People will say that I’m asking myself strange questions, but I would like to know how the dictionaries of Taliban Afghanistan define the words “marriage”, “freedom” or “disbeliever”. That said, you just need to stay in France and go back a few centuries to sometimes be surprised. Do you know, for example, what could be read at the entrance to the word “woman” in one of the very first works devoted to the French language, published in 1690 by Furetière? This: “Reasonable creature made by the hand of God to keep man company.” Such as !
Yes… We often believe that dictionaries give the “true” meaning of words but, in reality, these large volumes are never neutral. Because they are written by people born at a given time in a particular social environment, they inevitably reflect the representations of the society in which they are part, as recalled in the excellent book just written by two linguists, Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus and Christophe Rey (1), in which I found the previous example.
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Let us qualify: this remark does not apply to purely “technical” terms. “Rope”, “pen”, “table” don’t really pose a problem. Everything changes as soon as we approach social issues in the broad sense because it is extremely difficult to objectively characterize terms like “Arab”, “ecoterrorism”, “homosexual”, “Jew”, “liberal”, “migrant”, “Black” or “reactionary”. In many cases, the approaches proposed are imbued with subjectivity and, in this matter, time obviously plays a major role. In Larousse, a woman is today defined as a “human being of the female sex”. Furetière must be turning in his grave!
The same goes for everything that concerns the sacred, especially in our country, which was for a long time an absolute monarchy by divine right. In the first edition of the dictionary of the French Academy, published in 1694, “God” was thus presented as “The first and sovereign being through whom all others are & subsist”, knowing that the God of Christians was obviously opposed to others. “God. He is still abusively spoken of by the false Divinities that the Pagans adored.” Furetière – who was an abbot – was no stranger to defining “religion”. “The true Religion is the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman. All the cults of false Gods are only superstition, only called Religion improperly.” It is an understatement to say that we are no longer there since in 2025, the same Academy dictionary indicates very soberly: “In monotheistic religions (with a capital letter). Supreme power, transcendent and personal being, creator of the universe.”
We suspect: the relationship with other peoples is not spared by the phenomenon. “Negro. Name given especially to the inhabitants of certain regions of Africa, Guinea, Senegambia, Kafrerie, etc., who form a race of black men, inferior in intelligence to the white race”, could -we read in the Complete dictionary of the French language by Pierre Laroussepublished in 1875. Today we find from the same publisher: “Negro. Aged, often racist. Person whose skin is dark. (The frequently racist connotation of this word means that it has been supplanted by the term Black).”
Many other populations have been poorly treated by “reference works”. This is particularly the case of “Turks”, whose name has long been used to designate Muslims in general. “Turk. Who is from Turkey. The Turks are avaricious, brutal, perfidious, scoundrels & without faith”, writes Richelet in his dictionary of 1680. The Arabs are not entitled to better treatment in the first edition of the dictionary of the French Academy of 1694: “A miser who plunders everything, who demands more than Justice.” A cliché that we also attribute to Jews, of course. “Jew. We also call a usurer, a Merchant who deceives or who ransoms, a Jew because the Jews are great usurers, thieves and deceivers”, writes Furetière again, decidedly not inspired by Christian charity.
Also revealing is the evolution of “bourgeois”. In the 17th century, for the Academy it was simply a “citizen living in a city” but also a “man who is not of the Court” (as opposed to a nobleman). It was from 1935, in the midst of the class struggle, that the Immortals changed their position: “Also said, as opposed to “worker”, of a Man who does not work with his hands.” The rise of communism obviously has nothing to do with it.
Do not believe, however, that these differences are reserved for the past. Even today, dictionaries do not always agree with each other. Thus “wokism” is described as a “movement” by Robert but as an “ideology” by Larousse. The latter further indicates that this current of thought is “sometimes perceived as attacking republican universalism” – a reference absent from his colleague.
Likewise, we will be surprised to find in 2025 as synonyms for “prattler” (“person who is used to talking a lot, exaggerating, promising, boasting”): “Bordelais”, “Gascon”, “Marseillais ” or “Méridional”, on the website of the very famous National Center for Textual and Lexical Resources (CNRTL). The term “Gascon” even has the “honor” of also being cited on the online version of Robert. So many traces of a historical contempt of Paris towards the inhabitants of the South (2).
Conclusion ? Let us love dictionaries, let us consult them with passion, with love, with delight. But let us remember that they are carried out by beings of flesh and blood, who dedicate themselves to them with the greatest seriousness, of course, but always with a singular sensitivity. And let us keep in mind that, in all eras and in all latitudes, language is and will remain an ideological battle.
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(1) Go look in the dictionary if I’m there, what dictionaries say about our societies, by Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus and Christophe Rey (Editions de l’atelier).
(2) According to the historian Nicolas Lebourg, the word “racism” was applied for the first time to express alarm at the “submersion” by the southern French of “northern France of Gallic stock” (See in particular The World, dated October 31-November 2, 2021).
Read elsewhere
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This will undoubtedly surprise many, but in Brittany, the most widely spoken regional language is not Breton, but Gallo, a Latin language present in the east of the region. In 2024, in fact, around 107,000 people spoke Breton and 132,000 Gallo, according to the sociolinguistic survey carried out in the five departments of historic Brittany, presented on January 20. These figures are down sharply compared to the previous survey in 2018, where they were around 200,000 people in each of the two cases. Proof if any were needed that France must absolutely change its linguistic policy if it truly intends to preserve its minority languages.
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Behind this seemingly innocuous choice lie subtle tensions between linguistic developments and the desire to express social rank, underlines Kilien Stengel, teacher-researcher specializing in gastronomic and food discourses. Where we learn in particular that “bon appetit” has long been considered inappropriate in polite society…
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What if, in reality, the Gauls knew how to write?
Nearly 800 Gallic inscriptions have been recorded to date by specialists, it being understood that “our ancestors” used the Greek alphabets (since the creation of Marseille, in particular), then Latin (after the Roman conquest).
How Duolingo Became the Queen of Language Learning Apps
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The Corsican language soon to be official during masses?
The University of Corsica proposed to Monseigneur Bustillo, bishop of Corsica and cardinal, that the Bible and the Missal be translated into the Corsican language in agreement with the ecclesiastical authorities. An unexpected fallout from the Pope’s recent visit to the island.
Conference in Cannes on January 31 “Let’s have fun with the French language”
Why do we say “grandmother” and not “grandmother”? And why do we say “eighty” and not “three-score”? These are some of the questions I will answer on January 31. Meet at 6 p.m. at the Noailles media library, 1 avenue Jean de Noailles, in Cannes. Free entry.
To listen
When France Inter denounces the discrimination it practices…
Southern, Alsatian or Guadeloupean accents: one in two French people speak with an accent and many of them experience mockery, even discrimination when hiring, this France Inter program rightly highlights. All that remains for public radio is to draw the consequences in its recruitment…
To watch
I didn’t know it, but BFMTV highlights Nissart on its channels. Certainly mixed with French and on BFM Nice, but all the same.
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