Fonetik French Fracas

...The Committee proposed dropping some (though by no means all) silent letters, like the "i" in oignon...

...Linking school and spelling has proved a tactical error...

...If implemented, the changes would modify 3,000-4,000 words...

...Young French shopgirls and retired workmen talk of "national honor" and "patriotism...

...But Spaniards prefer whisky to that weird brew güisqul, just as the French prefer a weekend to un ouiquende...

...What appalls me is the way people in France speak and write our language...

...Antireformers object to "lowering French to the level of those who can't spell" and urge Education Minister Lionel Jospin, who sat on the committee, "to review primary schools instead of tampering with the language...

...A jumbo jet is more sympathique than a colporteur à réaction, a scanner less mysterious than a tomographe...

...Although the committee has proved bolder than the Academy, it was less radical than Jacques Leconte...

...The use of franglais in the media is frowned upon, but irrepressible...

...What has put off many potential supporters of the reform is the dogmatism of some of its advocates, who tend to focus on three points: Simpler spelling will encourage foreigners to learn French...

...Moderate pruning—as Americans have done with English—makes sense...

...Admittedly, the use of English is often sloppy or inaccurate: baskets means running-shoes, sweet is a misspelling of "sweat," itself a nifty abbreviation of "sweatshirt...

...Druon insists it gave him unanimous backing last May...

...Whatever, on January 17 the Academicians decided by a vote of 23 to six to adopt a face-saving compromise proposed by the anthropologist Claude LéviStrauss...

...When the King expressed concern one day about the state of French, his interviewer asked him if he was referring to the spread of English...

...Jospin has in fact increased the stress on reading and writing in the early grades, whereas Kenneth Baker, his counterpart in Britain, announced in January that tests of basic skills there would be simplified...

...The dogmatists may not realize that condescension can cut both ways...

...But some members now maintain that not everyone attended the session, and that those who did either failed to realize the extent of the reform or slept through Druon's report...

...Teachers in higher education brandish student papers where spelling mistakes result more often than not from grammatical confusion or lack of logic (un oignons or deux oignon are more common than ognon...

...But 1968 ushered permissive Left-wing fads into the classroom and dethroned l'orthographe, until then the secular goddess of France's primary-school teachers...

...On the other hand, the committee adds accents to foreign words (braséro...

...Educated Algerians link the survival of French in their country to the fragile chances it has of attaining democracy...

...In this case too, unfortunately, discussion is defeated by absurd slogans...

...Meanwhile, rivals of Hachette are laughing up their sleeves: The publisher has already rushed out 12 million copies of a 1,000 page "revised dictionary...

...Hassan replied scornfully: "Not at all...

...will thus enable French to compete with English (as if English is phonetic...

...rather, an issue that might seem trivial escapism from international tension were this not France: For several months now, a controversy has been bubbling over a government attempt to reform French spelling...

...Mitterrand would then become Mitèran, since more silent letters would be axed, as well as double ones...

...The main problem with French is that, unlike Spanish, it is not phonic: Words that are spelled differently but pronounced the same crop up much more frequently than in English...

...The reform seeks to suppress some circumflex accents, even where, to quote Mitterrand, they carry "etymological weight" (the "s" that became acircumflex accent in fête would survive in festoyer, to rejoice, as in the English "feast" and Spanish fiesto...

...I found an internal primary-schoolteachers' bulletin denouncing the "cement imposed by the Parisian bourgeoisie of the 15th century" (spelling has actually evolved quite a bit since then), and blaming the children's troubles on an "intellectual colonialism" that "denies all differences...

...The Gulf crisis...

...The méthode globale, essentially plunging a child straight into a complex text, has come under sharp criticism...

...The committee shied away from this problem...

...Compound words would be overhauled...

...Rocard's government has been accused of being "authoritarian"—as if Paris were Algiers, or Malcolm Bradbury's fictitious Slaka in Rates of Exchange, where the language is changed overnight...

...That phony Renaissance usurper "ph" would be scrapped and themedieval "f" reinstated ina révolution filologique that would align French with Spanish, Portuguese and Italian...

...Its members include two government ministers, teachers, journalists, businessmen, and a pop singer...

...King Hassan of Morocco considers himself a champion of French (unlike neighboring Algeria's ruling FLN Party, which, pandering to Arab nationalists and Muslim fundamentalists, voted just before the New Year to outlaw French and Berber, making Arabic their country's sole official language...

...Distancing himself from Rocard, as he tends to do whenever a controversy arises, Mitterrand says the reform "somewhat frightened him...

...but knocking out hyphens can produce stodgy mouthfuls and making plurals uniform creates comic effects: a porte-jarretelles ("garters-belt") becomes an unalluring portejarretelle—to comply with grammar women would henceforth, like members of Britain's Order of the Garter, have to wear only one on their belts...

...Calls have been heard for a return to such "old-fashioned" methods as the phonic syllable-by-syllable approach...

...Teenagers discuss le shopping or le tenniscoach and describe a person, fashion or party as cool—meaning trendy and relaxed...

...Presided over by Maurice Druon, the secrétaire perpétuel of the Académie Française, the committee published 18 pages of "recommendations" at the end of last December...

...Dictation, la dictée, still has its adepts in France—and its annual televised contest...

...Politicians, writers, teachers, and the general public have joined in the fray, and an association has been formed "for the defenseof French...

...He claims to have "rescued" a few circumflex accents from the committee's axe...

...University teachers in France have found that many of their North African students master spelling better than their French counterparts...

...A prie-Dieu, however, would remain unchanged in the plural, lest monotheists take offense...

...The French Academy is embarrassed...

...Following the appearance of a book written by a retired teacher, Jacques Leconte, and backed by a powerful teachers' union (SNI), Prime Minister Michel Rocard set up a Committee for the French Language at the end of 1989...

...France has a Minister for "la Francophonie," Alain Decaux, who has issued maps to schools showing all the French-speaking parts of the world...

...and will undermine the tyranny of l'orthographe—sorry, ortograf...

...All too often clumsy, dull or pretentious, thealternatives to franglais pushed by the French Academy are rarely adopted...

...Any takers...

...Still, simpler spelling is seen as the only way "French can survive" and "resist [both] the worldwide spread of AngloAmerican" and its "infiltration of our language"—two obsessions of French officialdom...

...The reformers also profess educational motives, noting that 20 per cent of 10-year-olds have difficulties in reading, writing and spelling (the proportion is similar in England, according to a report published only weeks ago...

...Passions have been riding high, cutting across generations and political currents...

...The committee has tried to Gallicize these intruders, though only half-heartedly: Why rewrite "leader" leadeur and not lideur...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...they would also lose hyphens (vadémécum) and take an "s" or "x" in the plural (caméramans)—as already happens with les médias...

...They are the ones who, in the late 1980s, lobbied most actively for the reform of spelling...

...While Mitterrand prides himself on his sound spelling, he admits to being awed by the contest's diabolical dictées...

...Some of these recommendations had previously been made by the French Academy in 1975—and ignored...

...A similar movement has sprung up in Algeria, where the matter is altogether more serious: Any official using French will be liable to pay a fine...

...Spanish went the whole way—now lider and futbol look and sound native...

...After an undefined "period of observation," during which both the traditional and alternative spellings are to be deemed acceptable, the Academy will "confirm or annul" the reform according to the verdict of popular usage...

...A few of thecommittee's members favor further reforms along the lines he laid down...