A recent news story about the English language which excited the British press was reported differently, depending on the politics and sense of humour of each newspaper:
Do you think the English language exists? You do, don’t you? That’s quite odd because, according to Bernard Cerquiglini, it doesn’t, and his credentials are probably more impressive than yours.The English language doesn’t exist, it’s mispronounced French - The New European
A French linguist has controversially claimed that the English language 'doesn't exist' and is just 'badly pronounced French'. Bernard Cerquiglini, a linguistics professor from Lyon, points out that the English language uses thousands of words taken from French about 1,000 years ago.
Ironically, many of these have since reentered the French language but in a bastardised English form – such as 'stew', 'people' and 'shopping'. Professor Cerquiglini, an adviser to President Macron, has already slammed the continued use of English words in French culture as 'distressing'.
English 'doesn't exist' and is just badly pronounced French, linguist claims | Daily Mail Online
Few would deny that English has conquered the world. But the French have always refused to take this linguistic victory lying down.
For centuries, the “immortal” guardians of the French language at the Académie Française, France’s linguistic authority since 1634, have arguably been fighting a losing battle to contain the invasion of anglais. Theirs is a Sisyphean task as they toil in coming up with French alternatives to English words such as “gazoduc” instead of pipeline, or the more recent “icône de la mode” instead of “it girl”, in the hope they will catch on.
'English is not a language – it's just badly spoken French'
There's been a lot of interesting commentary:
L’anglaise n’existe pas : r/DuolingoFrench
France: English does not exist as a language, says Macron adviser - ProtoThema English
English Just 'Badly Pronounced French', Paris Academic Says | Barron's
This is the main point of the book:
The title of the book translates as “The English language doesn’t exist – it’s just French that’s badly pronounced” , which is a quip First World War French President Georges Clemenceau used to make. The author admits from the outset that he’s writing somewhat tongue in cheek. But he’s a distinguished linguist – and he pulls no punches as he sets out his case.The English language doesn’t exist – it’s just French that’s badly pronounced
Here's a book review - in bad French:
Parlez vous?The English language’s debt to French
By Judith Flanders
Bernard Cerquiglini is a former director of the Institut national de la langue française, and the first part of his catchy title quotes the former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, who was married (unhappily) to an American. The author then backtracks: of course, English is spoken as a first or acquired language by more than a billion people worldwide. But the textbook definition of English – a language descended from a Germanic source – masks “la vérité”, which is that it owes its influence and power to the amount of French it contains.
Cerquiglini begins with a brief outline of the imposition of Norman French on England and the English from 1066 onwards, and the long admiration for France and French among the upper classes. He uses Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, set in 1194, to illustrate the bifurcation of English: in Scott’s romance there is a French-derived vocabulary for the upper and educated classes, and Anglo-Saxon derivations for the working classes. Anglo-Saxon peasants raise “old Alderman Ox”, which becomes “beef” when the prosperous eat it.
The shift in vocabulary has not always been class-based. The Old Frisian-derived “mouth” describes the facial orifice, but its adjective is the French-sourced “oral”; the Old Saxon “town” is the noun, the French “urban” the adjective. And English’s enormous vocabulary, one of the largest of any language, is in good part based on exactly this kind of doubling of Germanic and French words: ask/demand, buy/purchase, build/construct.
“La langue anglaise …” is interesting, too, on how English today can clarify the pronunciation of vanished Norman dialects. Norman French replaces the “ch” sound with a “q”, which in English becomes a hard “c”. Thus, “car” from char (chariot), “carpenter” from charpentier, “escape” from échapper. Most fascinating of all is the journey from “w” to “g”. Norman French used a “w” for the sound that other French dialects pronounced with a hard “g”, and so it is that our “wardrobe” comes from guarde-robe and “wicket” from guichet. This also solves the mystery of why we have warranties and guarantees, guardians and wardens in English. These words travelled twice from France: once with a “w” during the Norman Conquest, then again centuries later with a “g” in now-standard Parisian French.
Cerquiglini has statistics to hand: 29 per cent of English vocabulary comes from French sources; another 29 per cent from Latin; and only 26 per cent from Germanic sources.…
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