To mark the International Week of the French language and Francophonie Xavier North, Associate Normale and Delegate General for French language and the languages of France, welcomes the progress of the French throughout the world. And refuted, by the way, the idea that the language of Molière, too rigid, would face a danger from the English.
French has the privilege, along with English, Spanish and Portuguese, being one of the major languages \u200b\u200bof international circulation. From the standpoint of the number of speakers [estimated by the International Organization of la Francophonie at about 220 million in 2010], it appears, according to rankings in force, a platoon of a dozen languages.
This is far from negligible, especially as France is only 1% of world population and there is some 6 000-6 500 languages on the planet. What is important to note is that the French had a very important evolution of its status. For a long time, two or three centuries, he had a claim to universality.
Today, he wants rather a language of global influence, which is not the same thing. Of course, this change of status is often interpreted as a setback, even a decline. But this picture is false because the French, under the combined effect of literacy and population growth, is a language which, in absolute terms, continues to grow.
This is particularly the case in Africa [according to projections, we have 700 to 750 million French speakers in the world in 2050, including 500 million in Africa]. If we look at what happens beyond the traditional scope of the Francophonie, we see that the French progress in areas where one would not expect that this is the case.
I think especially in Anglophone Africa, including South Africa, where learning and development of the French part of a good neighbor policy: the country is seeking to open up and work more closely with Francophone Africa. But French has also greatly expanded in recent years on the Asian periphery and in the Gulf.
In the latter case, this reflects the desire to lean against an alternative model to the Anglo-Saxon dominance. The best example is probably that of Abu Dhabi. It is no coincidence that a branch of the Sorbonne it is implanted in 2006 and if an intergovernmental agreement was signed in March 2007 to develop the Louvre Abu Dhabi [this museum should theoretically open its doors in 2013 ].
This is certainly a sign of Francophilia, or in any case, an interest in France. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe South Francophonie - the distinction is important because the problems are obviously different in Quebec, the French Community of Belgium and Switzerland - French is seen as a tool for development, access to knowledge; a tool to promote personal through professional advancement.
The French also appears as a language of freedom. Reflected the image that it deserves in the Maghreb countries. Outside the Francophone world, I think it's about finding an alternative model, as I suggested above. Everything has been said - and its opposite - the French. Some have argued that it was a language that was distinguished by its elegance and clarity [D'Alembert, Rivarol].
Others have critiqued [Fenelon, La Bruyere, Lamartine]. These are judgments that are necessarily subjective. What we can say objectively is that French is a language which, early in its history from the sixteenth century, was codified in the sense that she could lean against dictionaries .
This is one reason why the French Academy was created (see box); Academy which, incidentally, is not the first in Europe since the Accademia della Crusca was founded in Florence in 1583. The expression of "civilizing mission" is deeply tainted by the colonial period. Nobody would say today is that French has a civilizing mission.
For my part, I am extremely skeptical of speech by which the French would be the bearer of values. No language is values, he attaches values. French is the language and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, but it is also the language of Robert Brasillach [writer committed to the side of Nazi Germany, he was sentenced to death and shot at the Liberation] and Charles Maurras [politician and writer, his support for the Vichy regime led to his being sentenced in 1945 to life imprisonment and dismissed from the French Academy], Celine and its pamphlets.
What made the influence of the French language, the whole works which were built in it: the literary and philosophical works of thought, but also the work of our moralists and political rhetoric as those of Montesquieu. Consider also the great orators of the French Revolution, Lamartine in the middle of the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo, whose aura can be felt today, particularly in Latin America.
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has translated and distributed Les Miserables in schools. Thanks to this body of work was done by attaching language to the values of empowerment, freedom. That is why it is often said that French is the language of the Enlightenment or the language of human rights.
I speak of cultural identity rather than national identity. Indeed, we must not forget that French is not only the language of the French, but also that of Quebec, community fançaise Belgium and people who do not necessarily recognize a French identity, and populations that have appropriated the language and who see it as an instrument of freedom and, particularly in the South, development.
The important thing to understand is that a language is not just a communication tool, is also a way of expressing a collective relationship with the world. Week of the French language has also precisely the theme this year the bond of solidarity qu'instaure a shared language. I do not think that French is in danger because she has not ceased to borrow from various world languages, as in the sixteenth century with the Italian [especially in the arts, with words like arabesque Fresco, sonnet, among others].
The novelty is that the French, in everyday language, has borrowed more to English over the last ten or fifteen years he had done over the past half-century or the last century . What is also remarkable is that these loans are almost exclusive. Indeed, apart from English, French borrows only very few other languages, except perhaps the Arab view of migration and trade between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
But a language is a living organism, nothing says that many English words we use today will continue to be in ten, twenty, thirty or fifty years. Take the example of Proust in In Search of Lost Time, he used English words which we now seem totally outdated. It is not our vocabulary that is at stake is our economic position, our ability to innovate.
The language is supported by economic realities, facts very objectives: economic, commercial, and even, if necessary, military. I have every confidence in the ability of French to express the realities of the contemporary world and those of the world to come. I think he has in him all the resources to reinvent itself, on the sidewalks of towns, in the parts of our great cities or in the terminology commissions.
