Ah, the bombastic language of Precious ridiculous ! What material of choice for comedians! Molière was not mistaken, who devoted a successful play to them, the title of which says it all. The reality, however, is much more complex.
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Admittedly, there existed, in the middle of the 17th century, a coherent group of women, meeting in the salon of Madame de Scudéry, whose major concern consisted in distinguishing themselves, in particular through language. And it must be recognized: these ladies were not lacking in imagination. Judge instead.
In their jargon, we did not “do our hair”; we messed up the hair. We weren’t saying “nonsense”; had distant lights Or thick intelligence. We did not “give birth”; we felt the repercussions of permitted love. With them, the “hat” was the challenger of time ; the “breasts”, love pads ; the mirror”, the Counselor of Graces; a ship”, a floating and winged house; the “poet” was called the infant of the muses while the common men in charge of carrying them on the sedan chairs were only baptized mules.
For a long time, we stopped there, contenting ourselves with laughing at these aristocrats who seemed to want to put reality at a distance, seeking avoidance at all costs and erecting through the lexicon a system of defense against the materiality of a world visibly too frightening for these delicate natures.
Is it so simple? No, tell us today the historians of the language, who have looked carefully at this period. “It seems obvious that this movement included a playful dimension which is not unrelated to the subsequent linguistic delusions of surrealism, Oulipo and our suburbs”, underlines Gilles Siouffi, professor of classical and modern French at La Sorbonne. (1).
A writing system without double consonants
It is also possible to analyze the movement of the Precious ones as one of the first manifestos of feminism in history, claiming for “the weaker sex” access to an education of which they were often deprived. At that time, in fact, women, forbidden from Latin, had no chance of mastering a spelling deliberately inspired by Cicero and Livy. Despite this, they claimed the right to speak out on language issues. Some have gone so far as to develop a simplified writing system by removing double consonants, diphthongs and other letters quiescent (those that we write but do not hear). A system that will be found a little later in certain spelling reformers such as L’Esclache and Lartigaut.
Go further. By claiming their freedom, by affirming their desire to have their own vocabulary, the Précieuses questioned the will of the central power to impose, via the French Academy, the establishment of a single and unique “good use “. “They sought to shift the language, to take it out of a simplistic functioning which would like each word to correspond to a single object or a single notion”, notes Gilles Siouffi (2). An attitude that will obviously not have the good fortune to please everyone and will in turn provoke negative reactions.
While the influence of an objectively marginal group should not be exaggerated, it is therefore wrong that this movement has long been reduced to simple feminine extravagances, supposed to reflect the supposed characteristics of their genre: emotionality, sentimentality, affectation, mannerism, sentimentality, etc.
The most astonishing thing is that our contemporary French still bears traces of these Precious. It was they, for example, who popularized the adverbs in -ment, so common today. Furiously, terribly, devilishly passed in their time for eccentricities! They too who, by evoking the necessary Or the brilliance of thought, began to use adjectives as common nouns. They again who have introduced expressions that we use without thinking about it, like make advances Or my arms fall away. Finally, they who have modified the pronunciation of certain words. “They were looking to replace the letter -a, which they considered vulgar insofar as it forced you to open your mouth, with e-, supposedly more elegant”, specifies Gilles Siouffi. the old damsel has thus given way in front of “damsel”, just like to cure disappeared in favor of “healing”.
And that’s how we talk about Precious without knowing it…
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(1) The Oulipo for Opening of potential literature is a literary research group in which Georges Pérec and Raymond Queneau notably participated. It starts from the principle that the constraint encourages to find original solutions. This is how the first wrote in particular Disappearance – a book with no letter -e – and the second styling exercises – the same story told in 99 different ways.
(2) A thousand years of the French language, by Frédéric Duval, Alain Rey and Gilles Siouffi. Editions Perrin.
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