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No. Everybody knows that languages naturally evolve on their own. The advantages of the "Académie" are: - it slows down the evolution allowing better choice

No. Everybody knows that languages naturally evolve on their own. The advantages of the "Académie" are: - it slows down the evolution allowing better choices. - although the language is still driven by everybody using it, it is stirred in the right direction by linguists and authors, usually making choices consistent with the rest of the languages, its history and roots. The best example of what happens when such a mechanism isn't in place is the "biweekly" and "irregardless" mess in english! I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation.

seszett 12y ago
> I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation. The Académie does that too, but people are so used to having irregular or (apparently) illogical spelling that the new spellings catch on very slowly. It works though, and today you rarely see someone write "clef" instead of "clé" or "cuiller" instead of "cuillère". A few verbs got their accents changed from "é" to "è" too, following modern pronunciation. All that was in 1990.
- alricb 12y ago
  I think it's partly because when spelling was standardized in the 17th-18th century, it was done with a "learned" view that spelling should reflect a word's origin. So you get "doigt" for finger because of the latin digitus, the circumflex to denote an S that has become silent (hôpital vs. hospital), and even overcorrections (that have been recorrected since), like nénuphar -> nénufar (ph is used to denote places where there used to be a greek phi, but nénufar comes from Arabic)
- dorfsmay 12y ago
  When it comes to spelling though, they are too slow. Why do we have 'k', 'c' and 'qu' when one would suffice? What about all the spelling we never pronouce ("ils mangent")? If the Académie doesn't do anything about it, eventually people will create their own simplifications, and that is guaranteed to be a mess.
stdbrouw 12y ago
Isn't this just the linguistic equivalent of micro-optimization, though? There's tons of grammatical (e.g. differences in the subjunctive between verbs that use the auxiliary etre or avoir) and spelling oddities (le hanche but l'hôtel) in French, but, thank the lord, at least they've been able to keep "formage" from being an accepted alternative spelling of "fromage"!
- dorfsmay 12y ago
  If spelling didn't negatively affect schooling and careers, I would somewhat agree with you. The problem would still be there for meanings. Who deicide the meaning of a word in a given context when it has become ambivalent (e.g.: biweekly)?
  - stdbrouw 12y ago
    In many languages, including French, sometimes the past and present tense sound the same and are even spelled the same. The world hasn't exploded yet. People figure out ways to get their meaning across. Also, dictionaries based on accepted usage (ask ten random native speakers whether they consider spelling ___ to be acceptable) give most of the advantages of dictionaries based on dictate (what the academy thinks).
pervycreeper 12y ago
> The best example of what happens when such a mechanism isn't in place is the "biweekly" and "irregardless" mess in english! What mess would that be, exactly? Those who care about English tend not to use terms like this. Conversely, correct French is replete with special cases and arbitrary deviations from consistent logic.
- dorfsmay 12y ago
  "biweekly" used to have a meaning, now it has two (which aren't compatible), making it unclear which one the speaker means.
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    That's not much of a mess. I read "semiweekly" just as often. Also, word composition doesn't necessarily need to be associative ;) biweek/ly- once every two weeks bi/weekly- twice every week
    - dorfsmay 12y ago
      So when you see "biweekly" somewere, how do you interpret it?
jfaucett 12y ago
agree. la REA does a really good job. English is a nightmare mixture of terms that were molded together from everything from old germanic, latin, to french, to norsk, with zero control over anything and there is an entire subject area termed "spelling" just because the phonetics differ so greatly from what actually stands on the page (i.e kernel/colonol - what?), which to me is just a complete waste of kids time. I think we all agree no one can force anything on a language, but at least having standards that are phonetic, have no exceptional rules, etc, gives you a solid reference. Of course, plenty of the standards bodies don't do this and just make it even more convoluted such as the Scharf-S rules in new germen rechtschreibung, and all the new english words copied verbatum that don't follow standard german rules, which leaves everyone just sitting there guessing...
iamcurious 12y ago
I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation. In Spanish you don't remember the spelling of most words, the spelling is just an encoding of a neutral pronounciation. Even if there are some irregularities, you remember the irregularity instead of the whole word. For instance, you would remember "kamikaze both k". So most spellings get fixed on their own. Not bashing on the RAE though, they made such a nice job making this possible. Edit:wording

seszett 12y ago

> I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation. The Académie does that too, but people are so used to having irregular or (apparently) illogical spelling that the new spellings catch on very slowly. It works though, and today you rarely see someone write "clef" instead of "clé" or "cuiller" instead of "cuillère". A few verbs got their accents changed from "é" to "è" too, following modern pronunciation. All that was in 1990.

