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The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

nytimes.com

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Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#61

Post by seszett »

zapzupnz wrote: post #5
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.

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…

> the Académie could make a recommendation on such titles (and it may have done, I don't know) and those would be carried into the French public school curriculum

Actually, the school curriculum (both public and private) follows the Ministry of Education recommendations which are based on the Conseil supérieur français de la langue française, and which are not necessarily the same as the Académie française. Although the Académie usually approves them, it is purely symbolical.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#62

Post by cm2187 »

qalmakka wrote: post #51

I never got the hang of this kind of myopic, senseless traditionalism. If Latin didn't let himself be bastardised with the influences of Frankish and Gaulish there wouldn't be any French.

That’s kind of the nature of conservatism. Some invaders capture the city, force everyone to convert to their religion or be killed, and 500 years later it is our religion, the religion of our ancestors, the one we always had and will never change.

I think the EU will always be a mere bureaucratic administration unless all European citizens speak the same language. I can’t really think of any serious alternative to English, that’s by an order of magnitude the only real common denominator. For that, French, but also Dutch, German, Spanish, etc must all disappear as languages. And we should be ruthless. French only became the language of France because that country got ruthless with regional languages (patois).

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#63

Post by 4ad »

bhaak wrote: post #59
gerard2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahah, what the hell are you talking about. Here is a very hidden list, found on an obscure website, that you might want to look into : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators

This list doesn't say what scope those regulators have. I only know the situation for German and there the "Council for German Orthography" only regulates orthography not language and word usage, so take this list with a grain of salt.

Also, they don't carry swords and wear $50k robes. Quite the difference.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#64

Post by flexie »

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…

Ah - you don't think it's a little off that a tiny, obscure and exclusive group of 70-100 year olds, dressed up in costumes from a bygone era, gets to decide what goes into your official dictionary? Especially when they talk in such pompous way:

"Words shoot up like geysers from your pen, tumble in cascades, swirl about, bump into each other, are never at rest". That doesn't sound like someone I would chose to guard a language.

I find the sound of the French language absolutely beautiful, including the when you use English words, and I am an admirer of your country's culture. Unlike many here on HN, I also like your version of regulated capitalism. I think the average French person has much better quality of life than the average American. But I really don't see the point in this Académie Française. For a republic, you sure seem to keep a fair share of antiquated institutions and traditions around :-)

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#65

Post by jacquesm »

the6threplicant wrote: post #39
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".…

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

That's because we mostly just ignore them.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#66

Post by jacquesm »

gerard2 wrote: post #29
mykowebhn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The evolution of the french language is not dictated by the Académie, but rather by its use by the french people > the Académie is actively trying to find french equivalent for [convenient English words] that are coherent with the etymology of the french language Don't these two sentences you wrote contradict each other? From what I gather, you ARE saying that the French language IS dictated by the Académie, even t…

Well maybe. Maybe someone with a stronger literary background than me could make the argument that providing traductions of english words is just a plus to ensure the completion of the french language and not really an important part of the language evolution. But I just wanted to explain that french people do not feel like the way they speak and write is dictated by the academie.And surely their appreciation of the…

> traductions

Lucky you, we do not have an academie anglaise...

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#67

Post by onli »

seszett wrote: post #57
onli wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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? Among this list, only English doesn't have an institution. All three other languages (Spanish, German and Chinese) have multiple institutions, basically one per country that speaks the language, just like French.

German does not have such an institution - I am German and that's just a fact.

Spanish might have such an institution, but it evidently does not work - Mexican Spanish != Spanish Spanish != .... Note that I did not say it does not exist, I said there is no "powerful centralized" instance deciding this. I stand to this judgement, also for Spanish.

The extent of the actual influence wielded by the academie francaise seems to me pretty unique.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#68

Post by dang »

black-tea wrote: post #32
msla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#69

Post by neonate »

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.

Superimposing an extremely recent political movement onto linguistic gender seems like the mother of all category errors.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#70

Post by simias »

mc32 wrote: post #4
Jun8 wrote: post #2

The Académie earlier this month "voted by an overwhelming majority to approve a report compiled by three of its five female members that recommended ending its centuries-old official ban on feminizing the names of professions and trades."

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.

There have been various attempts to "neutralize" the French language in the past, without much success. There are many reasons for that, some of them cultural and political, but it's also a problem from a purely grammatical perspective. French is much more gendered than English, nouns, adjectives and certain verbal constructions reflect one of the two genders.

Thus "eroding" an arbitrary selection of words to stop having them reflect gender doesn't flow very naturally in the language. "Une boulanger", "un hotesse", "une acteur" etc... All that is very grating to the ear and somewhat un-french sounding. It basically breaks very common patterns in the language that every French speaker consciously or unconsciously integrated as part of learning French.

Compare for instance:

Un boulanger fier (a proud baker, male)

Une boulangère fière (a proud baker, female)

Note that both the adjective "fier" and the noun "boulanger" decline similarly. If you "erode" boulanger to be neutral you end up with:

Un boulanger fier

Une boulanger fière

Suddenly the pattern is broken. Do we erode "fier" and similar adjectives as well to remain consistent? But then of course it has a cascading effect throughout the language.

I'm not saying that this means that it cannot or shouldn't be improved, I dislike the heavy knee-jerk backlash every proposed reform of French grammar gets (no matter how small and obvious it is, like simplifying some ridiculous rules for the accord of the passé composé) but it's definitely a complex topic.

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