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Tangential: it's worth noting that this is a historical circumstance rather than something that has to do with French in itself. When a new domain arises that a

Tangential: it's worth noting that this is a historical circumstance rather than something that has to do with French in itself. When a new domain arises that a language didn't previously have words for, like computing, "home-grown" (as opposed to borrowed) words can be more or less successful. Take the French Academy for example, whose attempts at purging French of English loanwords[1] has had mixed success. (And see also the Central Hindi Directorate[2].) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise#Anglicisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise#A... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Hindi_Directorate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Hindi_Directorate

greenhatman 8y ago
We learned a lot of Afrikaans tech words in computer science in high school in South Africa. It's pretty useless for me. I've never used any of it since, and have forgotten most of it.
- andriesm 8y ago
  Fellow Afrikaansie here. There were some very novel Afrikaans words for computer terminology in that school computer science handbook... However none of it seems to be that useful or much used at all, and English accesses the latest tech and many major western tech hubs. I suspect this is the case for my languages, especially those spoken in very few countries or by smallish population groups, especially when the language speaking group is not Geographically close to other populations of a grammatically closely related language. I am busy studying Georgian because I am relocating to the eastern European country. However I remain doubtful that Georgian will be that useful for technical computer stuff, because it has only around 4 million speakers and is linguistically close to almost no other widely spoken language. I will find out soon, as my language skills and experience with the place collide.

greenhatman 8y ago

We learned a lot of Afrikaans tech words in computer science in high school in South Africa. It's pretty useless for me. I've never used any of it since, and have forgotten most of it.

andriesm 8y ago
Fellow Afrikaansie here. There were some very novel Afrikaans words for computer terminology in that school computer science handbook... However none of it seems to be that useful or much used at all, and English accesses the latest tech and many major western tech hubs. I suspect this is the case for my languages, especially those spoken in very few countries or by smallish population groups, especially when the language speaking group is not Geographically close to other populations of a grammatically closely related language. I am busy studying Georgian because I am relocating to the eastern European country. However I remain doubtful that Georgian will be that useful for technical computer stuff, because it has only around 4 million speakers and is linguistically close to almost no other widely spoken language. I will find out soon, as my language skills and experience with the place collide.