Franglais
Encyclopedia
Franglais a portmanteau combining the French words "français" ("French
") and "anglais" ("English
"), is a slang
term for an interlanguage
, although the word has different overtones in French and English.
s with their incorrect meaning or speaking French in such a manner that (although ostensibly "French") would be incomprehensible to a French-speaker who does not also have a knowledge of English (for example, by using a literal translation of English idiomatic phrases).
Some examples of Franglais are:
Franglais may also mean a diplomatic compromise such as the abbreviation UTC
for Co-ordinated Universal Time.
's Prioress
knew nothing of the French of Paris, but only that of Stratford-atte-Bow ('Cockney
French'). Similar mixtures occur in the later stages of Law French
, such as the famous defendant who "ject un brickbat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist". A literary example of the delight in mélange occurs in Robert Surtees
' Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities:
The 19th century American writer Mark Twain
, in Innocents Abroad
, included the following letter to a Parisian landlord:
The humorist Miles Kington
wrote a regular column Parlez vous Franglais which, for a number of years starting in the late 1970s, appeared in the magazine Punch. These columns were collected into a series of books: Let's Parler Franglais, Let's Parler Franglais Again!, Parlez-vous Franglais?, Let's Parler Franglais One More Temps, The Franglais Lieutenant's Woman and Other Literary Masterpieces.
Another classic is Jean Loup Chiflet's Sky My Husband! Ciel Mon Mari! which is a literal translation of French into English. However in this context, the correct translation of Ciel! is Heavens!.
Perhaps the oldest example of Franglais in English literature
is found in Henry V
by William Shakespeare
. A French princess is trying to learn English, but unfortunately, "foot" as pronounced by her maid sounds too much like foutre (vulgar French, "semen" or "to have sexual intercourse" when used as a verb) and "gown" like con (French "cunt
", also used to mean "idiot"). She decides English is too obscene a language.
, where both English and French are spoken, expressions such as "footing" and "relooking" are not used.)
Owing to the worldwide popularity of the internet, relatively new English words have been introduced into French (e.g. e-mail and mail, referring to either e-mail or an e-mail address). The Quebec government has proposed the use of an alternative word for "e-mail" which is derived from French roots, "courriel" (from "courrier électronique") and this term is now widely used. The Académie française
has also suggested the use of the abbreviation "mél." (from "message électronique") as an analogy with the abbreviation "tél." for telephone, to be uniquely used in front of an e-mail address, however the term is now used more broadly in France. Another example from Canadian French
is the word look. The verb "to look" in French is regarder but the noun "a look" (i.e. the way that something looks) is look, so the sentence "This Pepsi can has a new look" in Canadian French would be "Cette cannette de Pepsi a un nouveau look".
, a backlash began in France
over the increasing use of English there. "Corruption of the national language" was perceived by some to be tantamount to an attack on the identity of the country itself. During this period, ever greater imports of American products led to the increasingly widespread use of some English phrases in French. Measures taken to slow this trend included government censorship
of comic strips and financial support for the French film and French-language dubbing industries. Despite public policies against the spread of English, the use of "Franglais" is increasing in both written and oral expression.
In recent years, English expressions are increasingly present in French mass media:
Most telecommunication and Internet service providers use English and Franglais expressions in their product names and advertising campaigns. The leading operator, France Télécom
, has dropped the accents in its corporate logo. In recent years, it has changed its product names with trendier expressions such as Business Talk, Live-Zoom, Family Talk. France Télécom's mobile telecommunications subsidiary Orange
runs a franchise retail network called mobistores. Its Internet subsidiary, formerly known as Wanadoo
(inspired by the American slang expression "wanna do") provides a popular triple play
service through its Livebox. The second-largest Internet service provider in France is Free, which offers its freebox. Set-top boxes that are offered by many other providers are also following this trend (e.g. neuf-box, alice-box, livebox...) and the word "box" by itself is gradually ending up referring to these set-top boxes.
SNCF
, the state-owned railway company, has recently introduced a customer fidelity program called S'Miles. Meanwhile, Air France
has renamed its Fréquence Plus frequent flyer program Flying Blue. The Paris Transportation Authority (RATP) has also recently introduced a handfree pass system called NaviGO.
