The Disappearance of the French Language

I find it interesting to spend so many words explaining how "French is disappearing" while at the same time complaining about French people not speaking English. Can French really disappear if people only speak... French?

Languages evolve and are influenced by other languages. It has always been the case; should we complain about Greek or Latin roots in French? What would the language be without them? English is a Germanic language, should we complain about the assimilation of German words? And of course English got some words from French as well. I am pretty sure that the author's notion of "beautiful French" is not Old French, though somebody much older could complain about how it evolved.

I do agree that it is important to preserve languages, but I really don't feel like French is disappearing. As for the slang, I think that the author has the perspective of an old man indeed (as advertised): it does not "simply consist in saying things backward with some orthographic changes" (which would be what's called "Verlan"). Some words come from other languages (e.g. Arabic), some are just brand new ways of using existing words. Is it not inventive or not a source of merriment or fantasy? I wouldn't know, I'm not using this slang (I'm too old now). But surely it does perform the first function of a slang to some extent, because young people say stuff I just don't understand at all.

What I can say is that over the years I "lost" most of my slang and went back to "proper" French (with some definition of "proper", maybe the author believes that the only true French is the one from Paris?). Some words stayed, many did not.

Finally, I'd like to note the interesting choice of "delicious French expressions", half of which are actually nice ("Faire l’école buisssonière" and "Prendre le chemin des écoliers"), the other half much less (as they exclusively refer to women's sexuality, the last one "Elle a la cuisse légère" meaning "She's a slut"). It does not make me too sad when an expression disrespectful specifically to women disappears.

> Current French slang simply consists in saying things backward with some orthographic changes

This is called 'verlan' in French (it's "l'envers", which means 'the reverse'/'in reverse' in reverse...) and it's old, at least 19th century but it really spread in the 20th century and especially since it was embraced by the youths in council estates throughout the country whereas it what more Paris/North before.

I would be more offended by the explosion of the use of English words, indeed. I have been living outside of France for 20 years and I am shocked whenever I visit. It is really atrocious and I do agree that it is hard to use for someone who speaks fluent English as a second language because it does not make sense in either language.

The level of grammar in general is also collapsing... I suppose that's what happens when schools give up.