It’s crazy how you just have to pronounce a word to return to a past decade, with its clothing fashions, its music, its emblematic films… Say “yéyé”, for example, and immediately Johnny Halliday, Eddy Mitchell or Dick Rivers appear, surnames revealing the craze of the well-named sixties for music from the United States. Also think about the Minitel, roller skates or even the floppy disk! Because it is a fact: language has always varied over time and expressed in its own way the society in which it is part.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE THIS NEWSLETTER AUTOMATICALLY? >> Click here
It is to this formidable theme that the linguist Mathieu Avanzi, specialist in French variation*, devotes to Editions le Robert in a richly illustrated book: The Fabulous Destiny of Words**. Centered on the last sixty years, it offers us an astonishing panorama of developments in France. Here are some examples:
Feminist demands. Women’s liberation movements have brought several new terms to our common language, starting with those designating the adversary. “Machismo” appeared in 1971 via Spanish macho (from Latin masculus, “male”), “sexist” in 1970 (forged on the model of “racist”). “Sorority” (bond of solidarity between women), an almost forgotten term from Middle French, was relaunched with some success from 1970. The same is true of “feminicide”, attested from 1855, but whose The use did not really become widespread until 1992.
The rise in the standard of living. The equipment of the house testifies to the tremendous enrichment that the majority of French people have experienced since the post-war period. From “dishwasher” (1969) to “microwave oven” (1969) via “home cinema” (1995) and the “video recorder” (1961) – from which we learn that it “eliminated its competitor videographer”…
The consumer society… “Supermarket”, with its cousins “supermarket” and “hypermarket”, testifies to the exaltation and, sometimes, consumer madness to which we have collectively given in for half a century.
…and leisure activities. Over time, many French people have discovered the pleasures of “schuss”, “kite surfing” or “paddle”. A movement favored by the rise of holidays (old term) and “RTT” (neologism!).
The ecological crisis. Terms formed from the prefixes “bio” – such as “biomass” (1966) – and “eco” – such as “greenwashing”, “ecosystem” and the abbreviation “ecolo” (1970) – illustrate the growing environmental concerns of the ‘public opinion. A movement that continues today, with words with negative connotations like “ecoanxiety” or “climaticide”, and other bearers of hope such as “carbon neutrality” or “upcycling”.
Ideological conflicts. He who becomes master of the story wins the wars, they say. Hence a proliferation of new terms with, for example, “molarchy”, to criticize the regime of the mullahs, or “ethnocide” to denounce the annihilation of an ethnic group and its civilization. The struggles that are tearing the world apart have also brought us jihad (“effort”, in Arabic) or intifada (“uprising”) and – more rarely – positive concepts like perestroika (“reconstruction”, in Russian).
The economic crisis. “Over-indebtedness”, “poor housing”, “microcredit”, “precariousness”, “RMI”, “RSA”, “SDF”… The surge in unemployment has been accompanied by a rather bleak neological rise to describe the poverty affecting a part of the population, but also the attempts to respond to it.
Computerization. The transition to the digital age has been accompanied by a multitude of technical terms, often in English (bug, cookie, webcam, e-sport), but not always (“format”, “Internet user”, “software”, without forgetting “computer”, often abbreviated to “computer”). Our dependence on new technologies is such that an unknown disease has appeared: “nomophobia”, in other words the fear of having to live a few hours without a cell phone.
The new contours of the family. Between the creation of “Pacs”, the explosion of “single-parent” families and the development of “homoparentality” (sometimes following a coming out), our lexicon illustrates the incredible transformations that the family has undergone over the last sixty years.
American influence. Since the post-war period, the United States has dominated the mental universe of the French. Music is one of the witnesses, with the craze for “rock” and “pop” – we come back to that. Television often serves as a relay, which multiplies talk shows, sitcoms and others breaking newspreferably in prime time…
FIND VIDEOS DEDICATED TO FRENCH AND THE LANGUAGES OF FRANCE ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
* He became known for his inventive books devoted to regionalisms, notably his Atlas of French in our regions (Armand Colin) and his site French from our regions.
