France Gives in to the Hashtag(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
France Gives in to the Hashtag
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/opinion/france-gives-in-to-the-hashtag.html
60 comments
I think the Académie Française is doing a very poor job. In Québec we have the Office Québécois de la Langue Française, which is much better at finding French equivalents to modern technology terms. A few examples:
- Cloud Computing -> Infonuagique
- E-Mail -> Courriel (vs. France's mél... how the hell do you pronounce that)
- Hashtag -> Mot-clic (it is indeed a keyword, "mot-clé" that you can click)
And a whole lot more...
- Cloud Computing -> Infonuagique
- E-Mail -> Courriel (vs. France's mél... how the hell do you pronounce that)
- Hashtag -> Mot-clic (it is indeed a keyword, "mot-clé" that you can click)
And a whole lot more...
According to their current explanation, the Académie française proposes "Mél." (with period) only as an abbreviation for use on e.g. business cards, coined by analogy to the abbreviation "Tél." for telephone numbers. For usage in sentences they suggest either the full message électronique, or borrowing courriel from Québec, which they officially approved in 2003. http://www.academie-francaise.fr/la-langue-francaise/questio...
Mot-clic is humorous; I had not seen that before.
Mot-clic is humorous; I had not seen that before.
Sometimes they are even counter-productive. People are not using the English word anyway and they want to replace the French word people are using with another one. Example: instead of 'offline', the academy recommends '(mode) autonome' but people are already using 'déconnecté' or 'hors-ligne' instead, so it does not make sense at all.
>Mot-clic
This one strikes me a quite terrible, to be honest.
Readers should note that the OQLF also has an enforcement branch, which is used primarily to harass and extort minorities, allegedly for linguistic infractions.
This one strikes me a quite terrible, to be honest.
Readers should note that the OQLF also has an enforcement branch, which is used primarily to harass and extort minorities, allegedly for linguistic infractions.
Linguistic purity movements continue to strike me as largely pointless. It seems better that language evolve naturally -- as long as it remains effective as a communication medium, what is the issue?
No.
Everybody knows that languages naturally evolve on their own. The advantages of the "Académie" are:
I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation.
Everybody knows that languages naturally evolve on their own. The advantages of the "Académie" are:
- it slows down the evolution allowing better choices.
- although the language is still driven by everybody using it, it is stirred in the right direction by linguists and authors, usually making choices consistent with the rest of the languages, its history and roots.
I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation.
> The best example of what happens when such a mechanism isn't in place is the "biweekly" and "irregardless" mess in english!
What mess would that be, exactly? Those who care about English tend not to use terms like this. Conversely, correct French is replete with special cases and arbitrary deviations from consistent logic.
What mess would that be, exactly? Those who care about English tend not to use terms like this. Conversely, correct French is replete with special cases and arbitrary deviations from consistent logic.
"biweekly" used to have a meaning, now it has two (which aren't compatible), making it unclear which one the speaker means.
That's not much of a mess. I read "semiweekly" just as often.
Also, word composition doesn't necessarily need to be associative ;)
Also, word composition doesn't necessarily need to be associative ;)
biweek/ly- once every two weeks
bi/weekly- twice every weekSo when you see "biweekly" somewere, how do you interpret it?
I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation.
In Spanish you don't remember the spelling of most words, the spelling is just an encoding of a neutral pronounciation. Even if there are some irregularities, you remember the irregularity instead of the whole word. For instance, you would remember "kamikaze both k".
So most spellings get fixed on their own. Not bashing on the RAE though, they made such a nice job making this possible.
Edit:wording
In Spanish you don't remember the spelling of most words, the spelling is just an encoding of a neutral pronounciation. Even if there are some irregularities, you remember the irregularity instead of the whole word. For instance, you would remember "kamikaze both k".
So most spellings get fixed on their own. Not bashing on the RAE though, they made such a nice job making this possible.
