French Resistance to English Should be Dropped According to Culture Minister

Fleur Pellerin, the French Minister of Culture recently stated that the French language should not resist outside influences, such as the English language. The statement was made before the celebration of the French Language and Francophonie Week that is held annually. This year the event will take place starting March 21.

The Culture Minister made the statement during an interview where she said that French is a language that is enriched by influences coming from other parts of the world, and right now, what they need is a dynamic approach. While she wants to protect the language, she said that it is not possible to prevent outside influences. The Culture Minister, who was born in South Korea, speaks fluent German and English as well.

Things to consider

Ms. Pellerin said that they have to look at where the language is at in the world today. She added that she is not a fanatic like the Académie Française, which feels that the French language is being threatened. It cannot be helped that business people and the younger generation are using a lot more English words today in their regular daily conversations.

For the Minister, English is a fascinating language because she finds it easy to build new words or connect two words to create a new one. Right now her favorite English word is serendipity.

About 250 million speakers around the world currently speak French and the projection is that in 30 years’ time, it could increase to 700 million, with speakers mainly coming from northern and central Africa. Ms. Pellerin said that she wants their language to be a living language. She believes that it is not in danger and says that it is her responsibility not to build useless barriers against other languages. She would rather that French citizens be given the means to allow the language to continue to evolve and live on.

Resistance

The country’s strong resistance to other languages influencing their national language had often resulted in France being ridiculed. There had been an attempt some time ago for words derived from English to be replaced by French words that have been newly coined. Examples of these are “mot-diese” for hashtag and “courriel” for email.

There are several academics who agree with what the Culture Minister said. The author of a dictionary of the French language history, Alain Rey, who is also a Commission on French Terminology member, said that preventing the adoption of commonly used words was nonsensical and even strange.

Challenge

This now presents a challenge – how to convince the French public that their language will not in any way be hurt when outside influences are allowed. According to the Culture Minister, French had generously contributed to the enrichment of the English language, in the same way that Italian and English did in the past. She said that the resistance from the purists would only be counterproductive to the continuous evolution of the French language. Alain Rey also pointed out that the English word, “challenge” actually came from the Old French term, “chalonge.”

Image credit: Fleur Pellerin, the French Minister of Culture by Selbymay under Public Domain.