Hacker News Reader

Comment by edwcross | Hacker News Reader

The Académie nowadays is (mostly) a bunch of old politically influent people with zero or little linguistic knowledge. They stopped reforming the language almost two hundred years ago and now they can only hope that people will keep paying them attention. But the language will keep evolving and drifting, and they will keep resisting, until the divergence will be so large that they will just disappear into nothingness, and people will ask: "why did people bother with them for so long?..."

Or, as the young ones do nowadays, they'll just say "Cheh!" to the Académie.

View on HN

Well, yes, except that this is the language (and its rules) that is taught as school.

Do your research on European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese, and you’ll realize that the latter owns its own version and defines its own standard without needing the consent from any other country.

So, there is nothing France or any institution can do about it.

This is exactly what I wrote in my last sentence. Every country speaking a language influences its version.

"read up on this wholly separate language and language culture, and you will see that I mean about French"

Is that really? I know in Quebec it’s the government that decides what is thought in school and the French they use is definitely diverging from outdated académie française. Not sure about France

I Quebec maybe, because it is a different language (Canadian French) and they can decide what they want (though since they are fine with the Queen bing their ruler, I do not see reasons fro the French Academy not to be the source of wisdom when it comes to French /s)

The french that kids learn at school is different than the french they speak with their family[1] of the french they speak with their friends[2]. People adapt based on contexts.

I don't think it makes a huge difference on how the language evolve, as ultimately the French Academy cannot force french people to speak one way or another.

The only big effect it has is it brings additional hurdles for kids coming from another french speaking country when their country of origin has largely adopted simplified grammar and conjugations.

[1] regional expressions with sometimes a simplified/modified grammar on those [2] use of slang + verlan (reversing some words) + adoption of some arabic words

> They stopped reforming the language

That's the whole point of their existence...

Well then what's their point of existence apart from taking (rather large) bunch of tax money? To point out how much they didn't do every year?

I see you are starting to understand ;)

Really, this is more of a honorific position for famous authors and those with enough political influence. Some deserve their fame, but they tend to be passed their prime and are far from expert linguists.

Their contributions are often treated as a joke by most French people. One of their mission is to maintain an official dictionary of the French language. The latest edition is nearly 100 years old. And for reforms, they only part of the process, most of the real work is done by actual expert linguists and legislators.

Exactly. Hence

> people with zero or little linguistic knowledge.

They are tilting at windmills.

Spot on. I am surprised that such a topic has been made an article about given that language mutates 100% of the time as soon as leaves its place of origin for whatever the mean, from accent, to colloquialisms and to slangs.

It happened to Spanish, English and to other languages.

> The Académie nowadays is (mostly) a bunch of old politically influent people with zero or little linguistic knowledge.

Yet thanks to them we escaped that hellhole nonsense that is the so called "écriture inclusive". All evolutions aren't good. French grammar needs to be simplified though, but not made a trophe on the altar of intersectionality.

I agree, top-down linguistive prescriptivism is good when it means not catering to marginalised people

> I agree, top-down linguistive prescriptivism is good when it means not catering to marginalised people

"marginalised" according to whom? The only thing that is marginalizing people trying to learn french here is text with .é.ée or so everywhere. That definitely excludes french language learners from reading french.

Anyway, that debate is over, back to intersectionalists attempting at another wave of newpseak nonsense.

"Mesdames et Messieurs" is inclusive. You've heard that for as long as you can remember.

"Statut : marié(e)" is also inclusive. Check your tax return.

The median "." for example "marié.e" is also inclusive and is probably what you're against. Please hate it right, we all use inclusive, even in English (ladies and gentlemen for example). Being inclusive is good, you're doing it too.

> "Mesdames et Messieurs" is inclusive. You've heard that for as long as you can remember.

Oh so french was already "inclusive" then? LOL.

> The median "." for example "marié.e" is also inclusive

I don't care about "inclusivity", it's weasel word for intersectionalists. The "median ." isn't french language, it's unreadable when literred everywhere.

"l'écriture inclusive" is a canonical exemple of cultural vandalisme (and newspeak, absolutely nothing inclusive about that language, but intersectionality is first and foremost a war on language).

I think you don't know what you are talking about.

Intersectionality is a framework where it is believed that for systemic issues it makes sense to not look at individual axis of oppression/empowerment (race, gender, ...), but to look for the combined individual effect (or something like that, apparently there is no consensus on the details)

Using "inclusive language" means that you use words to address the target audience in a way that all members feel approached. So e.g. just saying "Mesdames" would target a female only audience. If there would be males in the target group you would not have included them. It's not a "weasel word" for anything else.

> I don't care about "inclusivity"

So you would be fine if people would call you Madame (assuming you are a male)?

> The "median ." isn't french language, it's unreadable when literred everywhere.

There are similar discussions in other languages, but ultimately, language is evolving naturally and not by a standard body. The language is what people use to communicate. So you are free to dislike it and advocate against it, but saying it isn't french language is meaningless. Every change to a language was not part of the language before.

Yeah, it's advocating for changes on language (what you call war), because language determines what people think.

> I think you don't know what you are talking about.

I think I'm simply not buying into that evil ideology. I know exactly what I'm talking about, I've seen the consequences of bolshevism already. "intersectionality" is no different, same old marxist garbage.

You do not seem to want to engage in a fair discussion where arguments are exchanged. This debate culture will not help in convincing others about your view. Sorry you are so bitter about this...

> You do not seem to want to engage in a fair discussion where arguments are exchanged. This debate culture will not help in convincing others about your view. Sorry you are so bitter about this...

You want a debate about the 'virtues' of communism? LOL...

It was already inclusive, through these means, yes. This is the real "écriture inclusive".

I've seen your other contributions on this post and I think I'm done exchanging with you. You nitpicked just the right thing and forgot all about the rest of my comment. Have a nice day, you need some love.

> I've seen your other contributions on this post and I think I'm done exchanging with you. You nitpicked just the right thing and forgot all about the rest of my comment. Have a nice day, you need some love.

"La réforme oui, la chienlit, non".

The french language was never "inclusive" and doesn't need to be, it's called "courtoisie". The default is the masculine gender, that's a grammatical rule, and listing feminine gender next to it is purely a matter of courtoisie.

There is no "inclusivity" problem with the french language because there is no "inclusivity" problem to begin with, only in the head of the people specialized in making grievances a business.

> But the language will keep evolving and drifting, and they will keep resisting, until the divergence will be so large that they will just disappear into nothingness, and people will ask: "why did people bother with them for so long?..."

I think it's a good occasion to bring up Katharevousa[0], an effort (more imho than an actual spoken language) to "clean up" contemporary Greek; the tldr net result was you couldn't file your taxes, because the language on the forms was not the language you spoke with your family and neighbors.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharevousa

> until the divergence will be so large that they will just disappear into nothingness, and people will ask: "why did people bother with them for so long?..."

They won't disappear as long as there is money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com