Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 203 posts

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#31

Post by Simple_Guy »

macdice wrote: post #24
gerard2 wrote: post #20

As a french guy, I sense some kind of disdain for the Académie Française that I don't really get. The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people, and the role of the Académie is merely to decide what should or shouldn't be set in stone in the dictionary. And in fact the usage of the french language is quite diverse, even in France. You can have regiona…

I think English speakers just find it a bit strange because our own language is such a mess. In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words (maybe due to a deliberate political act by Noah Webster? not sure), and there is zero chance of international standardisation at this point, so we can't even imagine an official body that does this. Perhaps that's why some people seem to interpret it as "authoritarian".…

I can imagine a bunch of old people sitting in a room complaining about all the new words the young kids are using and how they are destroying the language.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#32

Post by black-tea »

msla wrote: post #23
mc32 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting they’re taking the German route rather than the English route which is to erode most feminine gendered trade words: waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter, etc. likewise the male equivalent have become neutral so actor, governor, baker, waiter, etc don’t only apply to men.

It's rather a slap in the face to non-binary and gender non-conforming people, though.

I identify as a small potted plant and it's a real slap in the leaves for me because I can't even speak.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#33

Post by pintxo »

gerard2 wrote: post #25
hirundo wrote: post #17

This is an authoritarian project. It attempts to impose authority in an area that operates fine or better without it, by people with no particular claim to authority in the matter beyond membership in their own club. How is France improved by having an official government dictionary? For the authoritarian it seems that the proper role of the state to reduce any form of uncertainty in life, and positive uncertainty is…

Not it really isn't. I think every european country has a similar institution. At least, italians (Accademia della Crusca) and germans (Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung) do. I think, that's because european countries are fusions of smaller regions and kingdoms which had their own language each, and at some point in time it was necessary to have a unique language for the economic development of the country.…

The relevant entity for German is [1]. Apparently created after or during the struggle for an official reform of the language in the 90 and early 2000.

[1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_für_deutsche_Rechtschrei...

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#34

Post by hibbelig »

bunderbunder wrote: post #6
mc32 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting they’re taking the German route rather than the English route which is to erode most feminine gendered trade words: waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter, etc. likewise the male equivalent have become neutral so actor, governor, baker, waiter, etc don’t only apply to men.

It seems a more natural route for English, where there is no grammatical gender. So the imposition of gender on the nouns for a subset of professions was inherently an odd feature. Whereas, German and French both have a grammatical gender. In German I suppose you could neuter all the professions Whether that's feasible or not I couldn't say; I don't speak German. French doesn't have a neuter gender, though, so erodin…

AFAIK, there are no neutered professions in German. So that would be a big change, it's hard to imagine.

I know very little French, but if I understand correctly, because person in French is female (la personne), you could have a sentence mentioning "the persons" (plural) (les personnes?), and then later on using the pronoun "elles" (female version of "they") to refer to them. So a female-coded pronoun would refer to a mixed-gender group of people.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#35

Post by jpatokal »

Simple_Guy wrote: post #31
macdice wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think English speakers just find it a bit strange because our own language is such a mess. In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words (maybe due to a deliberate political act by Noah Webster? not sure), and there is zero chance of international standardisation at this point, so we can't even imagine an official body that does this. Perhaps that's why some people seem to interpret it as "authoritarian".…

I can imagine a bunch of old people sitting in a room complaining about all the new words the young kids are using and how they are destroying the language.

Yeet.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#36

Post by benj111 »

macdice wrote: post #24
gerard2 wrote: post #20

As a french guy, I sense some kind of disdain for the Académie Française that I don't really get. The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people, and the role of the Académie is merely to decide what should or shouldn't be set in stone in the dictionary. And in fact the usage of the french language is quite diverse, even in France. You can have regiona…

I think English speakers just find it a bit strange because our own language is such a mess. In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words (maybe due to a deliberate political act by Noah Webster? not sure), and there is zero chance of international standardisation at this point, so we can't even imagine an official body that does this. Perhaps that's why some people seem to interpret it as "authoritarian".…

"In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words"

Yes the US seemed to go with Webster, while the rest of the anglosphere went with Johnson. Not quite as simple as that, as there were a few different waves of reform.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_re...

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#37

Post by onli »

gerard2 wrote: post #26
msla wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a french guy, I sense some kind of disdain for the Académie Française that I don't really get. The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people, and the role of the Académie is merely to decide what should or shouldn't be set in stone in the dictionary. But deciding what the prestige dialect is is inherently classist and racist, and reifying that cl…

Well nobody is saying that any language is wrong or not. It's just that the french language is kind of an international standard and some people must decide how this standard should adapt with the evolution of the world. But the decision they make are not arbitrary decisions based on their personal feelings, they are guided by the etymology of french.

> some people must decide how this standard should adapt with the evolution of the world

Actually, no. Neither English, Spanish nor German have a dedicated powerful centralized institution that makes those decisions for the language, and I guess Chinese doesn't either?

> But the decision they make are not arbitrary decisions based on their personal feelings, they are guided by the etymology of french.

French differs strongly from other languages in how current developments are integrated, think ordinateur, portable and not having a word for uploading stuff. They might be guided by some principle, but it leads French being an artificial and very strange language that's hard to learn and differs more than necessary, from English especially.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#38

Post by benj111 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #30
msla wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a french guy, I sense some kind of disdain for the Académie Française that I don't really get. The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people, and the role of the Académie is merely to decide what should or shouldn't be set in stone in the dictionary. But deciding what the prestige dialect is is inherently classist and racist, and reifying that cl…

The idea is to sit back and make choices that make sense when there is a conflict or that are more aligned with the rest if the language, and avoid messes like "biweekly".

Or "inflammable".

Or "Aural" and "Oral"

Or Ox > Oxen, Fox > Foxes

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#39

Post by the6threplicant »

macdice wrote: post #24
gerard2 wrote: post #20

As a french guy, I sense some kind of disdain for the Académie Française that I don't really get. The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people, and the role of the Académie is merely to decide what should or shouldn't be set in stone in the dictionary. And in fact the usage of the french language is quite diverse, even in France. You can have regiona…

I think English speakers just find it a bit strange because our own language is such a mess. In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words (maybe due to a deliberate political act by Noah Webster? not sure), and there is zero chance of international standardisation at this point, so we can't even imagine an official body that does this. Perhaps that's why some people seem to interpret it as "authoritarian".…

But the Dutch have it as well and no one goes on and on about it.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#40

Post by benj111 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #9
zapzupnz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the Académie is insisting on following correct etymology. A lot of people are saying 'docteure' as a feminised form of 'docteur'; yet, if you go back to the Latin 'doctor', derived from 'doceo' ("I teach"), and change masculine agent noun suffix '-or' for the feminine agent noun suffix '-trix', then the derived French form should be 'doctresse' (edit: apparently a word 'doctoresse' exists); yet, it's far…

This isn't snark, I'm honestly trying to understand: Why is what Latin did relevant for French in the 21st century? Didn't they branch like 1,500 years ago? When the French created a new word for, I dunno, "computer" or whatever, they didn't go back to Latin roots to figure out what it should be...or did they?

Computer has a longer history than what you think.

"The first known use of the word “computer” was in 1613 in a book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by English writer Richard Braithwait: “I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number.”"

https://brian.carnell.com/articles/2015/the-etymology-of-the...

Post reply on HN