Recently, the minister of culture in France, Fleur Pellerin, announced that France is giving up the battle to keep English words out of French language, reported The New York Times. Jinpin Yu, a junior majoring in accounting from China said, “I know a little bit that France is country that is kind of clannish. In English language, some vocabulary or structures are from other languages, like ‘long time no see’ was translated from Chinese, but many people say that. Also ‘kawaii’ is Japanese.”This issue suddenly overturns the French linguistic policy of all signs being in French that the country followed for four centuries. Pellerin declared that keeping English words out of French cannot protect the language, and may actually be harmful. She told in the opening of French Language and Francophonie Week in March, “French is not in danger, and my responsibility as minister is not to erect ineffective barriers against languages but to give all our citizens the means to make it live on,” reported The Guardian. Her assertion is a remarkable opinion in France, as the French subsidiary of General Electric Medical Systems was fined more than 500,000 euros for issuing software manuals in English in 2006. Also, the determination among the official that “keep French French” was originate from King Louis XIII and to now. There was a academy’s charter for Académie Française formed during that time which said “clean the language of all the filth it has caught,” focusing on taking out English. The large-scale resistance of English encroachment into French started in the pre-computer age. It formed a commission on terminology in 1970, and five years later, Maintenance of the Purity of the French Language announced that it would fine people for using anglicisms. In 1994, Toubon Law regulated all official government publications, commercial contracts, advertisements, workplaces, and public schools must use French language. But now, the rigorous French language protecting policy seems to become the past. Since the French government give up the fight of English, more English words will come to this country. You can see signs for “Wi-Fi” all over France.May 21,2015
Writer: Siyang Chen
