporary performers produce a range of music sung in Gallo (see Music of Brittany ). The roots of written Gallo literature are traced back to Le Livre des Manières written in 1178 by Étienne de Fougères,

2691-499: A violent storm buried the village of Escoublac, near the current location of La Baule, under sand. Escoublac was rebuilt further inland. At that time, the very unstable dunes were occupied only by customs officers, who gave them the name of Bôle, a term indicating an easily flooded maritime meadow. It was only in 1879, when the Saint-Nazaire - Croisic railroad was conceived by Parisian industrialist Jules-Joseph Hennecart that

2808-620: A visually distinct system for Gallo, but it requires learning and is not immediately intuitive for Gallo speakers, who may not even recognize it as Gallo upon first seeing it. ELG is used in some public places, such as for bilingual signage in the Rennes metro system. The Aneit system was introduced in 1984 by the Bertègn Galèzz Association, successor to the organization Friends of the Gallo Language. The system

2925-463: Is a movement for standardisation on the model of the dialect of Upper Brittany . It is difficult to record the exact number of Gallo speakers today. Gallo and vernacular French share a sort of continuum, so speakers may have difficulty determining exactly which language they are speaking. Many people speak Gallo while using a considerable amount of French words and phrases, thus confounding the language question further. Moreover, Gallo speakers may have

3042-627: Is also used to make a syllabic [l] and [ʁ], as in berton [bʁˌtɔ̃]. Like all langues d'oïl , Gallo underwent the vowel shift known as Bartsch's law , according to which the Latin [a] in open stressed syllables, when preceded by a palatal consonant, became ie , as in cápra , which became chieuvr . As in French, the sound [j] represented by the letter i disappeared around the Renaissance, giving chèvre and cheuv , though this sound can still be observed in Côtes-d'Armor . In eastern Brittany,

3159-404: Is also used. The very common diphthong [aw] most often is the result of the disappearance of a consonant that existed in Latin. For example, fagu ("beech") became fao , and what once was two consecutive, separately pronounced vowels, [fau], has become a diphthong: [faw]. In some words, such as talpa , the [l] became a vowel, [u], and then [w], so [al] thus became [aw]: [tawp], while in French,

3276-483: Is an equestrian jumping competition part of the international Equestrian Nations Cup series. Local tourist authorities routinely refer to the bay as "the most beautiful in Europe". La Baule is part of the Côte d'Amour . The commune of Escoublac has achieved a new vitality with the restoration of its civic center and the installation of many attractions. The Musée Aéronautique Presqu'île Côte d'Amour (MAPICA) , located at

3393-514: Is becoming [astœʁ] in eastern Upper Brittany. In the south of Loire-Atlantique , thanks to contact with Poitevin , [ɔ] is common, and guernol [gɛʁnɔl] and parto [paʁtɔ] are heard instead of guernouille [gɛʁnuj] and partout [paʁtu]. Gallo has diphthongs, just like Latin itself, other langues d’oïl, and other Romance languages. Diphthongs in Gallo generally use the semi-vowels [w] and [j], more rarely [ɥ]: [wa], [wə], [wi], [aw], [ja], [ju], [aj], [ej], [ɛ̃i], [ɥi], [ɥɛ̃], [ɥə], etc. The triphthong [jaw]

3510-584: Is built upon the remnants of Corbilo , an Armorican Gaulish city populated by the Namnetes tribe, which (according to the Greek navigator Pytheas ) was the second-largest Gaulish city, after Massilia (now Marseille ). Archeology suggests that the area has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic period, as evidenced by the presence of monuments like the tumulus of Dissignac , the dolmen located in

3627-830: Is however relatively variable from one year to the next. The sunshine is 1,892 hours a year. Saint-Nazaire receives mainly southwestern sector winds related to the Atlantic depressions and northeastern sector winds when the weather is more stable. The annual average wind of 4.5 m / s and there are 60 days per year of strong wind. The primary schools of Saint-Nazaire (Carnot, Jean-Jaurès, Lamartine, Jules Ferry, Ferdinand Bush, Boncourt, etc.) educate nearly 8,000 pupils in 30 school complexes. The junior schools have nearly 7,000 pupils in 12 colleges: public colleges Albert Vinçon; Pierre Norange; Manon Roland; Jean de Neyman; Jean Moulin, accommodate around 1,350 pupils each. Private colleges include: Saint-Louis (1,000 pupils, boarding school; historically

