In your studies, you may have noticed how many English words tare used in Japanese and in French. French often uses English words for business/marketing and internet related terms. For example, we use the English words “brainstorming,” “data,” “startup,” “follower,” “like,” in French. This phenomenon has been reinforced over the last decade via the social media boom.
French people are known for being very proud of their language, so it is no surprise that there’s a French language council called “Académie française” which acts like the French language police. It recently made a statement criticizing against the use of franglais (French-English), calling it “envahissant” (= overgrown, invasive) and even “chimère lexicale composite assez indéfinissable” (= quite indefinable mixed lexical chimera).
What’s interesting is that this is nothing new. In 2017 and throughout the 20th century, the Académie warned against “a deadly danger ruining the French language.” There are even French texts* from the 16th century raging against the “deterioration and decadence” of the French language, claiming it was being corrupted by Latin and Italian words!
Founded in 1635, the Académie francaise was originally a prestigious organization — whose membership included brilliant authors from Voltaire to Victor Hugo. However, in the last century, many linguists started to question the council’s authority, some even criticizing it as “useless, incompetent and archaic”. One of the prominent reasons being that most of the members are not linguists or even language specialists (such as the controversial Maréchal Pétain and other political figures who were chosen). Currently, the members are under the scrutiny of sexism accusations, highlighted by the fact that it took 350 years for the first female member to get elected, in 1980 (the author Marguerite Yourcenar). Moreover, the institution has been strongly opposed to the use of feminine equivalents of many professions, spreading the idea that some professions are more suited for men. For example, they insisted people say “Madame le ministre” (Misses the “male minister”) instead of “Madame la ministre“, a nonsensical expression which is less and less used.
However, the 20th century’s development of the field of linguistics has greatly contributed to the replacement of the Académie’s role by professional linguists. All things considered, do you think they are right about the overuse of Franglais?
Here are my thoughts about this topic as a language teacher: while I agree that we shouldn’t systematically use English words in French or Japanese, especially when an equivalence exists in the language, it is normal that languages evolve and mix with others. This is a fundamental and unstoppable aspect of language and is what makes it richer too. Even 2000+ years ago, there were already many Greek words in used in the Latin language. English too uses many French words: “déjà vu,” “renaissance,” “brunette,” “cliché,” “vinaigrette,” to name a few.
Like many French linguists, I question the authority of the Académie as well and usually disagree with their statements. French linguists Maria Candea and Laélia Véron said very well in their book “Le français est à nous !” (French language is ours!):
« La langue française n’appartient pas à l’Académie ou aux équipes de rédaction des dictionnaires, elle appartient à toutes ses locutrices et à tous ses locuteurs. »
(= French language doesn’t belong to the French Academy or to dictionary writers’ teams, it belongs to all its speakers.)
I couldn’t agree more. There’s a recent phenomenon, which I had written a post about, that furthers this sentiment. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Académie stated that the new French word “covid” should be used with the feminine gender; however, a majority of people (including me) were using it in the masculine form, as they felt it more proper for various reasons. As a result, the dictionaries decided to accept both genders, because no statement could prevent people from saying “le covid“!
What do you think? Do you have a language council that makes statements in your country too?
* For example “Champ fleury” by Geofroy Tory de Bourges and “L’éclaircissement de la langue française” by Jean Palsgrave.