It is a constantly evolving language. It just has to see the number of terms or new words that are new each year in the dictionaries to be convinced ... Interview by Aymeric Janier
French has the privilege, along with English, Spanish and Portuguese, being one of the major languages \u200b\u200bof international circulation. From the standpoint of the number of speakers [estimated by the International Organization of la Francophonie at about 220 million in 2010], it appears, according to rankings in force, a platoon of a dozen languages.
This is far from negligible, especially as France is only 1% of world population and there is some 6 000-6 500 languages on the planet. What is important to note is that the French had a very important evolution of its status. For a long time, two or three centuries, he had a claim to universality.
Today, he wants rather a language of global influence, which is not the same thing. Of course, this change of status is often interpreted as a setback, even a decline. But this picture is false because the French, under the combined effect of literacy and population growth, is a language which, in absolute terms, continues to grow.
This is particularly the case in Africa [according to projections, we have 700 to 750 million French speakers in the world in 2050, including 500 million in Africa]. If we look at what happens beyond the traditional scope of the Francophonie, we see that the French progress in areas where one would not expect that this is the case.
I think especially in Anglophone Africa, including South Africa, where learning and development of the French part of a good neighbor policy: the country is seeking to open up and work more closely with Francophone Africa. But French has also greatly expanded in recent years on the Asian periphery and in the Gulf.
In the latter case, this reflects the desire to lean against an alternative model to the Anglo-Saxon dominance. The best example is probably that of Abu Dhabi. It is no coincidence that a branch of the Sorbonne it is implanted in 2006 and if an intergovernmental agreement was signed in March 2007 to develop the Louvre Abu Dhabi [this museum should theoretically open its doors in 2013 ].
This is certainly a sign of Francophilia, or in any case, an interest in France. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe South Francophonie - the distinction is important because the problems are obviously different in Quebec, the French Community of Belgium and Switzerland - French is seen as a tool for development, access to knowledge; a tool to promote personal through professional advancement.
The French also appears as a language of freedom. Reflected the image that it deserves in the Maghreb countries. Outside the Francophone world, I think it's about finding an alternative model, as I suggested above. Everything has been said - and its opposite - the French. Some have argued that it was a language that was distinguished by its elegance and clarity [D'Alembert, Rivarol].
Others have critiqued [Fenelon, La Bruyere, Lamartine]. These are judgments that are necessarily subjective. What we can say objectively is that French is a language which, early in its history from the sixteenth century, was codified in the sense that she could lean against dictionaries .
This is one reason why the French Academy was created (see box); Academy which, incidentally, is not the first in Europe since the Accademia della Crusca was founded in Florence in 1583. The expression of "civilizing mission" is deeply tainted by the colonial period. Nobody would say today is that French has a civilizing mission.
For my part, I am extremely skeptical of speech by which the French would be the bearer of values. No language is values, he attaches values. French is the language and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, but it is also the language of Robert Brasillach [writer committed to the side of Nazi Germany, he was sentenced to death and shot at the Liberation] and Charles Maurras [politician and writer, his support for the Vichy regime led to his being sentenced in 1945 to life imprisonment and dismissed from the French Academy], Celine and its pamphlets.
What made the influence of the French language, the whole works which were built in it: the literary and philosophical works of thought, but also the work of our moralists and political rhetoric as those of Montesquieu. Consider also the great orators of the French Revolution, Lamartine in the middle of the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo, whose aura can be felt today, particularly in Latin America.
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has translated and distributed Les Miserables in schools. Thanks to this body of work was done by attaching language to the values of empowerment, freedom. That is why it is often said that French is the language of the Enlightenment or the language of human rights.
I speak of cultural identity rather than national identity. Indeed, we must not forget that French is not only the language of the French, but also that of Quebec, community fançaise Belgium and people who do not necessarily recognize a French identity, and populations that have appropriated the language and who see it as an instrument of freedom and, particularly in the South, development.
The important thing to understand is that a language is not just a communication tool, is also a way of expressing a collective relationship with the world. Week of the French language has also precisely the theme this year the bond of solidarity qu'instaure a shared language. I do not think that French is in danger because she has not ceased to borrow from various world languages, as in the sixteenth century with the Italian [especially in the arts, with words like arabesque Fresco, sonnet, among others].
The novelty is that the French, in everyday language, has borrowed more to English over the last ten or fifteen years he had done over the past half-century or the last century . What is also remarkable is that these loans are almost exclusive. Indeed, apart from English, French borrows only very few other languages, except perhaps the Arab view of migration and trade between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
But a language is a living organism, nothing says that many English words we use today will continue to be in ten, twenty, thirty or fifty years. Take the example of Proust in In Search of Lost Time, he used English words which we now seem totally outdated. It is not our vocabulary that is at stake is our economic position, our ability to innovate.
The language is supported by economic realities, facts very objectives: economic, commercial, and even, if necessary, military. I have every confidence in the ability of French to express the realities of the contemporary world and those of the world to come. I think he has in him all the resources to reinvent itself, on the sidewalks of towns, in the parts of our great cities or in the terminology commissions.
It is a constantly evolving language. It just has to see the number of terms or new words that are new each year in the dictionaries to be convinced ... Interview by Aymeric Janier
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