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3744-658: Is no record of the Municipal Council of La Baule having sought a declaration from the Conseil d'Etat in respect of these objections. Such was the importance attached to the area by the Germans that their troops kept fighting in La Baule and Saint-Nazaire for nine months longer than in the rest of the department, eventually surrendering on 11 May 1945 (3 days after the German unconditional surrender), making this one of

3861-491: Is not done in all regions, and [j] is often replaced by [l]. The word pllée , for example, can be pronounced [pje] or [ple]. Germanic in origin, [ h ] generally hasn’t been pronounced since the 13th century, but it is still used in Mené, a small region around Merdrignac and Plémet . The vowel system of Gallo is close to French, but they diverged as they evolved, and Gallo has a number of phenomena not found in French, such as

3978-472: Is not yet a single writing system that is unanimously agreed upon, mainly due to regional pronunciation differences. The word for “me” could be pronounced any of the following ways: [maj], [mεj], [mej], [ma], [mε] or [me]. This large variance makes it difficult to pick a single written form that would be most suitable. If the orthography of French was used, the word could be written in countless ways: maï, maye, maille, mèï, mey, meille, ma, mé, mè , etc. However,

4095-447: Is replaced by [ ɛ ] or remains [e]. Some words do not obey the rule, such as pátre and mátre , which have become pere [peʁ] and mere [meʁ] in practically all of Upper Brittany, while [pəʁ] and [məʁ] are only heard in the center-west. The [a] in open stressed syllables before [ l ] doesn't follow the [e]/[eː] pattern either, and has evolved very differently in different regions. Sále has thus become sèl , sél , sé or seu . Schwa

4212-402: Is the result of five years' research throughout Upper Brittany, and takes its name from the brochure presenting it to the public: Nostre lenghe aneit ("our language today"). Also called "unified spelling", it follows in the footsteps of ELG in terms of its basis on etymology for its spelling. The Aneit system differs from ELG on a number of points, however. For example, every letter must have

4329-520: The Area bombing directive . To minimize civilian casualties during air attacks, the Allies devised a plan to force an evacuation of the town. For three days in 1943, British Royal Air Force and American aircraft dropped scores of leaflets warning the population of a planned fire-bombing raid. At the end of the third day, the raid came and burned the entire city to the ground. Casualties were light as most of

4446-462: The Breton word gall , meaning 'foreigner', 'French' or 'non-Breton'. The term was first used by Breton speakers, which may explain why it is used rarely by Gallo speakers themselves. Henriette Walter conducted a survey in 1986 which showed that just over 4% of Gallo speakers in Côtes-d'Armor had ever used the term, and a third of them found it "had quite a pejorative connotation". According to

4563-652: The British Isles . Julius Caesar 's invasion of Armorica in 56 BC led to a sort of Romanization of the population. Gaulish continued to be spoken in this region until the 6th century CE, especially in less populated, rural areas. When the Bretons emigrated to Armorica around this time, they found a people who had retained their Celtic language and culture. The Bretons were therefore able to integrate easily. In contrast to Armorica's western countryside, Nantes and Rennes were Roman cultural centres. Following

4680-507: The Clyde -built cruise liner, later converted to troopship, RMS  Lancastria , which was attacked and sunk by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30 , taking with her around 4,000 victims. This is the worst disaster in British maritime history and the worst loss of life for British forces in the whole of World War II. Winston Churchill banned all news coverage of

4797-588: The Constitution of France was amended in 2008. Article 75-1 asserts that "regional languages are part of the French heritage". Moreover, Gallo is the only langue d'oïl to be recognized as a regional language by the French Ministry of Education . Nevertheless, like all of the other regional languages of France, the use of Gallo has declined since the 19th century. Similar to speakers of other regional languages, Gallo speakers began to associate French as

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4914-526: The Loire estuary , near the Atlantic Ocean. The town is at the south of the second-largest swamp in France, called "la Brière ". Given its location, Saint-Nazaire has a long tradition of fishing and shipbuilding . The Chantiers de l'Atlantique , one of the largest shipyards in the world, constructed notable ocean liners such as SS  Normandie , SS  France , RMS  Queen Mary 2 and

5031-631: The Migration Period , these two cities, as well as regions to the east of the Vilaine , including the town Vannes , fell under Frankish rule. Thus, during the Merovingian dynasty , the population of Armorica was diverse, consisting of Gaulish tribes with assimilated Bretons, as well as Romanized cities and Germanic tribes. War between the Frank and Breton kingdoms was constant between

5148-471: The National Defense at Saint-Nazaire, and marched out with his contingent, though they saw no active service due to lack of ammunition (their private store having been commandeered by the state). In 1873, he moved to the bar of Rennes , following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871. On 30 March 1894, a strike occurred at the forging mills of Trignac in opposition to a reduction of

