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> Members of the French Academy, the 17th-century institution that publishes an official dictionary of the French language, have been working on the same editio

> Members of the French Academy, the 17th-century institution that publishes an official dictionary of the French language, have been working on the same edition for the past 40 years. This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. The whole article is weak to say the least. Of course, the French spoken abroad is changed by the local influences. This is the sam case as with any language that crosses countries boundaries. There are major differences within France as well. In everyday discussions, I do not see any special influence from Africa on our language. The influence of instant messaging is orders of magnitude larger and I have to decipher phrases such as "vzy cr". Or monstrosities such as "sa va koi" which are shaping our language deep down because it is how many young people express themselves. French is complicated and mostly masochist (we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100). It is not helping that we are rigid in how the language evolves (and sometimes straight ridiculous). But the changes to French French come from inside France, the ones from Mali French - from within Mali etc.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Wait until they learn about chocolatines.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  Please do not use vulgar words here. We are already way too lax on the usage of these words and this only propagates blind violence (in French: https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abattre-de-46-balles-dans-le-corps-pour-avoir-demande-un-pain-au-chocolat/ https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt...)
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    To non french readers: le gorafi is the french equivalent of the onion :)
    - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
      To be frank, their articles can be easily misinterpreted as the reality.
    - Cyph0n 3y ago
      And it seems to be a play on one of the largest French newspapers, Le Figaro (think: WaPo of France).
      - achenet 3y ago
        le Figaro would be more like the Wall Street Journal, it's right wing. Le Monde is more leftwing, maybe NYT, and WaPo would be like Liberation (very left)
      - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
        Not only on the name - the typography and general colors are close as well.
blackshaw 3y ago
> we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100 Wurs than Inglish? I hav my dowts.
- jaza 3y ago
  Where do you think the weirdest bits of the English language came from?
  - blackshaw 3y ago
    If we're talking about spelling, the biggest source of English's orthographic oddness is the Great Vowel Shift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jgtrosh 3y ago
> This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. True—though they are, indeed, working on the 9th edition since the 80s. They have currently completed A–S (up to Spermatophytes).
glandium 3y ago
French here, living abroad for more than 10 years. > sa va koi Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" > vzy cr vas-y... you lost me here. crève? That kind of reminds me of a joke some rapper (I think) made about, I wanna say 20 years ago, when young people from the banlieue were starting to cut words. I don't remember it exactly, but it went from "arrête ça" (stop it) being verlan'ized to "teuarass" and when they'd go to cut to "te", he would say "arrête ça tout de suite" (stop it now). > we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly I guess you're thinking about things like "qu'est-ce que"?
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  > Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" ies, but stil anoing This said, I am all for a simplification of French, esperanto-style, to make it easier for everyone (native and non-native users of French) > > vzy cr > vas-y... you lost me here. crève? It was "vas-y carré", which in English means "go ahead, all good". I do not blame you for not knowing, I had to check twice. > I guess you're thinking about things like "qu'est-ce que"? qu'est-ce que c'est ça, eaux to say "o", the -amment and -emment you never know when to use, the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif that is the national joke, Louis that nobody outside of France can pronounce correctly, sometimes one r, sometimes two, sometimes one l, sometimes two. All of this is well documented of course: the core of our grammar/vocabulary/conjugaison rules is maybe 50 pages, and then you have two or three tomes of exceptions. Then we have writers such as Proust who are hated by children at school because they have to dissect his 15-line sentences to say which part does what. Most of this information is completely useless - when my children started school, I had to dig back into books to recall what was what.
  - glandium 3y ago
    > This said, I am all for a simplification of French Interestingly, they tried 15 or 20 years ago, and that went nowhere. The only thing I remember about it is they wanted to simplify oignon, but I don't even remember if they suggested removing the i or spelling it like in English. > It was "vas-y carré" I guess I'm too old to know this, even non abbreviated. > sometimes one r, sometimes two, sometimes one l, sometimes two. Same with m, etc. And many more. The "fun" part of living abroad and barely speaking or writing French is that now there are plenty of times where I can't find words or how to spell them. It's compounded by the fact that English spelling of similar words is sometimes different (e.g. address vs adresse), or worse, some words spelt the same way have different meanings (which trips French natives often, but now I sometimes have the opposite problem, ironically)
uxp8u61q 3y ago
> This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. It's not nonsense. They are still working on the same edition, just progressively adding words. There is some debate today, though, because they're mostly working A to Z, so words close to the start of the alphabet have definitions that were written down long ago. The definition for "femme", for example, is controversial. You can read up on this here: https://www.academie-francaise.fr/le-dictionnaire/la-9e-edition https://www.academie-francaise.fr/le-dictionnaire/la-9e-edit... It's okay not to know something, but maybe inform yourself before calling what other people write "nonsense".
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  Aaand... you are right. I stand corrected. I follow some of the new words added but they were all either in Larousse or Robert - not the dictionary of the Académie Française. Sorry for that. In my defense, the "nonsense" feeling was mostly after reading the whole article on how local variants of a language heavily impact the source one.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Wait until they learn about chocolatines.

BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Please do not use vulgar words here. We are already way too lax on the usage of these words and this only propagates blind violence (in French: https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abattre-de-46-balles-dans-le-corps-pour-avoir-demande-un-pain-au-chocolat/ https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt...)
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  To non french readers: le gorafi is the french equivalent of the onion :)
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    To be frank, their articles can be easily misinterpreted as the reality.
  - Cyph0n 3y ago
    And it seems to be a play on one of the largest French newspapers, Le Figaro (think: WaPo of France).
    - achenet 3y ago
      le Figaro would be more like the Wall Street Journal, it's right wing. Le Monde is more leftwing, maybe NYT, and WaPo would be like Liberation (very left)
    - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
      Not only on the name - the typography and general colors are close as well.

blackshaw 3y ago

> we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100 Wurs than Inglish? I hav my dowts.

jaza 3y ago
Where do you think the weirdest bits of the English language came from?
- blackshaw 3y ago
  If we're talking about spelling, the biggest source of English's orthographic oddness is the Great Vowel Shift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jgtrosh 3y ago

> This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. True—though they are, indeed, working on the 9th edition since the 80s. They have currently completed A–S (up to Spermatophytes).

glandium 3y ago

French here, living abroad for more than 10 years. > sa va koi Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" > vzy cr vas-y... you lost me here. crève? That kind of reminds me of a joke some rapper (I think) made about, I wanna say 20 years ago, when young people from the banlieue were starting to cut words. I don't remember it exactly, but it went from "arrête ça" (stop it) being verlan'ized to "teuarass" and when they'd go to cut to "te", he would say "arrête ça tout de suite" (stop it now). > we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly I guess you're thinking about things like "qu'est-ce que"?

BrandoElFollito 3y ago
> Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" ies, but stil anoing This said, I am all for a simplification of French, esperanto-style, to make it easier for everyone (native and non-native users of French) > > vzy cr > vas-y... you lost me here. crève? It was "vas-y carré", which in English means "go ahead, all good". I do not blame you for not knowing, I had to check twice. > I guess you're thinking about things like "qu'est-ce que"? qu'est-ce que c'est ça, eaux to say "o", the -amment and -emment you never know when to use, the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif that is the national joke, Louis that nobody outside of France can pronounce correctly, sometimes one r, sometimes two, sometimes one l, sometimes two. All of this is well documented of course: the core of our grammar/vocabulary/conjugaison rules is maybe 50 pages, and then you have two or three tomes of exceptions. Then we have writers such as Proust who are hated by children at school because they have to dissect his 15-line sentences to say which part does what. Most of this information is completely useless - when my children started school, I had to dig back into books to recall what was what.
- glandium 3y ago
  > This said, I am all for a simplification of French Interestingly, they tried 15 or 20 years ago, and that went nowhere. The only thing I remember about it is they wanted to simplify oignon, but I don't even remember if they suggested removing the i or spelling it like in English. > It was "vas-y carré" I guess I'm too old to know this, even non abbreviated. > sometimes one r, sometimes two, sometimes one l, sometimes two. Same with m, etc. And many more. The "fun" part of living abroad and barely speaking or writing French is that now there are plenty of times where I can't find words or how to spell them. It's compounded by the fact that English spelling of similar words is sometimes different (e.g. address vs adresse), or worse, some words spelt the same way have different meanings (which trips French natives often, but now I sometimes have the opposite problem, ironically)

uxp8u61q 3y ago

> This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. It's not nonsense. They are still working on the same edition, just progressively adding words. There is some debate today, though, because they're mostly working A to Z, so words close to the start of the alphabet have definitions that were written down long ago. The definition for "femme", for example, is controversial. You can read up on this here: https://www.academie-francaise.fr/le-dictionnaire/la-9e-edition https://www.academie-francaise.fr/le-dictionnaire/la-9e-edit... It's okay not to know something, but maybe inform yourself before calling what other people write "nonsense".

BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Aaand... you are right. I stand corrected. I follow some of the new words added but they were all either in Larousse or Robert - not the dictionary of the Académie Française. Sorry for that. In my defense, the "nonsense" feeling was mostly after reading the whole article on how local variants of a language heavily impact the source one.