Tu ne parle pas anglais?

[evulish]

Well, it seems that after a bit of tension between France and the US, France has now /banned/ the word "e-mail" in its government favoring the French term 'courriel.'

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ith__e_mail__1

I'm not very political (in fact, I pretty much hate all this crap), but this amused me greatly Do they get fired for saying 'e-mail'? Is it considered an act of treason? Death? Wha?

[Kristina]

This is not any sillier than our country and freedom fries.

btw: Je parle francais...and it would be "tu ne parles pas anglais" Sorry, I took 3 years and I felt that I needed to make myself feel better by convincing myself all those years didn't go to waste.

also btw: While the political science major/ politics junkie (me) doesn't really like the words politics and crap in the same sentence, you are entitled to your opinion.

[Yan Wang]

It probably IS in retaliation to Freedom Fries (which was sooo dumb).

Yeah, so my friend leaves for France for a year on wednesday and I mentioned this story to her on the phone yesterday and she was greatly amused. She also predicted that no one would call it courriel (as if they use courrier electronique anyway) but have e-mail imbedded into them.

I think that no one would get fired over saying email but I'm sure that official documents will be looked over.

[evulish]

Well, I made fun of US with Freedom Fries and now I'm making fun of France with e-mail. And yeah, I saw the French mistake when I got the forum listing...I took two years of French 4 years ago...not bad for making a post at like 3am.

[Madison]

Furthermore, this change of nomenclature doesn't come as a result of *recent* tension between France and the United States. In fact, it really has nothing to do with the United States at all.

The French Government has *always* sought to maintain the sanctity of the French language and this sort of thing happens more often than you might think. It's not about us.

I think the United States government should do a bit more to protect the language.

[Yan Wang]

I think the language should NOT be protected. The more diffusion, the better... I'd rather have a universal language and be able to communicate with everyone, everywhere, rather than having to get a translator or some other tedious way of getting around.

[srjjs]

Preserving the national language creates a stronger sense of unity and cultural identity.
However, in this case, maybe it would be good to make a language a little bit more accessible to outsiders. Maybe then I would have gotten a 5 on the AP French Exam....

[evulish]

Originally posted by M. Krass
this sort of thing happens more often than you might think.

They have actually banned other words from their government? I can understand preferring some word over another...but actually banning one? It just seems kind of extreme (even if they want to maintain the sanctity of the language).

[George1902]

Bah, the only French phrase I know is "Please lie down with me this evening."

Bonus off-topic point to the one translating it and naming the reference. ;-]

[Madison]

I can't find anything similar for French yet, but you can find a list of English words banned by the Swiss government and their new vocabulary here.

It's not anti-American sentiment, it's an effort to protect their culture from technology.

Edit: I'm dumb and should look at things more closely. The french and german language translations of banned English words are on that page as well.

[Kristina]

Originally posted by George1083
Bah, the only French phrase I know is "Please lie down with me this evening."

Bonus off-topic point to the one translating it and naming the reference. ;-]

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir. (hm, I think I may have conjugated it correctly too, amazing.) From the song Lady Marmalade done by Patti Labelle originally, not Christina Aguilara and her crew.

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As for sanctity of language, I think it's important because it does give a culture a sense of identity...my friend who just graduated as an English major gave me a really great explanation and example of the importance of a nation's language. It's just a shame we're adding words like "bling-bling" to our dictionary.

[BingoTheClowno]

Ah you beat me to it, Kristina! I would have impressed the George with my trivial knowledge, too... Shukks...

As for the language thing, it does promote culture, but so does dialect and accent. An Irishman from Kerry is well distinguished when compared to one from Dublin. If we had one language with many dialects and accents, culture would be preserved and communication would be promoted. Everyone wins.

[srjjs]

It can be hard to understand someone with a strong accent. For example, Mandarin and Cantonese are two different dialects of Chinese, and a person who grew up only speaking one would most likely not be able to speak the other fluently, or even understand it spoken conversationally.

[leethaaxcats]

Je suis connait, ce est retard, mais je voudrais connait si vous parlez francais and detest Francais gens?? Je suis joueing. hehe

[Kristina]

Joueing? Oh man, brings back memories of when I used Franglais (French + English) in class.

Anyway....Je suis très heureux parce que je pars pour la France demain !