5265-727: The Pont de Saint-Nazaire , which crosses the Loire. Paris is then accessed via the A10/A11 in Nantes. Valves, Lorient, Quimper and Brest are accessed via the N165. A project to review a second crossing of the Loire between Nantes and Saint Nazaire is being considered, planned to be constructed and operational by 2025. Saint-Nazaire railway station is served by both the TGV and regional trains and buses of

5382-527: The TER Pays de la Loire . TGV (high speed train) connection to Paris, Lyon , Marseille , Lille , and Strasbourg , with trains to Paris via the LGV Atlantique taking just over 2 hours. TER Pays de la Loire provides links to Nantes , Angers , Le Mans , La Roche sur Yon , and other regional cities and towns. Saint-Nazaire airport is located 5 km (3 mi) south-east of Saint-Nazaire, in

5499-459: The combat box defensive formation, echeloning three-plane elements within a squadron , and squadrons within a group, to concentrate defensive firepower against fighter opposition. Only 76 aircraft found and hit the target, and during the mission seven bombers were shot down and 47 damaged. As a result of the raid, on 14 January 1943 under directive (S.46239/?? A.C.A.S. Ops), the Allies implemented incendiary bomb tactics against U-boat pens, under

5616-527: The commune of Montoir-de-Bretagne . It has an annual capacity of approximately 150,000 passengers, and is the operational and maintenance base for Eagle Aviation France . International travel is via Nantes Atlantique Airport , the biggest airport in western France, linking with several French and European cities as well as Montreal in Canada (seasonally) and some cities in North Africa. A new airport

5733-584: The sinking of Bismarck , the need for the Allies to take the Joubert dry dock out of operation was increased. On 28 March 1942, a force of 611 British Commandos and the Royal Navy launched the St Nazaire Raid against the shipyards of Saint-Nazaire, codenamed Operation Chariot . An obsolete American-built destroyer HMS  Campbeltown was used as a ram-ship loaded with explosives. It and

5850-573: The 1990s, the main focus of the curriculum was cultural awareness of the Gallo language and identity. However, in 2002, Gallo's optional-subject status in secondary schools was withdrawn. In reaction to the 2002 decision, an effective and committed network of Gallo activists advanced Gallo's status in Brittany schools. Gallo is now taught in Upper Brittany's state schools, though the number of students enrolled in Gallo courses remains low. In

5967-619: The 19th century, however, and there is no longer any universally accepted criterion to distinguish decisively between language and dialect. The Celts settled in Armorica toward the 8th century BCE. Some of early groups mentioned in the written records of the Greeks were the Redones and the Namnetes . They spoke dialects of the Gaulish language and maintained important economic ties with

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6084-472: The 2003-04 academic year, there were 569 students learning Gallo at secondary school or university. For comparison, in the same year, 3,791 students were learning Breton at the same levels of schooling. On December 17, 2004, the Regional Council of Brittany officially recognized Breton and Gallo as "the official languages of Brittany, alongside the French language." One of the metro stations of

6201-564: The 20th century, government policy focused exclusively on French. In 1962, Charles de Gaulle established the Haut Comité pour la défense et l'expansion de la langue française ; this committee's purpose was to enforce the use of French, to the detriment of minority languages. Furthermore, in 1994, the Loi Toubon declared that any governmental publications and advertisements must be in French. Gallo did not gain national recognition until

6318-511: The 6th and 9th centuries, which made the border between the two difficult to define. Before the 10th century, Breton was spoken by at least one third of the population up to the cities of Pornic and Avranches . Historically, France has been a nation with a high degree of linguistic diversity matched with relative tolerance, that is until the French Revolution . Gallo's status as a tolerated regional language of France suffered as

6435-588: The Breton capital, Rennes , has bilingual signage in French and Gallo, but generally the Gallo language is not as visibly high-profile as the Breton language, even in its traditional heartland of the Pays Gallo , which includes the two historical capitals of Rennes (Gallo Resnn , Breton Roazhon ) and Nantes (Gallo Nauntt , Breton Naoned ). Different dialects of Gallo are distinguished, although there

6552-504: The Breton language in the Loire region is Donges , to the east of Saint-Nazaire. According to the late-6th-century writer Gregory of Tours , the Roman Church sheltered the remains of the martyr Nazarius in a local basilica. According to legend, the Breton chief Waroch II sent an emissary to seize these relics. The plot was foiled when the emissary fractured his skull upon the lintel of the church door. Waroch, interpreting this as

