Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- List of tables
- Notes on the contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 French: a planned language?
- 2 Sociosituational variation
- 3 Regional variation in France
- 4 The other languages of France: towards a multilingual policy
- 5 The migrant languages of Paris
- 6 Gender and language in French
- 7 The reform of the writing system
- 8 Alternative French
- 9 New words for new technologies
- 10 Language and style in politics
- 11 French and French-based Creoles: the case of the French Caribbean
- 12 French in Africa
- 13 French in Canada
- 14 Sociolinguistic variation and the linguist
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The reform of the writing system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- List of tables
- Notes on the contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 French: a planned language?
- 2 Sociosituational variation
- 3 Regional variation in France
- 4 The other languages of France: towards a multilingual policy
- 5 The migrant languages of Paris
- 6 Gender and language in French
- 7 The reform of the writing system
- 8 Alternative French
- 9 New words for new technologies
- 10 Language and style in politics
- 11 French and French-based Creoles: the case of the French Caribbean
- 12 French in Africa
- 13 French in Canada
- 14 Sociolinguistic variation and the linguist
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
French spelling as seen by the French
How the French regard their spelling
Even the most ‘enlightened’ people in France (such as professionals, teachers, the middle and upper classes) talk about French spelling in terms which reflect a strange mixture of curiosity and fear, confidence and ignorance. Historically, we can summarise attitudes towards orthography under three headings:
– a long period of subservience to the written word, the power of which continues to this day;
– from the sixteenth century on, periodic attempts to take up the cause of the spoken language against the written, generally led by grammarians and linguists, with their claims couched in exaggerated language which still colours today's debate.
– more recently, on the part of a minority, a more conciliatory approach which tries to take account of the needs of both the written and the spoken language, and of social realities, and attempts to reconcile the arguments presented by both sides.
Subservience to the written word
Since the Middle Ages, generations of schoolchildren in France have been imbued with the idea that their national language was something noble, or almost sacred. It was impressed upon them that French had to retain its link with Latin, the ‘father’ of languages and of the humanities, and fount of religion and knowledge.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- French TodayLanguage in its Social Context, pp. 139 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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