In a text published on January 31 by journalist Catherine Lalonde, a lexicologist, Mireille Elchacar, is of the opinion that so-called inclusive writing paradoxically excludes those who have difficulty with writing. “As inclusive writing is very difficult to handle well, we may want to be gender inclusive and exclude another part of the population,” she says. Even!
It must be understood that the inclusiveness aimed at by the modification of conjugation and agreement, with dots and dashes, only concerns the writing of the French language and not its speaking: “inclusive writing”, right, not “inclusive language”. However, long before being a form of writing, a language is a system of oral communication; the linguistic sign is a matter of sound, it is only secondarily that we transcribe, with symbols that the eye decodes, the language that is thought, said and heard.
The French language belongs first and foremost to the millions of people who speak it, not to those who know how to write it and decipher its writing.
The exhortation from the linguist cited above is full of common sense. But it can only take on its full meaning if we go beyond the level of morality: we must see that the enterprise of inclusive writing is the work of an enlightened petty bourgeoisie who have superb command of writing and who can afford the luxury to juggle with. This ease is not given to everyone.
Whoever dominates writing has considerable power. The power of the scribes. It is a class affair, an effort, naturally, creating inequality.
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