6669-484: The Commandos succeeded in destroying the gates and machinery of the Joubert drydock, preventing its further use by the Germans during the war. Of the 600+ navy and commando personnel, 220 returned, half were wounded. Five Victoria Crosses and 69 other decorations were awarded. The Joubert dry dock was not brought back into operation until 1948. The U-boat threat to supply convoys across the Atlantic made Saint-Nazaire

6786-409: The French que and oiseau . Silent letters are also avoided in the Vantyé system. Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire ( French: [sɛ̃ nazɛːʁ] ; Breton : Sant-Nazer/Señ Neñseir ; Gallo : Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany . The town has a major harbour on the right bank of

6903-540: The Germans could no longer conduct major submarine operations from the bases without a supply line, the SHAEF commander, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to simply bypass these ports, and the Allied armies focused their resources on the invasion of Germany. Saint-Nazaire and the other two German "pockets" remained under German control until after the last day of the war in Europe, 8 May 1945. The town of St. Nazaire

7020-409: The Germans throughout World War II. During the occupation, a large number of Jewish residents and resistance members were deported to the concentration camps; in La Baule itself 32 Jewish men, women and children - the youngest of whom was 3 years old - were deported (with the assistance of the local French police) to Auschwitz where they all perished. In 2011, a small group of local residents formed

7137-580: The Guérande peninsula. The eastern part of the town is on the alluvial terrain between the Brière and the Loire estuary. The western part, more extensive, corresponds to the extension of the hillside of Guérande: the relief is hilly and of higher altitude, where one finds a granite and metamorphic base. Geologically, Saint-Nazaire is located in the Armorican massif. In close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean,

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7254-562: The Mairie would therefore need to consult the Conseil d'État , France's constitutional court. In fact, Stolpersteines contain no reference to the religion of the victim who is commemorated and 'freedom of opinion/expression' has never been invoked in either French or European jurisprudence to justify the refusal to commemorate individual victims of war crimes. The Mayor of La Baule has consistently refused to elaborate on his reasoning, and there

7371-500: The Saint-Nazaire casino went bankrupt and was resold to the town of Nantes: the site was redeveloped in 1935 as the first home of the current Saint-Louis school. As a result of the national general strike of June 1936, to ensure completion of the nationally prestigious project SS Normandie , the government nationalised the various private shipyards into one state-owned entity, the 1861-founded Chantiers de l'Atlantique . After

7488-506: The U-boat pens. Tours of the submarine are available to the public. After the construction of SS  France in 1961, the last Compagnie Générale Transatlantique liner and the subsequent closure of the Suez Canal , Chantiers de l'Atlantique began building large oil tankers, including Batillus , Bellamya , Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial . A new dry dock (Basin C) was planned for

7605-496: The United States Army could no longer plead military necessity as grounds for curtailing leave, did venereal disease rates among United States Army troops rise quickly. The post-war period brought about a period of economic depression for the shipbuilders, who consequently diversified into building seaplanes from 1922. In 1926 the district of Paimbœuf was merged with the district of Saint-Nazaire, thus reinforcing

7722-459: The West". In 1802, a road was built to develop the port, which extended by 1835 to a breakwater with a navigational lighthouse at its end. The development included new basins for ships to unload to barges that carried goods further up the river. This development moved the town into the area of the city which is now called the district of "Little Morocco". This development made the town the base for

7839-474: The [al] merged into [o]: taupe [top]. In northern Upper Brittany, diphthongs are used to express plurals: un martè [maʁtə], des martiaos [maʁtjaw]. In Loire-Atlantique, only the plural form is used. The nasal diphthong [ɛ̃ɔ̃], heard for example in grand ([gʁɛ̃ɔ̃] "great") is typical of western langues d’oïl and is also found in Norman , Poitevin-Saintongeais and Angevin , sometimes in slightly different forms ([aɔ̃] in Saintongeais, [ɛ̃ɑ̃] in Norman). There

7956-548: The airport, maintains a collection of restored historical French aircraft in flying condition. La Baule-Escoublac is twinned with: Gallo language Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria , an area now corresponding to the border lands between Brittany, Normandy , and Maine . Gallo was a shared spoken language among many of those who took part in the Norman conquest of England , most of whom originated in Upper (i.e. eastern) Brittany and Lower (i.e. western) Normandy , and thus had its part, together with

