Contemporary Modern French Period
The grammar of the French language spoken and written today is unchanged from the late 17th century, when official efforts to
standardize, stabilize, and clarify French usage were institutionalized in the French Academy. The purpose of this standardization was political: to facilitate the extension of the court’s
influence and to smooth the processes of law, administration, and commerce throughout and beyond the territory of France, as colonial ventures opened new fields for imperial
expansion.
The strongest force which led to the affirmation and propagation of National Standard French in the 19th century was the setting in place of elementary education for all during the century, although such public education became obligatory only in the 1880s.
The firm implantation of the French language and the demise of regional languages and the dialects of French today are results of the effectively-carried-out education in French, as well as the participation and willingness of the students of the language to cooperate in the diffusion of Standard French.
French in the 20th Century
In the linguistic debate regarding the protection of the French language, the Anglo-American vocabulary that has been borrowed into French became a particular target. This linguistic patriotism (Battye and Hintze: 50) is exemplified by René Etiemble in his book Parlez-vous franglais? (1964), wherein l’anglofolie is described as having created a pidgin Atlantic, a new look to the franglais language. The linguistic anti-Americanism in the 60s brought about the establishment of Le Haut Comité pour le defense de la langue française, whose primary aims were to: (a) study and recommend the measures to ensure the protection and expansion of French; (b) establish the necessary links with private and public organizations with competence in matters of cultural and technical cooperation; and (c) promote and encourage all initiatives linked to the defense and expansion of French and evaluate the results achieved. (Battye and Hintze: 51)
In 1977, L’Association générale des usagers de la langue française (AGULF) was set in order to oversee that the Bas-Lauriol Law (1975) is sought through. The Bas-Lauriol Law seeks to prohibit the use of any foreign term when there is an expression or term approved for it as relating to the enrichment of the language. The aim of L’Association was to provide a forum for French speakers who are anxious to defend their linguistic and cultural heritage.
Today, the French government still chooses to take a high profile in language planning,
of treating the language of the ruling elite as an important symbol of French national identity. If this “stable” state continues, it is feared that Standard French may become a dead written
language in the future, much like the faith suffered by Classical Arabic or Classical Latin.
La Francophonie, launched in 1962, can be considered as equivalent of the British Commonwealth, but its symbolic basis lies simply in the single language that unites its member states. Language is thus used as a vehicle in the economic dynamism on world markets to enforce economic power and is considered an essential element in the political policy of France. Such success of la francophonie is perceived to maintain the prestige of French on the international political stage and as an important mark of France’s linguistic and cultural independence from the English-speaking world.
In the present, French is noted as one of the official languages of the United Nations, and used as the working languages of even countries where French has no official status, like Egypt, Bulgaria, and Romania, and a third of the delegates of UN, like the World Health Organizations, UNESCO, and even within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Within Europe and the European organizations, French is used as the working language within the Council of Europe, the European Court of Justice, and the European Economic Community.
