For centuries after the Norman Conquest, Britain was characterized by French-English diglossia among the elite (even French-English-Latin triglossia) and French still had the status of a lingua franca in European court circles well into the eighteenth century (Rjéoutski, Argent & Offord 2014). French had, for historical reasons, always been the first foreign language in Britain.
Although German certainly did have to compete with French for attention, the competition was a very uneven one. 1 On the status and teaching of French in England, 1000-1600 (Kibbee 1991), and, for the teaching of (.)ġGiven the theme of this volume (languages “in competition”), it is worth making clear from the outset that as far as the British Isles are concerned, there was no real “competition” amongst the foreign languages, at least not in the sense of a close contest.Concerted efforts were made from about 1912 onwards to stress that French should not always be the first language taught, and these began to have some effect in the second half of the 20 th century, but German always remained a clear second (and has now been overtaken by Spanish as second foreign language in the 21 st century). Throughout the period, French was the first foreign language, with German a clear second, and German came under particular pressure in the early decades of the 20 th century as even proponents of Modern Languages argued that most pupils needed only to learn one language World War I also had a negative impact. It touches on differences in the status of French and German in the education of boys and girls in the 19 th century, and on the question of who taught French and German in these early decades. This article outlines the status of French and German in British education from the 1850s, when they were introduced as subjects in public examinations, to the 1930s, with a few remarks on the period thereafter, with reference to contemporary reports as well as to textbooks used in the period.
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