Edit:wording
agree. la REA does a really good job. English is a nightmare mixture of terms that were molded together from everything from old germanic, latin, to french, to norsk, with zero control over anything and there is an entire subject area termed "spelling" just because the phonetics differ so greatly from what actually stands on the page (i.e kernel/colonol - what?), which to me is just a complete waste of kids time.
I think we all agree no one can force anything on a language, but at least having standards that are phonetic, have no exceptional rules, etc, gives you a solid reference. Of course, plenty of the standards bodies don't do this and just make it even more convoluted such as the Scharf-S rules in new germen rechtschreibung, and all the new english words copied verbatum that don't follow standard german rules, which leaves everyone just sitting there guessing...
I think we all agree no one can force anything on a language, but at least having standards that are phonetic, have no exceptional rules, etc, gives you a solid reference. Of course, plenty of the standards bodies don't do this and just make it even more convoluted such as the Scharf-S rules in new germen rechtschreibung, and all the new english words copied verbatum that don't follow standard german rules, which leaves everyone just sitting there guessing...
Isn't this just the linguistic equivalent of micro-optimization, though? There's tons of grammatical (e.g. differences in the subjunctive between verbs that use the auxiliary etre or avoir) and spelling oddities (le hanche but l'hôtel) in French, but, thank the lord, at least they've been able to keep "formage" from being an accepted alternative spelling of "fromage"!
If spelling didn't negatively affect schooling and careers, I would somewhat agree with you.
The problem would still be there for meanings. Who deicide the meaning of a word in a given context when it has become ambivalent (e.g.: biweekly)?
The problem would still be there for meanings. Who deicide the meaning of a word in a given context when it has become ambivalent (e.g.: biweekly)?
In many languages, including French, sometimes the past and present tense sound the same and are even spelled the same. The world hasn't exploded yet. People figure out ways to get their meaning across.
Also, dictionaries based on accepted usage (ask ten random native speakers whether they consider spelling ___ to be acceptable) give most of the advantages of dictionaries based on dictate (what the academy thinks).
Also, dictionaries based on accepted usage (ask ten random native speakers whether they consider spelling ___ to be acceptable) give most of the advantages of dictionaries based on dictate (what the academy thinks).
> I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation.
The Académie does that too, but people are so used to having irregular or (apparently) illogical spelling that the new spellings catch on very slowly. It works though, and today you rarely see someone write "clef" instead of "clé" or "cuiller" instead of "cuillère". A few verbs got their accents changed from "é" to "è" too, following modern pronunciation. All that was in 1990.
The Académie does that too, but people are so used to having irregular or (apparently) illogical spelling that the new spellings catch on very slowly. It works though, and today you rarely see someone write "clef" instead of "clé" or "cuiller" instead of "cuillère". A few verbs got their accents changed from "é" to "è" too, following modern pronunciation. All that was in 1990.
I think it's partly because when spelling was standardized in the 17th-18th century, it was done with a "learned" view that spelling should reflect a word's origin. So you get "doigt" for finger because of the latin digitus, the circumflex to denote an S that has become silent (hôpital vs. hospital), and even overcorrections (that have been recorrected since), like nénuphar -> nénufar (ph is used to denote places where there used to be a greek phi, but nénufar comes from Arabic)
When it comes to spelling though, they are too slow. Why do we have 'k', 'c' and 'qu' when one would suffice?
What about all the spelling we never pronouce ("ils mangent")?
If the Académie doesn't do anything about it, eventually people will create their own simplifications, and that is guaranteed to be a mess.
What about all the spelling we never pronouce ("ils mangent")?
If the Académie doesn't do anything about it, eventually people will create their own simplifications, and that is guaranteed to be a mess.
There is an ancient perception that one's own language is degraded, that the language of older literature is more vital, more robust, richer. You can find this strain of thought in English literature for hundreds of years, in French, and in classical Latin and Greek, and many other literary traditions, I'm sure.
There must be some basic cognitive bias here, like valorizing too highly the literature you loved in your youth, while discounting the creative innovations of your own age.
