You Already Speak French!

Franglais much? What’s with the gaulic hauteur about English words in French? People complain about English sneaking into French—but hey, who invaded whom? Ever since the Norman Conquest in 1066, French has been baked into English, especially in law, the military, food, fashion, culture, and luxury. For every “super” and “cool” in French, there are ten French clichés you’ll use at the café when conversing over your café au lait. Try writing in English without using French, it’s impossible.

Don’t believe me? Okay, here’s a little creative writing exercise where I put in italics words that are identical or almost the same in both languages.

The other day, I dined with an attorney (old French - atorné) friend. At the restaurant we regarded the menu and decided to refuse the offer of the beef and pork specials. He ordered an omelette and I ordered a soufflé. The cuisine was excellent, particularly the dessert. The food was so fantastic that we gave our compliments to the chef.

 We talked about our years in the army as officers. He presented me with a magnificent photo  album of our time together as lieutenants. He told me that he had just returned from a boutique where he had acquired a robe for his wife and ballet shoes for his daughter. Our rendezvous was a joyous occasion to celebrate our friendship.

From that little French lesson in disguise, you can see that French is everywhere. In fact, the more French I learn, the more I scratch my head over why I couldn’t read French before studying French! At a certain point, it becomes a nearly magical process where you can pluck an appropriate French word out of your English vocabulary or divine the meaning of French words that you haven’t seen before. This doesn’t always work, of course. For example, I have a bad habit of saying “duration” with a French pronunciation when the proper word is “la durée.”  Mais tant pis, you can progress by leaps and bounds when you open your mind to and recognize the innumerable words and phrases that overlap in our two languages. You may not always be exactly correct but you will be understood. (Bonus points - find the similar French cognates of the English words in this paragraph - there are several.)

Now to return to the grousing about English creeping into French for a moment. One of the kerfuffles was the word “computer,” a word that has a direct Latin, not English root! Indeed, the word “computer” existed in old French and the word compter (to count) has the same Latin root. Nonetheless, the Academy decided that “computer” was not sufficiently French and settled instead on ordinateur - which derives from the Latin “ordinare” (as in “ordinal” in English). Seems like a lot of trouble to end up in largely the same place but there you have it!

“Pas vive la différence, vive la ressemblance !”