“It’s normal for language to adapt to the evolution of society. She is only his reflection. It is there to move,” indicates lexicologist Mireille Elchacar. “If we really want to include everyone in the language, not just men and women, we need to think about inclusive writing. » In the 1970s, Quebec was at the forefront of the feminization of occupational names. This momentum continued with discussions on epicene writing, then again today in debates on inclusive writing. With the professor from TELUQ University, The duty discusses what propels and hinders inclusive writing.
Inclusive writing is a set of processes that we can choose to use or not, Mireille Elchacar immediately reminds us. This writing “is not cast in concrete. It is made up of all kinds of experiments – like those we do with pronouns, the “iel”, doublets, midpoints, etc. It is usage that will determine which ones will be established.”
The specialist reiterates that it is not possible to have a completely neutral text in French, where the words are gendered. “In other languages, in English,”the quiet little boy” simply becomes “the quiet little girl”. In French, a single change affects several words: determiner, adjectives, possessives, etc. »
The final point and the gendered point
One of the major concerns of Mme Elchacar is to note that poorly handled inclusive writing excludes “those who have difficulty with writing: dyslexics, dysorthographic people (we really have a lot of them, in French…), functional illiterates (we have really a lot, in Quebec…). As inclusive writing is very difficult to handle well, we may want to be gender inclusive and exclude another part of the population. »
What are the difficulties of inclusive writing? Those who have already taken the test have experienced them: there is a solid learning curve, both in reading and writing. “The most difficult thing is the parentheses and the periods”, as in “auteur(ice)”, “acteur.ice” or “acteur·ice”, specifies Mireille Elchacar.
“A point in French marks a border, a limit to the sentence. That’s what you read when you see it. In recent years, it has also brought us back to a website. Our eye is very used to reading this, and can be confused to see a point all the time. The use of doublets [p. ex. les lecteurs et les lectrices], by the heaviness that they add, is also a difficulty, less marked. »
Speak like a book
“Inclusive writing comes from writing, and no one speaks the way they write,” continues the lexicologist. “It has happened in the history of language that the written word influences the spoken word. For example, we said “ostine” in Middle French, and “dark”. And in writing, we added a b to make the link with the Latin words “obstinacy” And “obscurus”. We now say “obstinate” and “obscure”. This transition from written to oral is quite rare. »
The proposed new neutral pronoun, “iel”, particularly arouses resistance, right? “It’s very easy to create new words in French,” responds by band Mme Elchacar. Think “email”. Lexical words develop with new realities and discoveries. But for a new determiner, a new preposition, it changes over a much longer time. The speaker does not normally have the power to create a new grammatical word. And there, we arrive with this pronoun: yes, it’s really a big change, suddenly. »
The professor continues: “I see a very great difficulty in applying inclusive writing to the entire population. French spelling is very difficult to acquire. The written code of French is the most complicated of all alphabetic languages. I am a linguistics professor at the university, you are a journalist, and I am convinced that we both let mistakes slip. »
80 hours spent on participles
This is why Mme Elchacar advocates a simplification of spelling, as she has already argued in her book Loosen the tongue (Alias, 2022). “We already have so many difficulties and illogicality in our spelling. I can understand the exasperation, those who say in the face of inclusive writing: “Let’s see, another layer of complexity?” To make room for something new, we must allow the language to evolve. »
“It must move, in several directions at the same time: by the acceptance of feminine forms of inclusive writing, and by an improvement of this tool which is spelling. Spelling doesn’t have to be complicated. It is an artifact that can be improved by humans. »
The linguist is particularly thinking of a reform of past participles. “This rule of agreement is 14 pages of rules, and especially exceptions. It takes up dozens of teaching hours. There is a figure circulating at the moment, which estimates that there are approximately 80 hours devoted to these rules in high school. »
“These are rules that were built on the Italian of the 16the century, and which Italy has abandoned for 300 years… Imagine if we took these 80 hours to talk about the history of the language, the place of Quebecers in the Francophonie, why and how our French is different from that of France… We could take control of our language through different facets instead of focusing just on spelling. »
And discuss and reflect on the relevance, difficulties, necessities, illogicalities of inclusive writing, for example. “We are experiencing a moment of change. We see things proposed, others rejected. It’s boiling. It remains to be seen where the balance will be found between inclusion and the need to keep the tool of writing the French language within everyone’s reach. »
“We can have activists who offer us inclusive writing,” concludes M.me Elchacar. Even having an Office québécois de la langue française which would come [les] second [la] would not necessarily reinforce — he already proposed replacing “muffins” with “moufflets”, in the 1980s, eh… It didn’t work because the speakers didn’t use it. Language is usage. It is the speakers who will determine whether inclusive writing “passes” or not. Who will use it or not. »
To be continued, therefore, in our mouths and our writings.