> Members of the French Academy, the 17th-century institution that publishes an official dictionary of the French language, have been working on the same edition for the past 40 years.

This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year.

The whole article is weak to say the least. Of course, the French spoken abroad is changed by the local influences. This is the sam case as with any language that crosses countries boundaries. There are major differences within France as well.

In everyday discussions, I do not see any special influence from Africa on our language. The influence of instant messaging is orders of magnitude larger and I have to decipher phrases such as "vzy cr". Or monstrosities such as "sa va koi" which are shaping our language deep down because it is how many young people express themselves.

French is complicated and mostly masochist (we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100). It is not helping that we are rigid in how the language evolves (and sometimes straight ridiculous). But the changes to French French come from inside France, the ones from Mali French - from within Mali etc.