The national language and the French Academy
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
In the 17th century, the vast majority of people living in France were still speaking regional
language varieties (from Latin, Germanic, and other sources) and unable to hold even a simple
conversation in the so-called “national language.” In 1635, the Académie française, or "French
Academy," was founded to standardize and surveil the language and prevent it from unnecessary
changes brought about by outside (read: foreign) contact. Two dramatic changes they advocated
for were standardizing the pronunciation of words, which meant choosing which dialect's
pronunciation would be counted as "correct", and standardizing spelling (formerly, words were
spelled how they were pronounced, which could be different in different places!).
In the following centuries, the French government launched a national campaign to
universalize the usage of French throughout France and put an end to regional language varieties.
The immediate result of this national initiative was one of bilingualism, where people used
French in official settings like school and work, but still preferred their local variety in less
formal settings. The French government also enforced the grammar prescribed by the French
Academy for all official business, including exams, administrative documents, and even job
access. When WWI broke out, soldiers in France were grouped nationally rather than regionally,
a feat which was greatly facilitated by their ability to communicate in a common language.
How French spread across the world
During the 17th to 19th centuries, France established colonies in North America, the
Caribbean, India, Africa, Indochina, and the South Pacific, transplanting its language and culture
alongside its political presence. The linguistic result of this contact was that French was forced
on these communities, oftentimes yielding French-based creoles like Haitian Creole, Antillean
Creole, and Mauritian Creole, which continue to be spoken today, long after political
independence from France.
Meanwhile, back in France, the national campaign to homogenize French citizens and make
them French-only speakers had mostly worked: the vestiges of the earlier regional languages and
varieties remain today almost entirely in the regional accents used to speak the standard. The so-
called neutral variety targeted by news broadcasters is often cited as being from Tours (a city in
northwestern France), but it is essentially the same as other northern French varieties, sometimes
also called “Parisian” or “Metropolitan” French—that early market-town prestige lives on!
Vive le franglais!
In recent years, French, like many languages, has acquired new borrowings from English
that have been popularized in sectors where English-language culture has dominated, such as
technology, business, and pop culture. Words like un e-mail, un meeting and un happy end (think
Hollywood) are as commonplace in 21st century French as la révolution and une baguette! The
French Academy from the 17th century is still very much around today, and a good portion of its
job involves creating and prescribing native French equivalents for English borrowings, in an
attempt to stave off what they perceive to be unwanted linguistic influence. Accordingly, they
instead propose the use of the Frencher alternatives: un courriel (un e-mail), une réunion (un
meeting), une fin heureuse (un happy end) for the terms above. It will not surprise you to learn
that their attempts to police the language are fabulously unsuccessful.
Quebec has its own French-language academy, known as the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF) that does something similar, and it has its own tolerance of English
borrowings, too (surprisingly a lot lower than France’s!). For example, un smartphone is the
totally accepted term in France, but is seen as entirely too anglo in Quebec, where they instead
prefer the term un téléphone intelligent! The OQLF’s attempts to rein in English influence in
Canadian French are slightly more respected in Canada than the French Academy’s is elsewhere
in the world (this due to Quebec’s aggressive French language planning campaign in the 20th
century), but it is still a temporary and inauthentic solution to the unavoidable reality of language
contact and mixing.
French marches on
Now that you’ve read all about the history of French and how it has quite naturally absorbed
words from many languages and cultures after brief and sustained periods of contact over time,
you will honhonhon (laugh à la French) to know that no amount of legislation will ever be able
to keep it in check because a language is a living, breathing entity as diverse as the community of
speakers who use it. As you study this glorious linguistic tapestry woven by Gauls, Ligurians,
Romans, and Germanic tribes, know there's so much more to "French" than meets the œil!