8073-449: The centre of the present-day city, and ancient bronzes found in the vicinity. According to the 15th-century chronicler Alain Bouchart , Brutus of Troy , the mythical ancestor of the Bretons, travelled to Saint-Nazaire to set foot upon the new homeland of his people. Historical accounts note that at the end of the Roman Empire , some Britons colonized the Loire estuary and later the peninsula containing Guérande . The farthest extent of

8190-436: The city became an important debarkment port of Allied troops, particularly in the latter stages for the United States Army . When they entered the war in 1917, they developed the town and port infrastructure, by adding additional drinking water storage ponds for the town's water treatment plants, and a refrigeration terminal to the docks for shipment and storage of meat and dairy products to supply their troops. However,

8307-430: The civilians had heeded the warning and fled to the safety of the countryside but after that point, except for the self-contained U-boat base, Saint-Nazaire remained abandoned until the end of the war. After D-day and the liberation of most of France in 1944, German troops in Saint-Nazaire's submarine base refused to surrender, and they holed up (as did their counterparts in the La Rochelle and Lorient bases). Since

8424-531: The climate of Saint-Nazaire is, as with the rest of the Loire-Atlantique, of temperate oceanic type, with Cfb designation in Köppen climate classification . This climate is very much influenced by the Loire estuary. The winters are mild, and summer is warm. Snowfall is rare, but rain is frequent (116 days a year with precipitation) but not very intense, the annual rainfall being 789 mm. Precipitation

8541-540: The construction of tankers over 1,000,000 tonnes but this fell through with the reopening of the Suez Canal. RMS  Queen Mary 2 was constructed at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in 2003. The town of Saint-Nazaire is located on the north bank of the Loire estuary (its territory includes the tip of Chémoulin which marks the end of the estuary), 50 km west of Nantes. It is near the marshes of Brière, an important regional natural park with many animal and plant species,

8658-416: The countryside was created. In the 19th century, oral literature was collected by researchers and folklorists such as Paul Sébillot, Adolphe Orain, Amand Dagnet and Georges Dottin. However, these authors frequently rewrote this literature in French. Paul Féval wrote certain dialogues in Gallo in his novel Châteaupauvre (1876). Amand Dagnet (1857-1933) also wrote a number of original works in Gallo, including

8775-575: The creation of a common writing system is important for ensuring comprehensibility of text across regions and making a dictionary. There are two main strategies that have been employed in past attempts at a writing system. One strategy proposes a single written form for words that will be pronounced differently according to the region. The other strategy proposes allowing a word to be written in multiple different ways, with different letters or letter combinations, to allow for speakers of Gallo to write according to their pronunciation. Another difference separating

8892-530: The cruise ship MS  Symphony of the Seas , the largest passenger ship in the world until 2022. Saint-Nazaire was a small village until the Industrial Revolution but became a large town in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the construction of railways and the growth of the seaport. Saint-Nazaire progressively replaced upstream Nantes as the main haven on the Loire estuary. As

9009-710: The dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais , there is a less clear isogloss . The clearest linguistic border is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton , a Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the western territory of Brittany. In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, but remains overwhelmingly Latinate. The influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory. As of 1980 , Gallo's western extent stretches from Plouha ( Plóha ), in Côtes-d'Armor , south of Paimpol , passing through Châtelaudren ( Châtié ), Corlay ( Corlaè ), Loudéac ( Loudia ), east of Pontivy , Locminé ( Lominoec ), Vannes , and ending in

9126-402: The disappearance of the sound was even more dramatic than in French, and some speakers say chen (dog), while the French word remains chien (from Latin cáne ). The Latin [e] in open stressed syllables has also evolved into ie in both Gallo and French, with hĕri becoming yere , for example. In Gallo, the vowel following the y differs from region to region. In most of Upper Brittany, it's

9243-461: The disaster on learning of it and it remains largely forgotten by history. A Lancastria memorial is located near the U-boat pens in Saint-Nazaire. The ball turret gunner of an American B-17F bomber fell 20,000 ft (6,100 m) onto the glass roof of the train station, even though his parachute had been destroyed by German flak while still in his plane. The US airman, Alan Magee , survived

9360-433: The existence of a small fleet of fisheries and fishing vessels. Saint-Nazaire suffered heavily from the downsizing of shipbuilding activity in western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, after the completion of the national passenger liner, SS France . For a long time in the 1980s, Saint-Nazaire remained an economically depressed area with unemployment rates above 20%. Today, the local economy is more diversified and its situation

9477-541: The fall. A German military surgeon was able to save his nearly severed arm. The airman credited his survival to a prayer to God as he recovered consciousness during his fall. Following the surrender of France to German forces later in June 1940, the port immediately became a base of operations for the Kriegsmarine and was as such the target of Allied operations. A heavily fortified U-boat Saint-Nazaire submarine base

