On the French island of Corsica, it is estimated that roughly a quarter to a third of the population can speak the Corsican language well, while over half can understand it. The language is officially recognised by the French Constitution as belonging to the heritage of France. 

The third and fully updated edition of 'The Corsican language in education in France' has now been published in the Regional Dossier series of the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning. This edition, like all other dossiers, is available for free download from this website.

The third edition of 'The Corsican language in education in France' was compiled by Jean-Marie Arrighi (Ajaccio, 1951). Arrighi is a former student of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud and has an agrégation in classics. From 1989 to 2016, he held the position of academy inspector – regional pedagogical inspector (inspecteur d’académie – inspecteur pédagogique regional) in charge of the Corsican language. He is the author of several works on the Corsican language and history, in particular on the 18th century and the Corsican State of Paoli.

Regional Dossiers

The Regional Dossiers focus on the education system in European regions that have an autochthonous lesser-used language, and on how the lesser-used language is embedded in this system. The Regional Dossiers are written according to a fixed structure so that they can be used for comparative research.

Please check the Regional Dossiers page for more information.