\n
![\"Tour](\"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Tour-de-France.jpg\")
I read a bit more French than English-language media these days, so I was startled to see this statement in a recent New York Times<\/em> article:\u00a0\u201cAt Tour De France, Default Language Now Is English<\/a>.\u201d The journalist, discussing the increased use of English at the Tour, concluded, \u201cThe French language\u2019s protracted worldwide decline has finally come home to roost.\u201d<\/p>\nWell okay, I can see how you might jump to that conclusion. In Paris last week for the first time in years, I was amazed to see how much English was plastered across the city\u2019s billboards and storefronts, words like \u201csavings,\u201d and English advertising lingo like \u201csmart buy\u201d and \u201cbest-ever.\u201d I even saw \u201cgood value,\u201d a concept so thoroughly Anglo-Saxon I can\u2019t picture exactly what the French make of it.<\/p>\n
The telephone company Orange, where I went to add money to my prepaid cell phone, proudly vaunted their English vibe with service packages called \u201cOpen Zen\u201d or \u201cOne Silver.\u201d Like the pizza company \u201cSpeed Rabbit,\u201d these \u00abfaux\u00bb English terms have a long history in France. There\u2019s just more of them now.<\/p>\n
That said, I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s actually more English coming out of French mouths. But it\u2019s possible. In a first \u2013 and I lived in Paris for three years \u2013 I witnessed a post office clerk actually serve a British tourist in English. It was arduous, but he stuck it out. Up until then, I had never heard a French civil servant speak English.<\/p>\n
The New York Times<\/em> article quotes the Tour de France\u2019s official translator as stating: \u201cFrench is disappearing here,\u00bb meaning the Tour. Fair enough. She would know.<\/p>\n But from there, to declaring the decline of French in the world<\/i>, as the journalist claimed. Seriously?<\/p>\n While in Paris I visited the school my daughters will be attending when we move there this September. I asked the principal, Monsieur Cerruti, how much English instruction there would be at his school. He rolled his eyes. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth the trouble of trying to teach English in France,\u201d he says. \u201cThe French can\u2019t learn another language.\u201d<\/p>\n So much for the English invasion. Almost all the English I saw on Paris was on billboards and in advertisements. English might be cool<\/em>, but that doesn\u2019t mean people actually speak it.<\/p>\n And as for the end of French in the world, well, it\u2019s either a little early, or a little late to declare the death of French.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly\u201d because, as more and more people in the world learn English \u2013 and that\u2019s undeniable \u2013 the number of people learning French increases too. Languages are not a zero-sum game. Since we started research for\u00a0The Story of French<\/em> almost ten years ago, the number of French-speakers in the world has increased by 20 million. That\u2019s a hefty chunk of speakers. In fact, the increase in native <\/i>speakers is about the same for both English and French.<\/p>\n \u201cLate\u201d because, whether they are aware of it or not, English-speakers who declare the end of French are just adding their two cents to a cultural contest that has been going on for a thousand years \u2013 ever since the Norman Duke William seized the English Crown in 1066 and turned French into an elite tongue that would eventually prompt a reflex of quiet scorn from all English speakers. Dissing the French and their language just feels good to English-speakers and we are not going to undo a thousand years of tradition any time soon.<\/p>\n French, of course, did fall from its pinnacle as the world\u2019s language of diplomacy. But that was hundred years ago. And it didn\u2019t spell the end of French. The fact that English is becoming the predominant tongue of France\u2019s premier international event might hurt French pride (or maybe not \u2013 English is cool!).<\/p>\n But it\u2019s probably not a sign French is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Julie Barlow \u00a0 I read a bit more French than English-language media these days, so I was startled to see this statement in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9381"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9400,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions\/9400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}