9594-408: The first transatlantic telegraph lines were installed from France to South America, coming ashore at Saint-Nazaire. 1862 also saw the construction of major shipbuilding facilities, including those of Chantier Scott , which launched the first French metal-hulled ships. In 1868, Saint-Nazaire became a sub-prefecture of the town of Savenay . A second dock basin was created at Penhoët in 1881, to allow

9711-408: The handling of larger ships, but a lock gate built to access it cut the town in two, thus creating Old Saint-Nazaire and an artificial island called "Little Morocco". In early 1870, Nantes-born Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau joined the bar in Saint-Nazaire. In September he became, in spite of his youth, secretary to the municipal commission temporarily appointed to carry on the town's business. He organized

9828-464: The idea of rejuvenating Gallo's presences in schools. They were primarily motivated in increasing the linguistic competence of children. In 1982, Gallo was officially adopted as an optional subject in secondary schools in Brittany, even appearing on France's secondary school-exit exam, the Baccalaureat. It took years for the Gallo language to actually be incorporated into the curriculum, but by

9945-466: The influence of the city on the south bank of the Loire River. Although having built SS  Paris , between 1913 and 1921, and SS  Île de France between 1925 and 1926, as a result of the 1930s Great Depression the French government commissioned a series of state programs to aid national economic activity. The state-owned shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantique commissioned

10062-611: The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany 's Wehrmacht army at the start of World War II , the combined forces of the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force failed to hold the oncoming onslaught. As part of Operation Aerial , Saint-Nazaire, like Dunkirk , became an evacuation point to England for the British, with those embarking including the writer John Renshaw Starr . On 17 June 1940 an estimated 9,000 British Army soldiers were embarked aboard

10179-486: The language of intellectuals and social promotion, and Gallo as an impediment to their success. As a result, the rate of children learning the language has diminished, since parents struggle to see the benefit of Gallo in their children's future. Within recent history, the presence of Gallo has fluctuated in Brittany's school system. Shortly before World War II, the Regional Federation of Bretagne introduced

10296-477: The last liberated parts of France. This episode is called Poche de Saint-Nazaire from the French expression poche de resistance . One of France's most exclusive seaside resorts during the first half of the 20th century, La Baule has become much more democratized since the 1960s. Today the resort mixes wealthy family villas, luxury hotels and seaside apartment buildings. The nearby region has long been an area of contact and conflict between Breton culture and that of

10413-533: The lead in the development of the seaside resort . In 1918, casino business magnate François André (see Groupe Lucien Barrière ) set up the redesigning of the La Baule resort based on the Deauville model by combining casinos, luxury hotels and sports facilities all on one site. In the 1920s, Parisian businessman Louis Lajarrige designed the Bois d'Amour district at La Baule-les-Pins and formed an agreement with

10530-590: The much bigger role played by the Norman language , in the development of the Anglo-Norman variety of French which would have such a strong influence on English. Gallo continued as the everyday language of Upper Brittany, Maine, and some neighbouring portions of Normandy until the introduction of universal education across France, but is spoken today by only a small (and aging) minority of the population, having been almost entirely superseded by standard French. As

10647-530: The nearby harbour city of Saint-Nazaire , home of one of the biggest U-boat stations that the Germans built. It not only serviced the German submarine fleet, but was also the only dry dock on the Atlantic capable of housing the German battleship Tirpitz , one of two Bismarck-class ships built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. La Baule and the surrounding areas were heavily occupied by

10764-470: The neighbouring Loire Valley, and consequently is rich with historic places, castles ( Nantes castle ), walled cities ( Guerande ), not to mention 19th century seaside resorts, such as Quiberon , and many typical Breton fishing villages ( Le Croisic , Pornichet ). The Grand Prix de la Baule was a Grand Prix motor racing event held there during the 1930s. Today, the Grand Prix de la Ville de La Baule

10881-553: The northern half of France. This group includes a wide variety of more or less well-defined and differentiated languages and dialects, which share a Latin origin and some Germanic influence from Frankish , the language spoken by the Franks . Gallo, like the other langues d'oïl , is neither ancient French nor a distortion of modern French. The langues d'oïl are Gallo-Romance languages , which also includes Franco-Provençal , spoken around Savoy . These are in turn Romance languages ,