There must be some basic cognitive bias here, like valorizing too highly the literature you loved in your youth, while discounting the creative innovations of your own age.
Or by cherry-picking the greatest works of century-long periods and comparing them to the endless onslaught of terrible works today. That said, even if there is a selective bias, that doesn't make it any less useful to preserve backwards compatibility so we can understand those great works.
Or maybe old language looks "richer", because you can easily notice grammar used in old literature that is no longer used in modern speech, but it's very hard to spot grammar that didn't exist yet.
From France's pov, it all started as a way to centralize and wrest power away from the provinces, later as a way put France and French at the center of Europe. Having been the center of science and education for much of the middle ages, renaissance, colonial power, etc. It's hard for France to give in symbolically and allow that there are stronger influences than its own.
It's been a quixotic quest, at best, it's not as if in regular speech (French) people didn't inject whatever was the argot dujour into the speech be it domestic or foreign.
It's been a quixotic quest, at best, it's not as if in regular speech (French) people didn't inject whatever was the argot dujour into the speech be it domestic or foreign.
>Linguistic purity movements continue to strike me as largely pointless. It seems better that language evolve naturally -- as long as it remains effective as a communication medium, what is the issue?
On the one hand I agree with you. The English we use now, even when written or spoken in a grammatically perfect way, is very different to the English used a couple of hundred years ago.
On the other hand, seeing "your/you're" or "they're/their/there" used incorrectly or interchangeably rustles my jimmies immeasurably.
On the one hand I agree with you. The English we use now, even when written or spoken in a grammatically perfect way, is very different to the English used a couple of hundred years ago.
On the other hand, seeing "your/you're" or "they're/their/there" used incorrectly or interchangeably rustles my jimmies immeasurably.
Do the French really not have that problem though? It seems to me that most people know the difference between "your" and "you're", they just don't care enough to use the right variant.
Regarding your question about French, I'm not too sure. There/their/they're would be la/leur/ils sont, so perhaps there's scope for the first two to become conflated, not so much the last.
As far as I know the biggest issue French is facing is the injection of English words where there isn't a French equivalent.
Then again, French people seem to absolutely loathe the version of French spoken in Quebec so there could be a plethora of other issues involved that we don't have in English.
Regarding your second point, personally I'm not sure but ignorance certainly plays its part one way or another.
As far as I know the biggest issue French is facing is the injection of English words where there isn't a French equivalent.
Then again, French people seem to absolutely loathe the version of French spoken in Quebec so there could be a plethora of other issues involved that we don't have in English.
Regarding your second point, personally I'm not sure but ignorance certainly plays its part one way or another.
You can argue if that if languages are merely tools, then sure, why not? But it leaves out things to wonder about and be intrigued by. I am not a fan of the idea that we cannot make interesting linguistic additions to our languages any more.
And certainly not isolated to English. I find internet lingo in non-English languages far more interesting than those in English (at least when we are talking about something else than simply using the English loanword), since the Internet is largely an English-written concept, other languages are finding its incompatibilities with English difficult and the solutions can be quite interesting.
I find the anglifications of languages to be uninteresting at best, from a completely linguistic standpoint. Take a modern item like a 'vacuum cleaner', called »støvsuger« in Danish, which literally translates as 'dust sucker'. This reveals a difference in how each language's speakers think about items, words and their meanings.
If all words are English, then the languages themselves reveal nothing about our differences and how we think. Moreover, it will cause us all to think in the same way. It's documented that speaking more languages helps one think different about approaching problems, even ones not related to language. It broadens the mind. Everything being English won't broaden the mind.
And certainly not isolated to English. I find internet lingo in non-English languages far more interesting than those in English (at least when we are talking about something else than simply using the English loanword), since the Internet is largely an English-written concept, other languages are finding its incompatibilities with English difficult and the solutions can be quite interesting.
