Tags
neologisms french

Some important lessons can be learnt from an article in this week's Metro on the consequences of the rising tide of franglais in the French language and what to do about it. According to the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OQLF), which is responsible for promoting correct use of the French language in Canada, "Borrowing too many words from English opens the door to a mishmash of French and English," and "can have an impact on French word formation, phonetics and grammar, not just terminology." The OQLF highlights the influential role that journalists and publishers can have in promoting frenchified neologisms as a replacement for English terms. One of the other strategies cited is to try to come up with words which are more accurate in their descriptive definition than their English equivalent e.g. the word 'mot-clic' for hashtag. It is also worth mentioning that appealing to the 'ludique' tradition of French is another sure way to encourage the adoption of home-grown alternatives.