PARIS, March 11 — French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini would like to send a copy of his new book, The English language doesn’t exist: it’s badly pronounced French, to King...
Cerquiglini sees the rich cross-pollination between English and French as an example for La Francophonie, the loose modern association of French-speaking nations. — Reuters picPARIS, March 11 — French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini would like to send a copy of his new book,Rather than aiming to make the monarch sputter into his morning tea, “it’s a book written from a humorous perspective, it’s deliberately in bad faith, arrogant, chauvinistic and so on,” Cerquiglini told AFP.
But Cerquiglini is most interested by the 13th and 14th centuries, when French — by then a second language used in trade, administration and law — bled freely into English because “a job, fortunes in land or cash, upholding a contract, liberty or even one’s life, could depend on mastering” the tongue.
“Language in France is official, of the state, national. And so of course we have an academy” whose members enjoy “a ridiculous outfit, a sword, a palace by the Seine” river in Paris, Cerquiglini said. But he added: “This isn’t an invasion, these are French words that have gone for training in England and that are coming back to us.”
Madagascar, for example, uses French as a second language in much the same way as England did 800 years ago, he points out.