I find the anglifications of languages to be uninteresting at best, from a completely linguistic standpoint. Take a modern item like a 'vacuum cleaner', called »støvsuger« in Danish, which literally translates as 'dust sucker'. This reveals a difference in how each language's speakers think about items, words and their meanings.
If all words are English, then the languages themselves reveal nothing about our differences and how we think. Moreover, it will cause us all to think in the same way. It's documented that speaking more languages helps one think different about approaching problems, even ones not related to language. It broadens the mind. Everything being English won't broaden the mind.
It stems from fear of identity loss.
The weird thing is that in the longer turn it results in a much larger problem: irrelevance.
The weird thing is that in the longer turn it results in a much larger problem: irrelevance.
I'm not sure what "natural" evolution you're referring to. We can think of language as a natural behavior of man - a social creature that uses technology. In this case we must admit that this creature also sometimes forms language purity movements.
Right. I can almost see the case when a language is in real danger of extinction, although even then maintaining its purity might be harmful, but French is not in danger of extinction anytime soon.
Well I can feel how it's neat to have a pure version of the language. Maintaining some knowledge about languages that are/will probably die is also nice.
The most striking thing to me is how people tend to get so conservative about natural languages.
It depends, sometimes the words they invent fit quite naturally into the language and people tend to use them and sometimes they just invent something unpronounceable and obviously nobody is using those words and use the English word as a replacement instead.
Especially regarding the cyclic relationship between English and French, it's not as if both of us didn't borrow words in the past.
Here's an interesting question: How do the French decide on gender (and hence the article to use) of imported English words (same question can be asked for many of the European languages that have grammatical gender, e.g. German)? This Guardian note provides some answers (http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-125...), in French imported words are mostly masculine.
Some examples I pulled from this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-3917...) thread for the gender of Internet in various languages:
French and German native speakers: Can you provide examples of English borrowed words that have feminine gender?
Some examples I pulled from this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-3917...) thread for the gender of Internet in various languages:
* Spanish: Generally assumed to be masculine but the Real Academia Espanola page lists it as "amb", i.e. undecided gender (http://buscon.rae.es/drae/?type=3&val=internet&val_aux=&origen=REDRAE)
* Russian: Интернет - masculine
* Welsh: rhwngrwyd - feminine (but that's because "net" (rhwyd) is feminine, itself borrowed from Latin neuter rete, retis "net.")
* Czech: masculine
* Hebrew: masculine, although the more commonly used "net" (reshet) is feminine.
French and German native speakers: Can you provide examples of English borrowed words that have feminine gender?
There are actually grammar rules behind the genders… but they aren't always clear as the words have changed in the past 3000+ years, but not their gender. E.g., in German it's (very) roughly masculine for concrete objects, neutral for actions and results of actions (which can be concrete objects!), and feminine for abstract concepts, and collections of other objects.
This isn't always clear: spoon is masculine, knife neutral (the indogermanic word apparently denoted the result of sharpening something) and fork (a collection of… pointy bits?) feminine, e.g.
And with borrowed words, the gender not always universally agreed on. A processor is masculine, but a CPU or GPU is feminine (probably because unit is, too). Is an e-mail feminine (it's a highly abstract concept), or neutral (the result of writing)? Both genders are used – hash tags, however, are masculine. Letters (as in physical mail) are masculine, but mail (the concept, as in Royal Mail) is feminine… and a Letter (as in print letters) are feminine, because it's taken from French/Latin, and loan words of gendered languages usually keep their gender, even if the rules are incompatible.
Spontaneously I can't think of many "English borrowed words" that are feminine, as most words that could be loaned are already shared from French and/or Latin, which influenced German centuries earlier.
This isn't always clear: spoon is masculine, knife neutral (the indogermanic word apparently denoted the result of sharpening something) and fork (a collection of… pointy bits?) feminine, e.g.