alricb 12y ago
I think it's partly because when spelling was standardized in the 17th-18th century, it was done with a "learned" view that spelling should reflect a word's origin. So you get "doigt" for finger because of the latin digitus, the circumflex to denote an S that has become silent (hôpital vs. hospital), and even overcorrections (that have been recorrected since), like nénuphar -> nénufar (ph is used to denote places where there used to be a greek phi, but nénufar comes from Arabic)
dorfsmay 12y ago
When it comes to spelling though, they are too slow. Why do we have 'k', 'c' and 'qu' when one would suffice? What about all the spelling we never pronouce ("ils mangent")? If the Académie doesn't do anything about it, eventually people will create their own simplifications, and that is guaranteed to be a mess.

stdbrouw 12y ago

Isn't this just the linguistic equivalent of micro-optimization, though? There's tons of grammatical (e.g. differences in the subjunctive between verbs that use the auxiliary etre or avoir) and spelling oddities (le hanche but l'hôtel) in French, but, thank the lord, at least they've been able to keep "formage" from being an accepted alternative spelling of "fromage"!

dorfsmay 12y ago
If spelling didn't negatively affect schooling and careers, I would somewhat agree with you. The problem would still be there for meanings. Who deicide the meaning of a word in a given context when it has become ambivalent (e.g.: biweekly)?
- stdbrouw 12y ago
  In many languages, including French, sometimes the past and present tense sound the same and are even spelled the same. The world hasn't exploded yet. People figure out ways to get their meaning across. Also, dictionaries based on accepted usage (ask ten random native speakers whether they consider spelling ___ to be acceptable) give most of the advantages of dictionaries based on dictate (what the academy thinks).

pervycreeper 12y ago

> The best example of what happens when such a mechanism isn't in place is the "biweekly" and "irregardless" mess in english! What mess would that be, exactly? Those who care about English tend not to use terms like this. Conversely, correct French is replete with special cases and arbitrary deviations from consistent logic.

dorfsmay 12y ago
"biweekly" used to have a meaning, now it has two (which aren't compatible), making it unclear which one the speaker means.
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  That's not much of a mess. I read "semiweekly" just as often. Also, word composition doesn't necessarily need to be associative ;) biweek/ly- once every two weeks bi/weekly- twice every week
  - dorfsmay 12y ago
    So when you see "biweekly" somewere, how do you interpret it?

jfaucett 12y ago

agree. la REA does a really good job. English is a nightmare mixture of terms that were molded together from everything from old germanic, latin, to french, to norsk, with zero control over anything and there is an entire subject area termed "spelling" just because the phonetics differ so greatly from what actually stands on the page (i.e kernel/colonol - what?), which to me is just a complete waste of kids time. I think we all agree no one can force anything on a language, but at least having standards that are phonetic, have no exceptional rules, etc, gives you a solid reference. Of course, plenty of the standards bodies don't do this and just make it even more convoluted such as the Scharf-S rules in new germen rechtschreibung, and all the new english words copied verbatum that don't follow standard german rules, which leaves everyone just sitting there guessing...

iamcurious 12y ago

I am really fond of the "Real Academia Española" as they go even further than their french counterpart, and regularly change the spelling of words to reflect their modern pronounciation. In Spanish you don't remember the spelling of most words, the spelling is just an encoding of a neutral pronounciation. Even if there are some irregularities, you remember the irregularity instead of the whole word. For instance, you would remember "kamikaze both k". So most spellings get fixed on their own. Not bashing on the RAE though, they made such a nice job making this possible. Edit:wording