Written French is a different language than spoken French. For example, let’s compare the following texts orally: “Un bel homme” and “une belle femme”. We can see that the words “bel” and “belle” are pronounced the same in both sentences. In fact, any French speaker can give hundreds of examples of the difference between the writing and pronunciation of the same word: j’ai mange la pomme; la pomme que j’ai mangee.
Why have we confined the written French language within rules that are often complex, even incomprehensible to many of those who speak it?
The reason is quite simple. For centuries and centuries, most people in France and Europe did not know how to read and did not need to learn. Cathedrals, among other things, were open books for all. Only scholars—who were not necessarily nobles—knew how to read and write. Now these scholars spoke several languages and even several different patois and needed a common language, a language that could play the role that Latin and Greek had played in another era. They needed a universal, logical, coherent language, a language with which they would be able to express themselves and make themselves understood in all areas of knowledge.
Written French became this literary, political, religious, philosophical, scientific language that met the needs of all the great and small scholars of the Western world. It was even made the heir to all that written history had produced, best and worst, over the previous centuries. The legacy was very heavy to bear, but it was this written language that was made to learn to all those who wanted to get socially involved in Western society. Too bad for those whose spoken language was French!
The problem is that written French no longer plays this role as the language of civilization and culture. Written French has lost its predominance as other languages have become more prevalent in the West and in an expanding world. It has also lost its predominance as knowledge has multiplied in all areas of knowledge.
It has been supplanted by written languages that are lighter, easier to master, and closer to spoken languages, and closer to current knowledge and realities. This is why, for example, the University of Sherbrooke allows its computer science students to write their theses in English, because it is the only way for them to break into this field.
What to do? Will it be enough to reduce as much as possible the gaps between the written language and the spoken language? Will we have to accept not being able to read, not only the French authors of the Middle Ages, as is the case today, but also all the authors of the following centuries up to the 21st century?e ?
What sacrifices must be made to save the French language and culture from decline in Europe and, above all, from its disappearance in North America? Can we, in Quebec, build dikes high enough to do so? Would it not be better to let the French language and culture absorb all other languages and cultures and enrich themselves accordingly? Are Quebecers interested in these questions or do they prefer to simply give in to the sirens of American culture?