{"id":9573,"date":"2013-08-05T10:28:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T14:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/?p=9573"},"modified":"2013-09-27T12:13:31","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T16:13:31","slug":"the-real-story-of-the-french-language-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nadeaubarlow.com\/fr\/the-real-story-of-the-french-language-police\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Story of the French Language Police"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Jean-Beno\u00eet Nadeau & Julie Barlow<\/h5>\n

\"Language-Police\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On a website for expats living in France I ran across an interesting list of English words that the French are supposedly trying to \u201cban.\u201d These included \u201ccrowd-funding,\u201d \u201ccloud computing,\u201d and \u201cdrop-out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site was asking users whether the efforts of the French \u201clanguage police\u201d were \u201chonorable\u201d or \u201cfutile.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the question is just silly.<\/p>\n

First, there is no \u201clanguage police\u201d in France. France has a government office called the D\u00e9l\u00e9gation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale \u00e0 la langue fran\u00e7aise et aux langues de France\u00a0<\/i>(General delegation for the French language and languages of France) or DGLFLF. Its job, among other things, is to figure out what English words are creeping into French, then come up with alternatives in French. The idea is not so much to \u201cban\u201d English as to keep the French language up to date.<\/p>\n

They sure don’t operate like \u201cpolice.\u201d The DGLFLF comes up with French equivalents, then sends them to the Commission g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de terminologie et n\u00e9ologie<\/i>, which is part of the Prime Minister\u2019s office, for approval. Roughly 70% are approved.<\/p>\n

The terms become \u201cobligatory\u201d in written material produced by French civil servants working in the specific fields where each word applies.<\/p>\n

But these so-called \u201cpolice\u201d have about as much power as shopping mall security officers. No one can control how people on the street speak \u2013 not in France, and not anywhere.<\/p>\n

Curiously, English-language media tend to pick on the French for trying to \u201ccontrol\u201d their language. But the French are not the only ones who worry about English vocabulary popping into their language.<\/p>\n

Just about every national language in the world \u2013 with the notable exception of English \u2013 has a body similar to the DGLFLF (and when French terms were creeping into English in the 19th\u00a0century, British and American lexicographers and editors worked to anglicize them). Spain has two different organizations working on replacing English vocabulary: the Real Academia Espa\u00f1ola <\/i>and a foundation called Fund\u00e9u BBVA<\/i>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more \u2013 and we discuss this in our book The Story of French<\/i> \u2013 the French aren\u2019t even very good at inventing new vocabulary! They generally turn to Quebec for ideas, where the Office qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois de la langue fran\u00e7aise<\/em>\u00a0does a much better job of finding French equivalents for English terms.<\/p>\n

Quebec actually has created French equivalents for a number of the words on the list from the expat’s website, including:<\/p>\n