Language office permits some popular anglicisms
MONTREAL • For decades, the Office québécois de la langue française has stood as a rampart against the relentless creep of English.
In France, people could leave their cars at “le parking,” check their “mail” on their computers and relax on “le week-end.”
In Quebec, the provincial language watchdog toiled to ensure people used the approved French terms: “parc de stationnement,” “courriel” and “fin de semaine.”
But in a new policy that is being seen by some in the province as a white flag of surrender, the Office is granting approval to some anglicisms that have gained widespread popularity in the province.
For example, restaurants can now put “grilled-cheese” on their menus rather than the cumbersome but government-approved “sandwich au fromage fondant.” Bartenders can call a cocktail “un cocktail,” instead of using the made-in-Quebec facsimile “coquetel.” And tennis players can take satisfaction from a well hit “smash” after the Office acknowledged that its recommended replacement — “coup d’écrasement” — just hasn’t caught on.
Jean-Pierre Le Blanc, spokesman for the Office, a government body that promotes and protects the use of the French language, said the policy on linguistic borrowing adopted this year takes into account common usage among the Frenchspeaking population.
Very few people, for example, talk about a “sandwich au fromage fondant” — which literally translates as a melted cheese sandwich. “It’s the usage that determines,” Le Blanc said, and in this case even francophones crave grilled cheese.
He spoke of a change in thinking at the Office, “a flexibility” that means accepting when a proposed French term has fallen flat. In explaining why “smash” is now acceptable French, the Office’s online dictionary notes that its proposed replacement “did not establish itself in common usage.”
The change in policy was not made lightly. “The phenomenon of (linguistic) borrowing is always looked at closely,” Le Blanc said. “Anything concerning language in Quebec is a subject that is closely tied to identity. People have strong opinions.”
The nationalist Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported news of the change Monday by declaring that the Office was “opening the door to anglicisms,” a move one former Office researcher denounced as “voluntary enslavement.”
That critic, former research co-ordinator Jacques Maurais, accused the Office on his blog of abandoning its responsibilities. He quoted Quebec linguist Jean-Claude Corbeil, who in 1989 said the Office played a role of “decolonizing” the language, ridding it of remnants from an era when the English dominated the province. Maurais writes that the new policy welcoming English terms proves that “the era of decolonization has ended.”
Nadine Vincent, a linguist at the Université de Sherbrooke, said she recognizes that languages evolve and she can accept some English terms being used. But she fears the Office, sensitive to criticism that its recommendations go overboard, is relinquishing its role of trying to shape language usage, even though those efforts have yielded successes.
“It’s not the role of the Office to describe the language. People turn to the Office to know what is the right term,” Vincent said. “If everyone says grilled cheese, that’s not a problem. The problem is when the Office says it is the right term to use.”