Everyone knows the French are serious about promoting (or enforcing) the use of French in France, but now they've decided to ban the use of the word 'e-mail' . The Culture Ministry claims that the word 'courriel' is in regular use now in France and that eliminating the term 'e-mail' will be easy and clear up confusion. Some have a different opinion:
"The word 'courriel' is not at all actively used," Marie-Christine Levet, president of French Internet service provider Club Internet, said Friday. "E-mail has sunk in to our values."
I wonder what my French friends at http://www.scenemusic.net think about this.
Get Courriel
There's several ways the French Ministry of Culture "protects" French citizens from American values. Some of the methods are a little ironic, such as how they fund French film; basically, they tax American films to support French filmmakers.
At least they care about signification, and the "evocative" power of language. I think the argument that we have to care what the majority of people are using at any single moment is silly. Let's call it what it is: an attempt to curb American hegemony. If we disagree with their strategy, it should be at this level, not at whether it's reflective of general use.
For instance, the article states: "Some Internet industry experts say the decision is artificial and doesn't reflect reality."
Of course it's artificial, that's what discourse is. How common is it to invoke mimesis to disparage the natural functioning of discourse?
For instance, the article st
For instance, the article states: "Some Internet industry experts say the decision is artificial and doesn't reflect reality."
Like Freedom Fries ? :-)
Descriptivist response
For years L'Académie Française has been trying to remove from the French lexicon the usage of "le weekend" in favor of "fin de semaine". They were unsuccessful in that effort, and their campaign to promote "couriel" isn't likely to fare any better.
Spoken language is the original open source movement. Words become words by usage, and individuals contribute to the lexicon continually -- and without license. For many of us, official standard usage (if such a thing exists) is embodied in the dictionary, yet the folks who compile dictionaries monitor quotidian usage. Whether L'Académie Française acknowledges "email" as a word, it will likely continue to be spoken by millions of French people.
Caveat: I have been told that my perspective is "typically American" by a Romanian friend of mine.