And with borrowed words, the gender not always universally agreed on. A processor is masculine, but a CPU or GPU is feminine (probably because unit is, too). Is an e-mail feminine (it's a highly abstract concept), or neutral (the result of writing)? Both genders are used – hash tags, however, are masculine. Letters (as in physical mail) are masculine, but mail (the concept, as in Royal Mail) is feminine… and a Letter (as in print letters) are feminine, because it's taken from French/Latin, and loan words of gendered languages usually keep their gender, even if the rules are incompatible.
Spontaneously I can't think of many "English borrowed words" that are feminine, as most words that could be loaned are already shared from French and/or Latin, which influenced German centuries earlier.
If you're curious about Greek: loanwords are mostly gendered as neuter, and because their endings usually don't match Greek noun endings, are treated as opaque/invariable units that don't participate in the usual system of noun cases (meaning genitive, nominative, etc. cases are all identical and not declined). Examples: ασανσέρ (asansér, elevator, from French ascenseur), ουίσκι (ouíski, whiskey). This is especially true for recent loanwords.
Older loanwords were sometimes 'Hellenized' into a Greek ending and gender. Example: Turkish cep became Greek τσέπη (tsépi, pocket, feminine), French canapé became Greek καναπές (kanapés, couch, masculine), and Turkish pabuç became Greek παπούτσι (papoútsi, shoe, neuter). These are then declined according to the noun class they were assimilated into.
Another category are words whose ending is translated to the semantically equivalent Greek ending, for example any -ism (capitalism, communism, feminism) will become an -ισμός, which is masculine.
Older loanwords were sometimes 'Hellenized' into a Greek ending and gender. Example: Turkish cep became Greek τσέπη (tsépi, pocket, feminine), French canapé became Greek καναπές (kanapés, couch, masculine), and Turkish pabuç became Greek παπούτσι (papoútsi, shoe, neuter). These are then declined according to the noun class they were assimilated into.
Another category are words whose ending is translated to the semantically equivalent Greek ending, for example any -ism (capitalism, communism, feminism) will become an -ισμός, which is masculine.
I can comment on Italian (native speaker) and there are a few borrowed words that are feminine likely because the word they refer to is feminine, the ones I can think of are:
- e-mail / electronic mail / posta elettronica -> feminine (as posta/mail is feminine)
- Internet / rete -> feminine (as rete, [fishing] net, is feminine)
- shell -> feminine (this one I have no idea why, but it is feminine)
- library / libreria -> feminine (as libreria, as a books-library, is feminine)
- directory / cartella -> feminine (as cartella, folder, is feminine)
when I went to university back in the 90s there was definitely a push by some professors to use Italian terms for everything, which in some cases didn't work that well; one of my teachers insisted that we use 'fila' (which is feminine btw) for 'file', note that in Italian 'fila' is the translation of 'file' as in 'single file' which to me sounded quite grating.
Most people I know use the English form for the terms above, but you do see the Italian translation for them in advertising and other more 'official' forums often.
- e-mail / electronic mail / posta elettronica -> feminine (as posta/mail is feminine)
- Internet / rete -> feminine (as rete, [fishing] net, is feminine)
- shell -> feminine (this one I have no idea why, but it is feminine)
- library / libreria -> feminine (as libreria, as a books-library, is feminine)
- directory / cartella -> feminine (as cartella, folder, is feminine)
when I went to university back in the 90s there was definitely a push by some professors to use Italian terms for everything, which in some cases didn't work that well; one of my teachers insisted that we use 'fila' (which is feminine btw) for 'file', note that in Italian 'fila' is the translation of 'file' as in 'single file' which to me sounded quite grating.
Most people I know use the English form for the terms above, but you do see the Italian translation for them in advertising and other more 'official' forums often.
The german language has something called the "generic masculinum," meaning that all "workers" are male (unless you use the female version explicitly.) Some people have taken issue with that recently, i.e., they want to replace it with a generic femininum. I think it's somewhat naive to attempt to change languages like that, but hey, feel free to give it a shot.
