Everyone knows it, or feels it: languages are the expression of a sensitivity, of a certain relationship to the world, of a particular outlook on life. In this, they are a treasure for all humanity.
However, France allows its exceptional linguistic wealth to sink into general indifference. If nothing is done, most of our so-called “regional” languages will have disappeared by the end of the century, according to Unesco. As for our national idiom, it is certainly not threatened, but it is often abused, in particular by our collective mania for Anglicisms.
This letter is therefore intended to support the weaker languages against the stronger ones. To simultaneously protect French against Anglo-American, but also Corsican, Picard and Breton against French, when the latter becomes overwhelming.
For languages to live. All the languages.
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“That’s not a chance“.
“I bought some apricots and sugar in the store the closest”.
“In algebrathe teacher told us about algorithms“.
“He spread out on the sofa and left me on the stool ; it is from one petty !”
“At the café opposite, a blonde in skirt was sipping a lemonade“.
Perhaps you guessed it: all the words indicated in italics come from Arabic. And these are just a few examples; with around 500 terms, this language is the one from which French has borrowed the most, after English and Italian! An influence due to multiple causes, which I am going to summarize here by drawing inspiration from the excellent work devoted to this subject by the linguist Jean Pruvost with a title that may seem provocative: Our ancestors the Arabs (1) (he will soon offer an equivalent book on Italian).
The prestige of Arab civilization. Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo… In the Middle Ages, Muslim expansion led to the creation of urban centers of great influence. And as often in such cases, this particularly brilliant company exports part of their vocabulary. It is then that French integrates terms used to designate products previously unknown to us, such as cotton, orange where the satin. These “necessary” borrowings are sometimes accompanied by “superfluous” borrowings in the sense that certain terms are only added to already existing words. Algarade “quarrel” competition; baraka“chance” ; through, “intermediate” ; And so on.
Scientific advance. Still, benzene, figure, chemistry, tar, welded, zenith, zero… The technical and scientific innovations of the Arabs of this period can still be observed in our contemporary vocabulary, in the first place in the field of the hard sciences. But there are other examples elsewhere. Around the year 1000, Cordoba was thus one of the most populated cities in Europe and possessed an extraordinary library where philosophers, poets, doctors and scholars from all over the world flocked. Its craftsmen, who excel in leather work, have offered us our shoemaker…
The key role of Spain. As this last example shows, Spain, dominated for seven centuries by Muslims, served as a privileged relay between Arabic and French. It is through him that we imported apricot (of al barquqwhich became in Castilian albaricoque), alcove (Arab al qubbaCastilian alcoba) Or swagger (Arab farfarSpanish braggadocio). A list to which we could add artichoke, eggplant, cumin, turmeric, spinach, jasmine, watermelon Or saffron. This rule is also verified for some proper nouns. Gibraltar is none other than the Jebel Tareqthe “mountain of Tarik”, named after the general of Berber origin who conquered the peninsula in 711, while the Guadalquivir corresponds to the wadi el-kebir (the great river).
Colonization. The conquest of Algeria, from 1830, will reactivate exchanges between the two languages. In particular, we have inherited from this period a lexicon relating to the administrative organization (bey, sheik, zouave) and gastronomy (couscous, mechoui, merguez, harissa, tajine). Above all, we still have many terms from the colloquial register, from dogs (of klabin Maghrebi Arabic) to nouba (originally a “music played in turn”, hence the notion of “party”) through bled, Caoua, blurry (of flowmoney) or crazy. It should be noted, however, that if all these words have entered the French language by Algeria, they were not necessarily invented in Algeria. This is particularly the case of bribea term of Turkish origin meaning “gift” or “tip”.
Immigration. For sixty years, it is the massive arrival of Pieds-noirs and immigrants from the Maghreb that maintains this current. It is through this that to like (to like), wow (nothing) or wech (“hello”, “how are you?”) have spread to a large part of the French-speaking world.
Through these two languages, it is indeed two great high-ranking cultures that rub shoulders. So let’s end this article on a humanistic note, and let’s dream. Let us dream that beyond the real tensions that agitate our societies, our country does not reduce Arabic to poor and sometimes problematic immigration, but also considers it a language of civilization, in the same way as Latin, Greek or Chinese. So that French and Arabic continue to enrich each other, as they have done since the High Middle Ages.
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(1) Our ancestors the Arabs, by Jean Pruvost. Editions Jean-Claude Lattes.
READ ELSEWHERE
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Head to Nîmes for the Occitan Summer University
Language policy issues will be at the heart of the next Occitan summer university in Nîmes, which takes place from July 7 to 11. Round tables and conferences will be devoted to the place of so-called regional languages in the public space. I will have the pleasure of participating on Friday July 7th.
TO WATCH
At the beginning of the 20th century, the philanthropic banker Albert Kahn was convinced of this: human civilizations were going to disappear, swept away by the great winds of globalization. He also sent photographers around the world to record the habits and customs of threatened populations, including in France. The proof with these testimonies collected by Christian Casassus – in Gascon, subtitled in French – in the Bearn Pyrenees on the occasion of the exhibition Ossau 1920, which is being held this summer at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau and in the villages of the Ossau valley where these wonderful autochromes (the first color photos) were taken a hundred years ago.
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