Book Review: The Story of French

The Story of French. By Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. 483 pages. $25.95. St. Martin's Press.

The unique relationship between French speakers and their language is one of the grand themes in "The Story of French," a well-told, highly accessible history of the French language that leads to a spirited discussion of the prospects for French in an increasingly English-dominated world.

The authors, Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, are bilingual Canadians with a sense of mission. They value French as a vehicle of expression uniting 175 million people scattered in a linguistic archipelago across several continents. They also see it as a counterweight to U.S. political and cultural power.

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