{"id":4074,"date":"2012-02-14T16:43:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T21:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/?p=4074"},"modified":"2012-02-14T16:49:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T21:49:05","slug":"love-in-the-time-of-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/love-in-the-time-of-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Love in the Time of French"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"French<\/a>

Photo: Lisa Morris<\/p><\/div>\n

Is French really the language of love?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because today is St. Valentine \u2019s Day, we thought the question was \u00e0 propos<\/em>. The Forum mondial de la langue fran\u00e7aise<\/em>\u00a0blog<\/a> (The French Language World Forum) asked their readers to send in their favourite quotes, definitions and declarations of love.<\/p>\n

Readers had no problem coming up with quotes that did justice to the four letter word. For example, Richard Seke from South Africa shared,\u00a0\u201cThe verb \u201cto love\u201d is only good when it\u2019s conjugated in the present. If it\u2019s conjugated in the past, it makes you cry, and in the future, you can only dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to combine love and language.\u00a0 Jean Cocteau <\/strong>once said \u201cLe verbe aimer est difficile \u00e0 conjuguer : son pass\u00e9 n\u2019est pas simple, son pr\u00e9sent n\u2019est qu\u2019indicatif, et son futur est toujours conditionnel\u201d <\/em>(The verb \u201cto love\u201d is hard to conjugate: its past is not simple, its present is merely indicative, and its future is always conditional).<\/p>\n

In the same vein, the pataphysician Henri Jeanson <\/strong>declared, \u201cAimer est un verbe irr\u00e9fl\u00e9chi<\/em>\u201d<\/em> (Love is a thoughtless verb).<\/p>\n

Some of the readers shared personal quotes, like Eliana Mestas de Leclerc who wrote, \u201cI love the words you say. I love you, my love…\u201d<\/p>\n

Djiboutien Abdo Halas wrote, \u201cThe person that loves you accepts you unconditionally and will follow you anywhere, regardless of where you go; they will trust your decisions.\u201d Two minutes later he added, \u201cI want to live by your side, die in your arms and be buried under you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The majority of the readers sought to define love. Emina Jemal from Dakar took a psychoanalytic approach when she wrote, \u201cLove is giving what we do not have to someone who does not want it.\u201d Rocher Chadrak Chembessi from Benin wrote, \u201cLove is not only about loving, it\u2019s also about understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French Language World Forum\u2019s Communications Officer, Marie Lavoie, borrowed the words of Proust <\/strong>to describe love: \u201c<\/em>L\u2019amour, c\u2019est l\u2019espace et le temps rendus sensibles au coeur<\/em>\u201d (Love is space and time that becomes susceptible to the heart).<\/p>\n

Interestingly no one quoted Gainsbourg\u2019s <\/strong>famous line, \u201cJe t\u2019aime, moi non plus\u201d<\/em> (I love you, me neither). But two surprising observations were made. When it came to quotes, few came outside the literary world, with the exception of Bruno Marchal <\/strong>who shared a quote from Louis Malle\u2019s <\/strong>film: Ascenseur pour l\u2019\u00e9chafaud<\/em><\/strong>: \u201cJe t\u2019aime. <\/em>Si je n\u2019entendais pas ta voix, je serais perdu dans un pays de silence\u201d<\/em> (I love you. If I couldn\u2019t hear your voice, I would be lost in a land of silence).<\/p>\n

Secondly, there weren\u2019t many who crossed the language barrier except for Cristina who quoted the Romanian writer Marin Preda<\/strong>, \u201cDaca dragoste nu e, nimic nu e<\/em>\u201d(Without love there is nothing).<\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t it Paul G\u00e9raldy <\/strong>who said: \u201cIl\u00a0faut se ressembler un peu pour se comprendre, mais il faut \u00eatre un peu diff\u00e9rent pour s\u2019aimer\u201d<\/em> (We have to be alike to understand one another, but a bit different to love one another)? In any case, that is the whole idea behind the French Language World Forum.<\/p>\n

Happy Valentine\u2019s Day!\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is French really the language of love? Because today is St. Valentine \u2019s Day, we thought the question was \u00e0 propos. The Forum mondial de …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4078,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions\/4078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}