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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

#121

Post by seszett »

datdata wrote: post #106
seszett wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the Larousse for French, or the competing Robert. Or the Littré if you're a writer with pedant and traditionalist tendencies. The Académie is not the main reference for orthography (and its dictionary is incomplete) or for the general rules of the French language, its goal is to steer the language towards consistency, and recognize whatever new usage emerges.

orthographe = spelling. No offense intended. Just trying to help.

Indeed, the Académie actually defines orthography while the dictionaries are only references for spelling.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#122

Post by coldtea »

flexie wrote: post #103
coldtea wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? No. > "Words shoot up like geysers from your pen, tumble in cascades, swirl about, bump into each other, are never at rest" Better that, than the mix of pop culture references and business weasel words, the English have…

I am a continental European myself and have lived in three European countries, two of which are republics (not France though). You?

Lived in one, ethnic origins from another, studied in a third, have visited repeatedly over 10 of them, speak 3 of their languages (4 with mine, tho to be frank my French are read-only, as my accent has always been quite bad even in my native language), and am well-read in 4 of Western European countries' literature and philosophical writings. Have also worked for one pan-European organization.

That said, I'm probably not in line with the "modern" americanized Europeans, so there's that. Just with the good fashioned European culture. I don't find frilly language (like the example) offensive for example...

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#123

Post by baud147258 »

anonu wrote: post #109
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…

It appears wasteful. Being deadlocked, spending multiples of $100k on ceremonies. The group should be promoting the language and getting people excited about it's use. Instead, French speakers feel guilty when they say 'email' instead of 'courriel' because an ineffectual body refused to admit an Englishism into the language. This holds the language back. Languages are fluid, living breathing things and that aspect sh…

> French speakers feel guilty when they say 'email'

Dunno, when I'm using email, or any other English word part of our developper vocabulary, like build or bug, I don't feel guilty, I'm just using the words that are used by the rest of my (all-French) team.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#124

Post by tozeur »

gerard2 wrote: post #114
gpvos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of those have so much pomp and circumstance about their functioning and composition, though.

Stop hating on our classy habit vert. French people like having a history, as complex, bloody and sometime shameful it is. We are an old country and we have traditions. The english people have their royal family, the US have their rusty nuclear warheads and we have the institutions de la république.

Good points, monsieur.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#125

Post by grumpydba »

29ssyg wrote: post #116
grumpydba wrote: post #46

> Actually, it is mostly old white men. So racism is OK?

France is a white country, so I don't know what's so surprising about having only white people there. The nytimes is trying to apply American standards to everything.

I find American identity politics to be nefarious. And people in France are trying very hard to import them here.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#126

Post by zapzupnz »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #119
Udik wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the reasons is elegance. As in coding, you try to minimise special cases, so whenever you need to introduce a new word you go back to the roots of the language and try to derive it from what's already there. In this way the chosen word is more integrated in the language (has more connections with other existing words), its pronunciation is more predictable, and its derivation follows the same rules as…

But according to the OP following Latin increases surprise. Hence my question. "yet, it's far more likely for the public to simply add an 'e' to the end of 'docteur" It isn't "elegant" if the public is "far more likely" to do it a different way.

That depends heavily on your idea of elegance. Even if the French say they ignore the Académie Française, the really is that their pronouncements carry a lot of weight since those enter the language through the public education curriculum.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#127

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

It is laggy, wasteful, and snobby - in service of a purpose we have done just fine without. It would be more surprising if they were held in esteem.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#128

Post by p0nce »

mykowebhn wrote: post #27
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…

> 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…

The effort of the Academy to create new words top-down (partly) inspired us to make a parodic website: https://bitoduc.fr/

I think french rappers (which are amazing imho) create more words successfully because they have a mechanics for popularizing the new words. They can have a word adopted with one song.

My problem with the Academy is rather simple, if an entire profession use "deadlock" successfully, why complicate things creating a new word like "interblocage"? For technical fields this may brings confusion.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#129

Post by p0nce »

makapuf wrote: post #118
bisRepetita wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

???? There is a huge gap between trying to influence the French language, and dictating it (forcing to use it). The Francophones at the end of the day decide what they use, they live as a free society. I welcome people trying to creatively influence a language, whether they are normal people, cool teenagers, rappers and rock stars, Quebecois guardians of the French language, or people at the Academie Francaise.

For all words the equivalent of computer - "ordinateur" was invented by académie française from a sollicitation of IBM and it stuck. Everyone uses this word now.

Yes, this is national pride about this one word that stuck, but here is what "ordiner" is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_orders

Meanwhile the rest of the world use a word that refers to computation, and french has even a "computationnel" word because "ordinateur" doesn't make much sense. A computer is not something that gives holy orders.

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