{"id":4135,"date":"2012-02-27T12:21:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T17:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/?p=4135"},"modified":"2012-02-27T12:41:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T17:41:51","slug":"what-language-does-your-car-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/what-language-does-your-car-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"What Language Does Your Car Speak?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Voiture<\/em><\/p>\n

The precursor to the World Wide Web was called Minitel<\/strong>. Launched in France in 1982, these chunky brown machines are now relics in history museums. But at the time, the Minitel<\/strong> was an innovative technological and industrial success story.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, it was the French who introduced the concepts serveur<\/em>, fournisseur de service<\/em> and autoroute de l\u2019information<\/em>, which were translated into English as server, service provider and the information superhighway. In Minitel\u2019s last days, an odd Entrer<\/em> (enter) key was introduced to their keyboards \u2013 that simple idea was replicated on every computer in the world.<\/p>\n

This shows that objects have a language, too.<\/p>\n

For example, the French spoken by Quebeckers, French Acadians and French Canadians at large, contains more technical anglicisms in industries like construction and automotive, than anywhere else in the French speaking world.<\/p>\n

While the close proximity to the English language and environment explains a lot of this use of anglicisms, it\u2019s only one piece of the puzzle. In certain regions of Quebec that are less exposed to the English language, the same anglicisms are used.<\/p>\n

Objects themselves are important vectors of a language. A French repairman works on Renauds, Citro\u00ebns or Peugots, while his Quebec counterpart handles Fords, Chryslers and GMs. For a long time, American companies didn\u2019t even make the effort to translate car manuals in French. Through technical norms and related ideas, industrial objects like cars become vehicles of a culture and language.<\/p>\n

It is not because the organizers of wanted to please their sponsors that they decided to make two out of the four of the conference\u2019s themes about business. Business and economics are powerful vectors for any language.<\/p>\n

Roland Barthes went into great detail about the semiotics of objects, but what about the language of objects? Intangible goods and services cannot even exist outside the context of language.<\/p>\n

In 1986, the British review The Economist <\/em>created the Big Mac index to compare the purchasing power between different currencies on the planet. How about creating the \u201cC Factor\u201d which would measure the French Language content of an object?<\/p>\n

Those who take the time to reflect on language are usually literary and think first and foremost about its Culture, with a capital C. But it\u2019s a mistake to focus exclusively on the beautiful. What\u2019s useful is just as important.\u00a0 And while French is a language of culture, it is also a language of engineers, inventors, industrialists, consultants, diplomats and innovators at large.<\/p>\n

According to an urban legend, George W. Bush asked: \u201cWhat\u2019s the English word for entrepreneur?\u201d<\/p>\n

This Gallicism (a term borrowed from French) comes from a period in history when the French, as well as the Belgians and the Swiss, were heavily investing in objects\u2026 industry, technology and great ideas a like the Red Cross (invented by the Swiss). Saint-Exup\u00e9ry and Jules Vernes are among the most translated of French authors, and played important roles in the world of objects and language.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fascinating that economists who study language often see it as a \u201ccollective good\u201d, or more precisely, as a \u201cclub good\u201d \u2013 in the sense that we adhere to it and there is rivalry between other languages.<\/p>\n

The power of attraction of a club doesn\u2019t come from a cute jersey, but from the things it has to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The precursor to the World Wide Web was called Minitel. Launched in France in 1982, these chunky brown machines are now relics in history museums. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[75,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135"}],"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=4135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4140,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4135\/revisions\/4140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}