I'm not sure what the rule for foreign words is (we have many of them, latin, greek, french, etc.), but their gender seems to be inferred from the base word (that's not a word, is it?). E.g., "internet" (and "network" respectively) is neutrum because the german word for "network" is as well. Same for "printer."
"Email" and "connection" are femininum because the german words for "mail" and "connection" are as well. I suspect that words like "email" might actually not be female, but plural (both share the same pronoun) because the german word for "mail" is one of these words that don't have a singular form (think "fish").
Oddly enough, the word "post" (in the sense of a forum post), even though it is literally the same word we have for "mail" (which is still femininum, "die Post"), is (generic?) masculinum. I guess that's what happens when multiple languages inherit a word from a language, change it over time, and then share the new words later.
Buttons are obviously male (you already know why).
Some words fall back to the generic masculinum however, even though they do have neutral german equivalents (e.g., "account"). I wish I could tell you why.
Anyway, languages are hard. Let's talk about computers instead.
---
Btw: I hate the fact that my french neighbours have a weird nationalistic attitude when it comes to their language. French isn't exactly the greatest language on this planet. (Germans get to choose between french and latin as a third language.)
I'm not sure what the rule for foreign words is (we have many of them, latin, greek, french, etc.), but their gender seems to be inferred from the base word (that's not a word, is it?). E.g., "internet" (and "network" respectively) is neutrum because the german word for "network" is as well. Same for "printer."
"Email" and "connection" are femininum because the german words for "mail" and "connection" are as well. I suspect that words like "email" might actually not be female, but plural (both share the same pronoun) because the german word for "mail" is one of these words that don't have a singular form (think "fish").
Oddly enough, the word "post" (in the sense of a forum post), even though it is literally the same word we have for "mail" (which is still femininum, "die Post"), is (generic?) masculinum. I guess that's what happens when multiple languages inherit a word from a language, change it over time, and then share the new words later.
Buttons are obviously male (you already know why).
Some words fall back to the generic masculinum however, even though they do have neutral german equivalents (e.g., "account"). I wish I could tell you why.
Anyway, languages are hard. Let's talk about computers instead.
---
Btw: I hate the fact that my french neighbours have a weird nationalistic attitude when it comes to their language. French isn't exactly the greatest language on this planet. (Germans get to choose between french and latin as a third language.)
Grammatical gender in German isn't really arbitrary; it is usually determined by the word's suffix (though there are plenty of exceptions). For example, computer is grammatically male in German, like most words ending in -er.
Things can get complicated if a loanword does not have a suffix that exists in German (or is reasonably close to an existing suffix). In this case, you may get regional variations (that can be pretty random) or the grammatical gender of the German translation of the loanword may be adopted instead.
Examples of feminine loanwords: E-Mail (because the word "Post" in German is feminine), URL (because words ending in -el tend to be feminine).
Things can get complicated if a loanword does not have a suffix that exists in German (or is reasonably close to an existing suffix). In this case, you may get regional variations (that can be pretty random) or the grammatical gender of the German translation of the loanword may be adopted instead.
Examples of feminine loanwords: E-Mail (because the word "Post" in German is feminine), URL (because words ending in -el tend to be feminine).
> E-Mail (because the word "Post" in German is feminine)
Tell that to the Schluchtenscheißer, they insist it's neutral.
Tell that to the Schluchtenscheißer, they insist it's neutral.
As I said, there can be regional variations, but most people classify E-Mail as feminine, not neuter [1].
[1] http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/E_Mail
[1] http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/E_Mail
In German: E-Mail, URL, CD-ROM, and Jeans are usually feminine, for example.
Basically, whenever a noun (or the core of a compound noun) has a direct (or close) translation to a frequently used noun in German, then it's quite common for its gender to "bleed" over into the English loanword.
So in the examples above, Mail → Post, URL → Verbindung, CD-ROM → Platte, Jeans → Hose, etc.
Basically, whenever a noun (or the core of a compound noun) has a direct (or close) translation to a frequently used noun in German, then it's quite common for its gender to "bleed" over into the English loanword.