10998-453: The other hand, word-final silent consonants are retained to preserve the continuity between derived forms: fauc (false) (the final c is not pronounced) is related to fauchae (to mow), where the consonant is pronounced. In French, word-final e often serves to indicate an otherwise silent consonant should be pronounced, such as in grand [grɑ̃] and grande [grɑ̃d]. ELG indicates this with a doubled consonant: graund and graundd. ELG’s choices create

11115-562: The passenger steamships of the Nantes–Saint-Nazaire line, as well as making the town the alternative port for ships which could not access Nantes . In 1856, the first wet dock was dug in "Halluard City", making it possible for ships to moor and turn. This led to the construction of the town's first railway connection. In 1857, the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (railroad company of Orléans ) connected Saint-Nazaire to Nantes. In 1862,

11232-422: The pervasive use of schwa and diphthongs . In Gallo, as in French, the [ a ] of Latin in stressed syllables has evolved into [ e ] or [ eː ]. Thus, adsátis became assé [ase]. However, while French has combined [e] and [eː] into just [e], a distinction was preserved in Gallo. The [eː], manifests, for example, when [a] was followed by [s], became either an [e] or a diphthong, most often [ej]. The [e] became

11349-603: The presence of legal brothels ( Maisons Tolérée ) resulted in a diplomatic incident. As a result of strict reformist public health concerns at home, the American Expeditionary Force placed the Maisons Tolérée off limits, resulting in a dispute between the town's brothel owners backed by the mayor, versus the US Army forces. With the dispute escalating, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau sent

11466-622: The private of mainstream education and technological college Our-Lady-in Espérance. The Cité Scolaire of Saint-Nazaire is one of largest of France, with nearly 4,000 high-school pupils. The University of Saint-Nazaire is a college of the University of Nantes , the second largest university in France with approximately 35,000 students, including nearly 5,000 on the university campus of Saint-Nazaire. The Route nationale N165 /N161 ( E60 route ) connects Saint-Nazaire to Nantes and Rennes via

11583-525: The pronunciation everywhere. Ruczèu ("stream", in French: ruisseau) is pronounced [ʁysəw] in eastern Upper Brittany and [ʁyzəw] in the west. The ae in Bertaeyn ("Brittany"), can be pronounced [ae], [aɛ], [aə], or other possibilities. The diagraphs oe, cz, and tz are notable distinguishing elements of ELG. Word-final e ceased to be pronounced as early as the twelfth century in Gallo, several centuries before French, so Raude proposes to not write them. On

11700-515: The proposed systems is their usage of silent letters and non-phonetic spelling. Some systems try to maintain a one-to-one correspondency between letters and sounds, whereas some choose to add silent letters or diagraphs in an attempt to better represent the sounds of Gallo. The first effort to codify Gallo spelling was undertaken by the Friends of the Gallo Language ( Association des Amis du parler gallo ) in 1977. It proposed using French spelling as

11817-430: The province of Brittany. At the beginning of the 19th century, the port consisted only of one simple harbour. As the town was so far inland, its main economy was not based on commercial fishing but on its strategic location as the lowest possible navigation point for large ships and on supplying pilots for navigation further up the Loire. In 1800, the parish of Saint-Nazaire had 3,216 inhabitants. The modern Saint-Nazaire

11934-424: The railroad company to move the rails away from the seaside to ensure a direct access to the beach. On 27 July 1927 the new stations of La Baule-les-Pins and La Baule-Escoublac were inaugurated while the old station was torn down to create a flower garden square. By that time, La Baule had become a fashionable seaside resort. During World War II , La Baule formed part of the protective stretch of coast leading to

12051-475: The roof is an exhibition about Saint-Nazaire. The huge Joubert drydock built for SS Normandie was the only port on the Atlantic capable of servicing the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz . This made the port strategically important to both the Axis Powers and the Allies during World War II. After Operation Rheinübung on 18–27 May 1941, which resulted in the sinking of HMS  Hood and

12168-450: The same as in French, but there are many local variants, such as the voicing of [ s ] into [ z ] in Pays de Retz and that of [ t ] into [ d ] in Pays de la Mée . Certain consonant combinations are also characteristic of certain regions, such as the plosives [ c ] and [ ɟ ], which can be compared to [ k ] or [ g ] followed by a light [ j ] sound. The affricates [ dʒ ] and [ tʃ ] appear in

12285-522: The seat of a parish extending from Penhoët to Pornichet , part of the Viscountcy of Saint-Nazaire . Like the whole of Brittany, Saint-Nazaire formed part of the Duchy of Brittany until 1532, when it was annexed by France. In 1756, a fort was built on the order of the governor of Brittany to protect the town, which by then had 600 inhabitants. Until the French Revolution , Saint-Nazaire belonged to

