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French language: “I think we need to find balance in our societies in our ways of expressing ourselves,” declares Maxime Chattam, novelist
French language: “I think we need to find balance in our societies in our ways of expressing ourselves”, declares Maxime Chattam, French novelist – (franceinfo)
12/13 info receives, Monday October 30, Fabrice d’Almeida and Maxime Chattam. The historian and professor at the University of Paris Panthéon-Assas and the French novelist speak about the evolution of the French language, while the Cité internationale de la langue française opens its doors, in the Château de Villers-Cotterêts in the Aisne.
“We must not forget that at the end of the 19th century, there was slang which was being deployed, and there was a whole popular way of speaking which horrified the people of the elite who spoke, but the language was in the process of being to fall apart. If we could go back to the good times of Molière! With one difference though, it is that today, the countries where there are the most French speakers are the Democratic Republic of Congo ( …) so it’s true that it changes the way we look at this language, of which we are no longer the only users, nor the owners”declares Fabrice d’Almeida, historian and professor at Paris Panthéon-Assas University.
Major political debate
There is a whole debate about inclusive writing, which would allow us not to have everything in the masculine form. “It’s not just a fashion, it’s still a major political debate. From the end of the 18th century, and especially at the beginning of the 19th century, the idea of the primacy of the masculine will impose itself on the feminine. We do not have a neuter in French. And it is this question which is called into question by a certain number of feminists, in particular, who consider that this is an impropriety of the language. (…) Inclusive writing can have many ways of being”believes Fabrice d’Almeida.
“I think we need to find balance in our societies in our ways of expressing ourselves. (…) That everyone gets into the habit, in their way of expressing themselves, of including the masculine as much only the feminine, so that in a text, we have a kind of balance in a functioning society, while remaining extremely simple and clear”adds French novelist Maxime Chattam.