[lbo-talk] 'Adieu' to French as world language?

Thu Jul 10 09:13:35 PDT 2003

The Times of India

TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003

Last 'adieu' to French as world language?

REUTERS

PARIS: It was meant as a jibe, but when a US senator recently branded French
a "near forgotten" language he hit Gallic sensitivities right where they
hurt most.

Yet instead of outraged denials, the remark has triggered soul-searching
among French intellectuals who not only concede English's pre-eminence as
world "lingua franca" but fear French is being shoved off the international
scene altogether.

For a country which in the past has proclaimed its tongue the language of
love, global diplomacy and the universal rights of man, that would be bad
news.

"What is at stake is the survival of our culture. It is a life or death
matter," Jacques Viot, head of the Alliance Francaise agency which promotes
French abroad, told a public debate in Paris.

Reports of the imminent demise of the language are of course exaggerated.
But the past decades have not been kind to French.

While French and English are the only two world languages with solid roots
on five continents, the economic and political might of the United States
has propelled English into top place as the most prestigious language to
have as a second tongue.

With its 80 million native practitioners, French is ranked 11th most spoken
language in the world. With the 180 million who count it as their second
tongue, it comes in ninth. Altogether, a quarter of a billion have at least
a smattering of French.

In contrast, English is spoken as a first language by some 375 million and
as a second language by roughly the same number. According to figures used
by the British government, a quarter of the world's population speak it with
some level of competence.

English has long been the language of international trade and business. That
trend is only being reinforced by the fact that it dominates some 80 per
cent of the Internet.

Even at havens of multi-culturalism such as the United Nations - where
French is one of the official working languages - French diplomats are
seeing an inexorable decline in its use in both formal and back-room
dealings.

The situation is no better within the confines of Europe.

Visitors who click on the French icon of the Frankfurt-based European
Central Bank's website are advised that the bulk of the site is in English
and that they should perhaps try the Bank of France's home page for
information in French.

Recent meetings in Brussels to draft a new constitution for the European
Union highlighted a future problem for French as negotiators sent by east
European countries - to be EU members as of next year - almost unanimously
favoured using English.

It is calculated that their participation at EU meetings will require
sufficient interpreters to cover 420 combinations of 20 or 21 languages. The
fear niggling the French is that, in the end, everyone might just give up
and turn to English.

At the sharp end of EU affairs, this is already happening. French army
generals leading the multinational EU peacekeeping mission in the Democratic
Republic of Congo had no hesitation in naming English the working language
of their Paris-based HQ.

Even in its own backyard, French has for years suffered rearguard attacks
from "franglais", the badly-digested chunks of English which the French
often prefer over home-grown words.

English's ability to form compound words or phrases seems to give it the
edge in naming certain concepts. In business, for example, it is just easier
to talk about "le cash-flow" than "la marge brute d'auto-financement".

After threatening briefly in 1994 to jail anyone using such examples as "le
weekend" or "le parking" in advertising or the media, France now appears to
have largely given up the unequal fight against the "franglais" plague.

Yet if French is failing to assert itself, it is not through want of trying.

Few other countries have a centuries-old institution like the Academie
Francaise whose main duty is to act as linguistic watchdog, chiding bad
French and approving good.

And few nations are so committed to furthering their culture that their
cinema, literature, music and theatre enjoy state grants or other supports
as generous as those in France.

"We have a plethora of means of protecting the language," insisted Bernard
Cerquiglini, the head of the unit within France's Culture Ministry charged
with promoting French.

"But language is living history. It reflects the balance of powers," he
added, recognising that the scales were currently tipped against French.

At no time was the supremacy of English as a proselytising tool more
painfully evident to France's leaders than during the Iraq war which they
had unsuccessfully tried to prevent.

It was the reporters for the international English-language news channels
CNN and BBC World whose pictures and dispatches from the front line helped
form the global view of the war.

Now France has asked its media companies to come up with proposals for a
French-language global news channel -- a "CNN a la francaise" idea floated
by President Jacques Chirac to ensure France's voice continues to be heard
in the world.

"A language is more than a way of speaking," said Jean-Marie Cavada,
president of state-owned broadcaster Radio-France. "It is a weapon of
battle, an indispensable tool for any great country."