What was Mistral's central idea on language?
My central idea? It is simple, like the taste of wild thyme on the tongue. La lengo es l'amo d'un pople – language is the soul of a people. Without its own tongue, a nation is but a body without a spirit, adrift in a sea of forgetfulness. The French tongue, strong as it is, cannot hold the heart of Provence. We must tend to our own roots, our own songs. To preserve our language is to preserve our history, our traditions, the very essence of who we are. It is the sun that warms our cultural hearth.
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