J. Davidson - Planet Word

There was a telling moment a few years ago when the then French President, Jacques Chirac, stormed out of an EU summit meeting after a French business leader addressed delegates in English. President Chirac told reporters, ‘I was profoundly shocked to see a Frenchman express himself in English at the table.’ For his part, the businessman said he chose English ‘because that is the accepted business language of Europe today’. President Chirac’s walkout (and his insistence, despite being fluent in English, of speaking French throughout a one-to-one dinner with the non-French-speaking President Bush) provides a vivid illustration of how sensitive the French — or at least the French establishment — are about the decline of the language. And it’s not a recent concern.

On the banks of the Seine in Paris the imposing Institut de France is the home of the Académie Française. It was founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu with the express purpose of keeping the French language pure. Just as Paris French, the langue d’oïl , was being imposed as a language of state within France, so the intention was that it should prevail in the diplomatic field to rival Latin as the language of Europe. Since then, this Star Chamber for words has survived everything from the Revolution to Nazi occupation. A linguistic jury is made up of forty members known as immortels (immortals) who hold office for life and are charged with establishing how French is written and spoken. The recommendations of the jury have no legal power but are taken very seriously. And the French they advocate has no truck with regional dialects such as Basque or Occitan. As Marc Fumaroli, one of the most outspoken of the immortels , explains: ‘But you know, what they, the regional languages, have lost is not too much, and in compensation they have been able to participate in one of the most wonderful conversations possible, the conversations in Paris.’ No regrets there, then. Members are tasked with working on a dictionary of the French language, known as the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française. Eight editions have been published since 1635; the first one took fifty-nine years to complete, and Academicians have been working on the ninth since 1935.

Since the end of the Second World War and the growing domination of the English language in business, diplomacy and culture, the immortels have increasingly focused on trying to prevent an influx of franglais — English terms used in French — by choosing or inventing French equivalents.

Some recommendations have failed miserably: le weekend has never been threatened by the proposed la vacancelle; le shopping, un parking and le discount are all firmly part of French everyday speech. However, the attempt to banish the use of the word ‘email’ by proposing un courriel (from courrier électronique ) has met with partial success. Courriel is used in written French, but internet users talk about mail or mel. Other loanwords like ‘walkman’ and ‘software’ have been replaced with baladeur and logiciel .

The Academy has sometimes been criticized for being too conservative. The increase in the number of working women, for instance, has caused problems, as many of the French nouns for the professions don’t have feminine equivalents. An attempt by Lionel Jospin’s government in 1997 to refer to a female minister as Madame la ministre was torpedoed by the Academy, which insists on the traditional use of the masculine noun, le ministre , for either gender. The Toubon Law (nicknamed the ‘Loi Allgood’ — ‘tout bon’) mandates the use of the French language in official government publications, in all adverts and in all workplaces. A percentage of the songs on radio and television must be in French as well. The annual satirical award of the Prix de la Carpette (literally the Rug or Doormat Prize) goes to the person or institution that has given the best display of ‘fawning servility’ by insinuating the ‘accursed English language’ into France. It’s not sponsored by the Academy, although one of its members is on the jury. Nominees have included France Telecom for publishing titles such as Business Talk and Live-Zoom and the president of the French Football Federation for adopting the Jackson 5 hit ‘Can You Feel It’ as the anthem of the French national team.

There are some truly awful examples of mangled franglais which make you wish the Academy had a bit more clout. People who like to stay at home are said to faire du cocooning ; a failure is un looser ; a makeover is un relooking ; and fine cooking is le fooding ; and if you dress sexily, you’ve gone for l’image total destroy .

France isn’t ready to throw in the towel on the linguistic world stage yet. A British spectator at the 2012 Olympic Games in London may be surprised to see that all the official notices displayed around the capital will be in French as well as English. And that the announcement as the medal winners climb on to the podium will be in French first, then English. French is the first tongue of the International Olympic Committee — the founder of the modern Olympic Games was French after all, and the IOC headquarters are in French-speaking Geneva.

It’s easy for purveyors of the English language to mock the French attempts to hold on to their own. Let’s face it, spoken English dominates the world because it’s the language of the USA. If history had been different, if the French colonials had dominated across the Atlantic, then the British would undoubtedly be fighting a similar linguistic battle themselves.

The Survival of Basque

In contrast to the demise of so many regional languages in France, the Basques in Spain have succeeded in preserving both their language and their culture. Decades of armed struggle by the seperatist organization ETA may have alienated large sections of the Basque population, but it has also won them rights that are the envy of the Basques over the border in France. It is possible now to go from nursery school to university in an entirely Basque medium.

San Sebastián is one of those magical Atlantic coast cities battered by the waves and offshore winds that bring a salty taste to everything. It is a handsome city, purveyor of a fine International Film Festival and home to some ridiculously good cooking. It is the cultural centre of the Basques.

The three-Michelin-starred chef Juan Marie Arzak runs a restaurant in the city with his daughter Elena. Juan and Elena talk passionately about their Basque identity and how they celebrate it through their cooking. Whilst the DNA is Basque, it is married to an intensely modern, cosmopolitan and experimental style which is happy to infuse Persian limes with Vietnamese coffee beans to enhance a traditional Basque sauce. Not only is the food exquisite but it exemplifies the confidence they have in their own identity. They will not be subsumed, as history will testify. And their language, even more than their cuisine, is at the heart of it all.

The language of the Basque people is related to no other language on earth. Although the Basque country straddles the border between Spain and France and is surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is what we call a language isolate. It was spoken in Europe long before Indo-European people began migrating across the continent and is very ancient — maybe tens of thousands of years old. Linguists have puzzled for years over the origins of Basque, suggesting that it developed with the Berbers in northern Africa or in the Caucasus or on the Iberian peninsula. Some linguists suggest it may even have evolved as far back as the Stone Age, pointing out that the Basque word for axe comes from the root word haitz , which means stone or rock. Other more wacky suggestions have made the Basques the lost thirteenth tribe of Israel or survivors of Atlantis. One theory even has Adam and Eve speaking Basque.