Cardinal Richelieu, the 17th century power behind the French throne, must be rolling in his grave after the stunning announcement that France is giving up the fight to keep English words out of the French language.

This sudden reversal of four centuries of French linguistic policy was issued by the minister of culture, Fleur Pellerin, who declared that France’s resistance to the incursion of English words was harming — rather than preserving — the language. “French is not in danger, and my responsibility as minister is not to erect ineffective barriers against languages but to give all our citizens the means to make it live on,” Ms. Pellerin told an audience assembled for the opening of French Language and Francophonie Week in March, acknowledging in one sentence both the futility and misguidedness of the battle.

“French is not in danger” is a remarkable assertion from the chief language guardian of the country that in 2006 fined the French subsidiary of General Electric Medical Systems more than 500,000 euros for issuing software manuals in English; that has officially banned the use of anglicisms for decades; and whose official determination to “keep French French” dates to King Louis XIII, who reigned from 1610 to 1643. Back then, of course, the task wasn’t so much to keep English out but to get control of the variations of French floating around and to decide what was to be codified as official French. More.

See: The New York Times

Related Translation News articles:

• The battle to keep French pure is doomed
• French must drop ‘ineffective barriers’ against other languages – minister

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