Drawing on a range of case studies, this systematic study demonstrates the variety of language usage in seventeenth-century France, a time considered to be the most "standardizing" in the history of French. Variation is analyzed in terms of gender, age and socio-economic status, or by the medium, register or genre used. The case studies present phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical issues, posing a range of methodological questions for sociolinguists and historical linguists.

*First ever study of sociolinguistic variation in seventeenth-century France

*Of interest both to specialists in linguistics and in French history

*Considers a broad range of sociolinguistic issues relating to language variation in seventeenth-century France, such as gender, socio-economic status, age, register and genre