{"id":22935,"date":"2016-02-08T17:58:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T16:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=22935"},"modified":"2017-10-24T15:43:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T13:43:39","slug":"critics-of-the-2016-french-language-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/critics-of-the-2016-french-language-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics of the 2016 French Language Reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Josh detailed last week on the French spelling reform<\/a>, the recent declaration by l’Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise to implement spelling spelling changes that affect around 2,500 words was met with some resistance. Francophones (and Francophiles) have taken to twitter not only with the hashtag #JeSuisCirconflexe, but with examples of how the circumflex accent changes the meaning of words and sentences. For example:<\/p>\n

Adam n’a plus la cote ; il est moins s\u00fbr, Eve.
\nAdam n’a plus la c\u00f4te ; il est moins sur Eve.<\/p>\n

Get it? Ok, moving on…<\/p>\n

What’s especially interesting about this whole situation are the roles French critics of the reform\u00a0and l’Acad\u00e9mie have played. Traditionally, the French Academy has been a vanguard against the modernization and, in some ways, Anglicization (and feminization!) of the French language (that’s a lot of -izations!). The French Academy is composed of forty life-time members (thus, their name: les immortels<\/em>) who are elected by the council itself.\u00a0Les immortels\u00a0<\/em>are, normally, influential thinkers and writers, although\u00a0academics and politicians have also been elected. Out of 726 members, only eight have been women (the first woman elected to the French Academy was Marguerite Yourcenar; recently, another famous female member passed away: Assia Djebar). Typically, decisions by the Academy have been criticized for being very conservative in regard to the modernization of the French language. And, so, the recent reforms (and the outcry it provoked) are an interesting turn of events.<\/p>\n

According to Marguerite Stern in “R\u00e9former l’orthographe ? Non, l’Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise n’a pas \u00e0 d\u00e9cider pour nous<\/a>,” decisions made by the Academy are not representative of the French people and the real use of the French language because:<\/p>\n

“Le probl\u00e8me \u00e7a n’est pas que la langue fran\u00e7aise \u00e9volue, mais plut\u00f4t qu’une assembl\u00e9e, non \u00e9lue d\u00e9mocratiquement, se permette d’en d\u00e9cider pour nous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Les membres de l’Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise ne repr\u00e9sentent en rien le peuple fran\u00e7ais car en France il y a des femmes, il y a des jeunes, des transsexuelles, des t\u00e9trapl\u00e9giques, des noirs, des jaunes, des rouges.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

(“The problem isn’t that the French language evolves, but rather that an assembly, which is not elected democratically, permits itself to decide for us.<\/p>\n

The members of the French Academy do not represent the French people at all because in France there are women, youth, transsexuals, quadriplegics,\u00a0and people with black, yellow, and red skin.”)<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time the French Academy has been called out for not being representative of the people–and, thus, the language–that it represents. And the debate over these language reforms is part of a much larger debate over what it means to be French–and how the French language can and must be inclusive of the varied experiences of French citizens. Ironically, those who have come out against these spelling reforms come from both sides of the spectrum: so-called “purists” who want France, and the French language, to remain somewhat closed to “outside” influence (and immigration), and “progressives”\u00a0who decry the reforms for not being representative of the varied people who make up France, and what it means to be French.<\/p>\n

So, what do you<\/em> think about these reforms?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Josh detailed last week on the French spelling reform, the recent declaration by l’Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise to implement spelling spelling changes that affect around 2,500 words was met with some resistance. Francophones (and Francophiles) have taken to twitter not only with the hashtag #JeSuisCirconflexe, but with examples of how the circumflex accent changes the meaning…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22935","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28917,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions\/28917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}