In the office of Amin Maalouf at the Institute, time has no catch. An imposing table by André Devambez represents the Immortals in 1935. We recognize Paul Valéry, Bergson or Mauriac, but also Marshal Pétain. The perpetual secretary receives us under a portrait of Valentin Conrart, the man who founded the French Academy in 1635, with the blessing of Louis XIII and Richelieu. No offense to the sneers who see in it a beautiful asleep, the company did not remain frozen in the 17th century. She has always been able to record the evolution of our language and embrace the intellectual and aesthetic currents of her time, whether the lights in the 18th century with Voltaire or romanticism in the 19th century with Victor Hugo. What is its role in the 21st century? Continue to be a referee. Alas, the Moderns rely less in her opinion than we did under Napoleon.
A few months ago, the Academy had published an exciting brochure entitled Let’s not be afraid to speak French (Plon). Going unnoticed, this almost pamphleteer text prefaced with finesse by Dominique Bona aimed at institutional communication, gangrenous by an often ridiculous franglais – how to take a slogan like “Sarthe Me Up” seriously? Six academicians (Dominique Bona, the late Gabriel de Broglie, Florence Delay, Danièle Sallenave, Michael Edwards and Amin Maalouf) had taken the time to identify the most heartbreaking examples of recent years. The profane learns to this reading the existence of a commission for the enrichment of the French language (CELF), chaired by Frédéric Vitoux and placed under the authority of the Prime Minister, which aims to invent new words to counter the invasion of English – CELF suggests for example info instead of fake news. Despite our attachment to the language of Molière, is it not illusory to believe that such a dam can resist the ever stronger pressure of foreign terms?
Faced with us, Amin Maalouf is less pessimistic: “We must not throw in the towel! We can try to stem this flow, to rectify certain terms a little, try to find equivalents that the 300 million current French speakers could adopt. We all know that it is a difficult fight, but there are words that take. For example software won with us against software. Computer replaced compute While we said for a long time compute in the French press. In the same way, we said a long time sportsman Before someone finds the word sporty. We must persevere, even if we do not have an immense power … “
In his preface, Dominique Bona rightly recalls that there is an issue of civilization. When France already has 2.5 million people in illiteracy, is it necessary to add confusion? “The use of English creates inequalities within society, according to the levels of study, training, education, she writes. Social inequalities, which aggravate a split between generations-the oldest, for the most part, are destitute in the face of this surge. The abuse of anglicisms is intended essentially and unfairly to an elite. However. write it. An opinion shared by Amin Maalouf: “Dominique Bona is perfectly reason. It is abnormal that a company resigns and resigns itself to accept modernity only through a foreign language. We have a duty to offer all our fellow citizens, especially to the oldest, the possibility of staying in the blow, of not being cut off from the evolution of the world while being able to use their language. All the terms that are produced by our time.”
Emmanuel Macron and the managerial brother
In parallel with Let’s not be afraid to speak Frenchthe other editorial news of the French Academy is the new version of Say, don’t say (Philippe Rey). We remember that it was the Grand Yves Pouliquen who had created the section “say, not to say” on the Academy’s website, before a book was fired. Edition after edition, this essential manual continues to expand – it now has more than 700 pages. With precision, erudition and humor, academicians point to our misuse of certain expressions and regularly make fun of the abundance of Anglo-Saxon terms in everyday language. In a particularly enlightening entry, “Tiberius and Anglicisms”, they refer us to reading the Lives of the Twelve Caesars de Suetone, where this portrait of the Roman emperor is brushed, in power there are two millennia: “Whatever he spoke Greek fluently and without difficulty, Tiberius did not make use of it indifferently everywhere, and especially abstain from it in the Senate, to the point that before pronouncing the word monopolyhe apologized for being forced to resort to a foreign term. Another time, as he had, during the reading of a senatus-consultant, heard the word overlaphe declared that it was necessary to replace this term and to seek a Latin word to substitute it for this foreign term, or, if one did not find it, translate the thing even in several words, by using a periphrase. “It cannot be said that contemporary politicians are embarrassed by the same linguistic requirement …
A man is symptomatic of our time when the managerial brother is put to all sauces: Emmanuel Macron. Is her international city of the French language, inaugurated in 2023 in Villers-Cotterêts,, isn’t it a total betrayal of the heritage of François I? Articles 110 and 111 of his famous ordinance imposed French in all acts of legal scope of the administration and justice of the kingdom. Has the man of Chambord appreciated the “start-up nation”? With the leniency and the art of diplomacy that characterize it, Amin Maalouf does not enter into controversy: “We cannot compare eras … François I was probably thought of Latin, regional languages. The relationship between languages was different. Today, we are confronted with another situation. We can give in to the fashion of English: there is a form of snobbery that Give the impression of being more connected. These are sociological and cultural phenomena that we know well … I am a bit of a Beotian on this subject but, through readings, I discovered that the most cultivated Romans liked to be expressed in Greek and discuss in this language – surely by snobbery, there too. to call paiddhaha Persian term. There are strange ties between languages … What happens today is special but, when we look for well, there have always been complicated relationships, especially between the language of the conquering country and that of the conquered country. The case of Rome is surprising: the conqueror had been conquered by the culture of the conquered country. ”
As a conclusion to our conversation, the perpetual secretary of Lebanese origin, raised among the Jesuits in Beirut in the cult of our language, recalls an essay on his former colleague Marc Fumaroli, When Europe spoke French. The 18th century is far away. If he still lived, Fumaroli could write When France speaks franglais. It is not inexorable.
Let’s not be afraid to speak French. By the French Academy. Plon, 109 p., € 12.
Say, not to say. Good use of the French language. By the French Academy. Philippe Rey, 743 p., 27 €.
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