A few weeks ago, Education Minister Bernard Drainville unveiled seven guidelines that will guide the reform of French language teaching, including updating the vocabulary words that elementary school students will be required to learn and considering the introduction of rectified spelling. When it comes to teaching our language, the debate often turns into a fistfight. However, any Francophone who advocates a shortcut in learning the language of Molière cannot claim to be a true Francophile, because it is precisely in the complexity of our language that its beauty lies.
Let us appreciate the linguistic richness of our language
No one can deny that our language is complex. Full of irregularities, contradictions, exceptions to exceptions, it can put off more than one person. Above all, French stands out as a graphic rather than a phonetic language, in the sense that spelling does not always follow pronunciation. The debate is not new, with, on one side, the orthodox of our language, who are adamant about the rigidity of the linguistic system, and on the other, the laxists, who advocate simplifying reforms.
Although lexical and grammatical spellings contain aberrations, they are nonetheless part of a progressive evolution of the language. In Montaigne’s Essays dating from 1580, we find spellings that may seem strange to us today, such as “icy” (here), “foy” (faith), “moy” (me), or even “estude” (study). That’s not all. Let’s also take the word window, which in Old French was written “fenestre” and derived from the Latin “fenestra”. Likewise, the word hospital, whose old spelling – “hospital” – also came from the Latin “hospitalia”. This “s” therefore disappeared in 1740 under the spelling reform of the Académie française, replaced by a circumflex accent. This diacritic mark does not fulfill any phonetic function, but allows, among other things, to distinguish homophones (e.g.: mûr and mur) and to preserve a written trace of this silent “s” of yesteryear.
It is by taking an interest in the mutations of our language that we will appreciate its subtleties. But it is also by paying attention to a certain etymological logic that allows us to distinguish, for example, “aire” from the Latin ” area » and referring to a surface of the “air” coming from the Latin “ air “Rather than giving in to the oversimplification of our language, why not consider introducing Latin courses into our French teaching programs?
Furthermore, it seems that the past participle would give several students a hard time, especially those with the auxiliary avoir (PPA). But let’s be serious. How is it difficult to ask the question “Who?” or “What?” after the verb to agree with the direct object placed before it? To those who advocate the removal of this past participle, how can we avoid confusion like this: the death of this man that I so desired? According to a study conducted by Leroy and Leroy (1995) entitled “The frequency of use of the rules of the past participle”, cited by the educationalist Mario Désilets in the essay The past participle: yesterday, today and tomorrow, PPAs represent only 1.5% of occurrences.
Beyond a communication tool
Far from being just a communication tool, language turns out to be a tool of thought. In our era marked by the injunction of immediacy, taking one’s time has become synonymous with wasting one’s time. Some argue that learning vocabulary would be a waste of time.
Now, cultivating a rich vocabulary means cultivating a rich thought. A structured, sharp thought. It means enriching one’s vision of the world. How can one claim to possess a true literary culture without having savored, or even digested, the diversity of our lexicon? Exploring new words means making an appointment with oneself to know oneself better.
Efficiency at all costs to the detriment of intellectual effort does not lead to an understanding, or even appreciation, of our language. The cultural prestige of a language comes from its nuances and subtleties. To distort it is to betray its singularity.