Depending on one’s mood, one can find the situation baroque, absurd, sympathetic or scandalous. Still, the facts are the facts: there are no linguists at the French Academy! And it is not the recent arrival of Raphaël Gaillard, on March 25, which will change the situation.
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Let’s get along well. It is in no way a question of contesting the intellectual qualities of this recognized psychiatrist nor those of the other members of this august assembly. From the historian Pierre Nora to the philosopher Sylviane Agacinski via the biologist Jules Hoffmann, the State Councilor Marc Lambron or the writers Patrick Grainville, Dany Laferrière and Amin Maalouf – in particular – the immortals are generally great minds . But the aberration remains: the main institution governing our language has no indisputable French expert, that is to say, scholars familiar with the structures of the language and its evolution.
Two arguments are generally put forward to justify this paradoxical situation. First of all, immortals can rely on the “dictionary service”, which brings together numerous aggregates of letters and grammar. Furthermore, assures Patrick Vannier, member of the said service, “the academicians who sit on the dictionary commission are closely interested in the question and have ended up gaining in competence”. We have no doubt about it, but I am not sure that the same Patrick Vannier would agree to be operated on by a surgeon without a diploma who we assure him is “closely interested in the question and ended up gaining in skill”…
The worst thing is that the institution is not really trying to change the situation. As reported by L’Express, a leading politician, Laurent Fabius, and a renowned sailor, Isabelle Autissier, were approached for this last election. Two very talented personalities, certainly, but whose lexicographical skills have never impressed anyone. On the other hand, despite two attempts, Jean Pruvost, undoubtedly the best connoisseur of French-speaking dictionaries, university professor of language sciences, lexicologist and historian of the French language, has still not been dubbed… Not enough to shake the writer Jean-Marie Rouart, chair no. 26: “I have respect for Jean Pruvost. However, it is not linguists who make language, but Rabelais, Voltaire and Hugo.”
History partly explains this incongruity, analyzes academician Michel Zink, himself a medievalist and philologist. “For centuries, the Academy was made up of a majority of writers, accompanied by a small circle of politicians, aristocrats, ecclesiastics and soldiers. This did not pose any difficulties until At the end of the 19th century, when the science of language was developing, suddenly the immortals were confronted with scholars who, although neither writers nor from the best families, were nevertheless more competent. than them.”
One of these academics, Gaston Paris, ended up entering the Dome in 1896. And wrote in substance: there are certainly brilliant people in this assembly, but they know neither how language works nor how it evolves. This will be demonstrated by the resounding failure of the Grammar published by the Academy in 1932, criticized by critics for its mediocrity. However, we cannot say that it was botched. It has been awaited since… the creation of the Institution, in 1635!
It is obviously desirable that the Academy does not reduce itself to an assembly of specialists and welcomes novelists, poets, prose writers and essayists with open arms. But, since it publishes a dictionary (at its own pace, the last edition dates from 1935…) and regularly pronounces itself on questions such as inclusive writing, anglicisms or spelling reform, is it really absurd to wish to find some recognized experts on the subject there? “In 2015at the time of the debate on the feminization of profession names, academician Erik Orsenna declared thatwriter was to be avoided because we hear vainwithout realizing that in writerwe also hear vain. He simply hadn’t thought of it!” recalls linguist Maria Candea.
One example among others which should help us understand this simple idea: the absence of linguists at the Academy ultimately harms the institution itself.
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