** The Fabulous Destiny of Wordsunder the direction of Mathieu Avanzi. The Robert.
READ ELSEWHERE
The same Mathieu Avanzi launched the Dis voir! application, a participatory platform which highlights the richness of the varieties of French practiced in French-speaking Switzerland, where he now teaches. This unique initiative invites users to record their voice to populate a sound atlas, to guess typically French-speaking words and to test their ability to recognize regional accents. A popularization blogwhere short articles are published on linguistic phenomena specific to French spoken in Switzerland, accompanies the project.
“Airport”, “hypermarket”, “miniskirt”, “rap”… On a theme close to that treated by Mathieu Avanzi, Larousse editions had the good idea of selecting 300 entries which, each in their own way, reveal the evolution of France since 1905. A collective work that is both fun and intelligent.
From hairy to metaverse. Larousse.
Arcom opposes a 100% Breton radio station
Radio Breizh had submitted, in March 2024, a file to the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) to obtain a frequency and create a station 100% in the Breton language. But Arcom preferred another project, which provoked a reaction from the cultural association coordination of Brittany Kevre Breizh, which emphasizes that French-language radio stations “are very numerous”. Drawing on various international conventions which establish fundamental human rights in the linguistic fielde, eIt is considering legal appeals against the decision.
“There is only one generation left to save the Corsican”
“In twenty-five years, there will still be people capable of speaking Corsican. But I sincerely think that we only have one generation left before Corsican is no longer a living language.” Such is the pessimistic analysis of Marceddu Jureczek, associate professor of Corsica, who nevertheless notes a very strong desire among the islanders to speak and learn it. “This language fills a void, that of identity,” he continues. “Language is a key to entering the community.”
Latin allows you to better master French. Latin makes it easier to master Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and all Romance languages. Latin is no longer the mother tongue and therefore has the advantage of neutrality. These are some of the arguments in this plea in favor of the return of the language of Cicero to the common core of secondary education in France.
Latin at school! by Thibaut Sallenave, Luigi-Alberto Sanchi and Cécilia Suzzoni. Fayard.
Who knows the Sarthois language? Not many people. And yet… The Heulâ association, which works to promote it, has collected several dozen texts written on the theme of the festival by passionate speakers of this langue d’oïl which suffers from its proximity to French.
Heulâ!… It’s a party, collective. Libra Diffusion.
Frédéric Mistral and the school
This will be the theme of the conference organized by the Association for the Teaching of the Langue d’Oc (AELOC) on December 7 in La Penne-sur-Huveaune (Bouches-du-Rhône). As part of the Mistral year, conferences, debates and exhibitions will be dedicated to the great Provençal poet.
The Great French Language Quiz
Should we write “nightmare” or “nightmare”? “Misogyny” or “mysogyny”? “Dionysus” or “Dyonisos”? Here are some of the hundreds of questions designed by Julien Soulié for this great French language quiz.
The Grand Quiz of the French language, by Julien Soulié. The literary Figaro
TO LISTEN
Language to language, the literary podcast that tours the world
Each language opens up to a particular culture and relationship to the world. The Langue à langue podcast, by Margot Greillier, meets those who, through their profession, are constantly navigating between two languages. An example here with Michel Volkovitch, translator of Greek, but also speaker of French, English and Russian.
TO WATCH
Mistral, global superstar… except in Paris
Even today, Frédéric Mistral is read, translated and studied throughout the world. From Japan to Brazil, from opera to cinema, Frédéric Mistral – who, during his lifetime, interacted with the President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt – is a global superstar. And, finally, it is undoubtedly in Paris that he is the most ignored. One hundred and twenty years after his Nobel Prize in literature and one hundred and ten years after his death, the great Provencal poet, a decisive actor in the renaissance of the langue d’oc in the 19th century, is the subject of a very well-deserved report by the emission Living in the Country.
The Gallic origins of the names of our watercourses
The Rhône, “the great current”. The Loire, “silty water”, but also the Ain, the Var or the Doubs… Many rivers, rivers and streams have names from Gaulish, explains here Jacques Lacroix, associate professor, doctors of letters and civilizations and fervent defender of our Celtic heritage.
REACT, DEBATE AND FIND MORE INFORMATION ON THE LANGUAGES OF FRANCE ON the Facebook page dedicated to this newsletter
.