12402-467: The second largest wetland in France after the Camargue. According to INSEE , Saint-Nazaire is the commune-center of an urban unit (commonly: agglomeration) which counted 186,760 inhabitants in 2018, gathering 17 communes of the Loire estuary. This unit is the urban center of the urban area of Saint-Nazaire (24 communes), which had 213,675 inhabitants in 2018 and extending over Brière and almost all of

12519-527: The ship builders of Saint-Nazaire to construct a new large passenger ship, which as a result between 1928 and 1934 created the Albert Caquot –engineered the Louis Joubert dry dock  – at 1,200 m × 60 m (3,940 ft × 200 ft), the largest of its kind in the world at the time – necessary to be able to accommodate the construction of SS  Normandie . In 1932,

12636-574: The south, east of the Rhuys peninsula, in Morbihan . While most often spelled Gallo , the name of the language is sometimes written as Galo or Gallot . It is also referred to as langue gallèse or britto-roman in Brittany . In south Lower Normandy and in the west of Pays de la Loire it is often referred to as patois , though this is a matter of some contention. Gallo comes from

12753-478: The survey, the term patois was the most common way of referring to the language. The term britto-roman was coined by the linguist Alan-Joseph Raude in 1978 to highlight the fact that Gallo is "a Romance variety spoken by Bretons". Gallo should not be confused with Gallo-Roman , a term that refers to the Romance varieties of ancient Gaul. Gallo is one of the langues d'oïl , a dialect continuum covering

12870-514: The tourist potential of the coast was recognised. Just before the inauguration of the line, Hennecart bought 40 ha of dunes for the Society of Escoublac Dunes (Société des dunes d'Escoublac) and commissioned local architect Georges Lafont to design the new town. Lafont designed a long sand promenade named Avenue de la Gare (today Avenue du Général-de-Gaulle) and a chapel (see picture). After the railroad opened Lafont built more than 250 villas, taking

12987-472: The western part of Haute-Bretagne , where, for example, the word curë [kyʁe] is pronounced as [tʃyʁə], and the word ghepe as [dʒep]. Elsewhere, [cyʁə] and [ɟəp] can be heard. Qhi , meanwhile, can be pronounced [ki], [tʃi] or [ci]. These modifications result from an advancement of the place of articulation of the palatal consonants . The semi-consonant [j] is used extensively to palatalize other consonants, notably [fj], [tj], [sj] and [pj]. However, this

13104-467: The work force. What had seemed a small dispute escalated after a shooting in Fourmies , resulting in the town getting its national nickname of "Red City". Socialists flocked to the town in defense of the striking workers, joining in the declaration of the "Fusillade de Fourmies". In 1900, the commune of Pornichet was created by separating from the larger commune of Saint-Nazaire. During World War I ,

13221-399: Was built by Organisation Todt shortly after occupation, with a 9 m-thick (30 ft) concrete ceiling capable of withstanding almost any bomb in use at the time. The base provided a home during the war to many of the best-known U-boat staff, including: The base stands today as its extremely sturdy construction makes demolition uneconomical. The base is now used by cafes, a bar and on

13338-422: Was changed when the silent feminine or plural endings were added to the word. Latin verbs with infinitives ending in - are followed the same evolutionary pattern as in French. Captiáre became chasser [ʃasə] in Gallo and chasser [ʃase] in French. This evolution of the [a] in stressed syllables varies from region to region. While in central Upper Brittany , schwa has replaced [e]. In some outlying regions, it

13455-495: Was created by the administration of Napoleon III . The population of 3,216 in 1800 shows its battered history, with a mainly local (Brière), of Lower Brittany (of Morbihan in the Finistère-south), and minor representation from most other areas of France. From this point forward the population of Saint-Nazaire experienced exponential growth, which was reflected in its nickname of "Little Breton California", or " Liverpool of

13572-438: Was planned that was to be situated 30 km (19 mi) to the north-west of Nantes in the commune of Notre-Dame-des-Landes . Called Aéroport du Grand Ouest , it was officially cancelled in 2018. The economy of the city is founded on the activity of the port, including export of manufactured goods but also on the services, being given sizeable size of the city. Commercial fishing has almost completely disappeared in spite of

13689-571: Was rebuilt in the late 1940s and 1950s in a minimalist functional style. One of the last of these buildings to be completed was the Hôtel de Ville which was completed in February 1960. The submarine base was used by the French Navy from 1945 to 1948. It then came under the control of various chemical companies and shipbuilders. As of 2016 , the French diesel submarine Espadon is moored within

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