So in the examples above, Mail → Post, URL → Verbindung, CD-ROM → Platte, Jeans → Hose, etc.
There are regional variances: In Québec, we say "une job", but in France they use "un job", but it's "un suprise party" here, versus "une surprise party" in France.
Sometimes, when the translation is obvious, we'll use the gender of the original word, e.g. "une backdoor" (porte dérobée).
Sometimes, when the translation is obvious, we'll use the gender of the original word, e.g. "une backdoor" (porte dérobée).
in France I think we choose the gender of the french word when possible, otherwise it seems to default to masculine?
un job -> because of "un emploi, un boulot, un travail"
une [surprise] party -> because of "une fête"
un hashtag -> masculine because we don't see an "e" at the end??
un job -> because of "un emploi, un boulot, un travail"
une [surprise] party -> because of "une fête"
un hashtag -> masculine because we don't see an "e" at the end??
(French here). The only one I can think of is that a lot of people are saying "La WiFi" (feminine) instead of "Le WiFi" (masculine). For some brands, it can also be quite random since all the game consoles I can think of are using the feminine gender.
La box (as in settop box), la playstation, la RAM...
Seems like they take on the gender of the transliterated word.
Seems like they take on the gender of the transliterated word.
I will start a tumblr account dedicated to news published all arround the year that are april-fools-worthy.
I grew up in France and my favorite (french) literature teacher (and best one, IMO) once told me that it was in the nature of languages to evolve. This was especially true with French as a result of the abondance of cultural exchanges throughout the centuries.
Over the years, French has had influences from many languages including Arabic, e.g. the word "Abricot" (the fruit) comes from that language. It also provides an indication as of where a given new word has been originated.
He also said that it is up to the people to dictate the usage of new words. Some new words have been suggested by the Académie Française to replace words that had been taken from other languages. But in the end, if people dont use that replacement, then it is the (foreign) word that will be adopted in the dictionary.
He gave the example of "shopping", a word taken from the English and widely used in France but reluctantly used in Quebec for cultural (political?) reasons.
Over the years, French has had influences from many languages including Arabic, e.g. the word "Abricot" (the fruit) comes from that language. It also provides an indication as of where a given new word has been originated.
He also said that it is up to the people to dictate the usage of new words. Some new words have been suggested by the Académie Française to replace words that had been taken from other languages. But in the end, if people dont use that replacement, then it is the (foreign) word that will be adopted in the dictionary.
He gave the example of "shopping", a word taken from the English and widely used in France but reluctantly used in Quebec for cultural (political?) reasons.
> accès sans fil à l’Internet
Replacing an English word with a phrase containing an English word.
Hard to imagine why it failed to catch on.
Replacing an English word with a phrase containing an English word.
Hard to imagine why it failed to catch on.
Add to that, "wi-fi" doesn't imply "internet access".
So...they surrendered?
- #, the "croisillon" sign (hash)
- ♯, the "dièse" sign (sharp)
Therefore the literal translation should be "mot-croisillon", not "mot-dièse".
And on the subject of the the Académie Française, the Commission générale de terminologie et de néologie and the Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France (DGLFLF), the problem is that they often try to find translations to words that, in my opinion, shouldn't be translated.
For example, the DGLFLF has a website [0] where people can suggest french translations for english words. Here are some words from the website that it is pointless to try to translate:
- BitTorrent
- barcamp
- Facebook
As a result, the proposed translations are often ridiculous (filoutage, langage à objets, offre groupée).
Another problem is that the people working there are not technology-fluent. That's why they come up with wrong translations such as "accès sans fil à l’Internet" ("access without wire to the Internet") for Wi-Fi, which is incorrect as a Wi-Fi connexion does not always imply an Internet connexion.
That said, some english words have a great french translation :
- firewall -> part-feu
- mailing-list -> liste de diffusion
- byte -> octet
[0]: https://wikilf.culture.fr/