Public authorities such as the Académie française
and the Conseil supérieur de la langue française
generally propose alternative words for anglicisms. The acceptance of such words varies considerably; for example, "ordinateur" and "logiciel" existed before the English words "computer" and "software" reached France, so they are accepted (even outside of France in the case of "ordinateur"). On the other hand, "vacancelle" failed to replace "weekend" or "fin de semaine" (the latter being in current usage in Canada). The word "courriel", a substitution for "e-mail" initially proposed by the Office québécois de la langue française
, is increasingly coming into use in written French. However, most French Internet users generally speak about "mail" without the prefix "e-". Note that English words are often shorter, and they are usually coined first (the French alternatives are generally thought of only after the original word has already been coined, and are then debated at length before coming into use). This is partly why they tend to stay in use.
Alternative words proposed by the Académie française are sometimes poorly received by an aware (often technical) audience and unclear to a non-technical audience. The proposed terms may be ambiguous (often because they are artificially created based on phonetics, thus hiding their etymology) which results in nonsense (e.g. "cédéroms réinscriptibles" for CD-RW
(literally "rewritable CD-ROMs", despite "ROM" meaning "read-only memory"). Some words are considered uncool (for example, adding the initial T to "chat" to form "tchat" (in accordance with French phonetics) or rendering DVD as "dévédé" (reproducing the French pronunciation of the letters D, V & D).
The use of English expressions is very common in the youth language, which combines them with verlan
. The letter J is thus sometimes humouristically pronounced the English way in words such as "jeunes" (youth), rendered as "djuns" and thus written "djeun's", to refer to this trend.
, which has a number of longstanding borrowings from English as the result of the historical coexistence of two linguistic communities, largely within Quebec
(and especially around Montreal
). Likewise, Quebec English
, the language spoken by the anglophone minority there, has borrowed many French words such as dépanneur
(convenience store), autoroute
(highway), stage (internship), metro (subway
), circular (flyer, from the word circulaire, a pamphlet that circulates as opposed to being round) and many others (See Quebec English). These are permanent and longstanding features of local usage rather than the incorrect speech improvised by any given individual user with poor knowledge of the other language.
These expressions have mainly become part of a common tongue born out of mutual concession to one another. In fact, the substantial bilingual community in and around Montreal will occasionally refer to Franglais, usually after it is pointed out that someone has used a variety of French and English words, expressions or propositions in a 'correct' fashion in the same sentence, a surprisingly common occurrence.
, Nova Scotia
, Eastern Ontario
and northern Maine
(see Chiac and Acadian French
), Manitoba
, some parts of Northern Ontario
, and even certain towns on the west coast of Newfoundland
. This mix uses approximately equal proportions of each language (except in Newfoundland), although it is more likely to be understood by a francophone
, since it usually uses English words in French pronunciation and grammar.
Franglais is the common language of communication in French immersion
schools in Ontario, where most students speak English as their preferred language and yet know school-related terms only in French (e.g. "Hey, could you pass me a feuille lignée?", instead of "Hey, could you pass me a sheet of lined paper?"). As most French immersion classes have a strict "French only" policy, such Franglais is used discreetly between students, or out of class.
speakers, occurs across Canada. An example of an anglicism turned Franglais is the unintentional translation of English phrases into French by students unaware of the Canadian French
term. For example, a hot dog is sometimes called "un chien chaud" (literally, a dog that is hot) when in fact the French term is simply "un hot dog". (This is in spite of the Quebec government's suggestion of using expressions such as "chien chaud" for "hot dog" and "hambourgeois" for "hamburger", neither of which has gained widespread acceptance.) In some ways, confusion over which expression is more correct and the emphasis many immersion schools place on eliminating anglicisms from students' vocabulary has promoted the use of Franglais. Franglais can also slowly creep into use from mispronunciation and misspelling by many bilingual Canadians. Common mistakes that immersion or bilingual students propagate include incorrect inflection and stresses on syllables, incorrect doubling of consonants, strange vowel combinations in their spelling and using combinations of prefixes and suffixes from the other language.
Recently, Canadian youth culture (especially in British Columbia and southeastern Ontario) purposely uses Franglais for its comical or euphemistic
characteristics (for example, in replacing English swear words with French ones). Some anglophone Canadians euphemistically use the Québécois sacres
(religious words such as sacrament as expletive
s) rather than swearing in English.
has substantial English
- and French
-speaking populations as a legacy of its colonial past as British
Southern Cameroons
and French
Cameroun
. Despite linguistically segregated education since independence, many younger Cameroonians in urban centres have formed a version of Franglais/Franglish from English, French and Cameroonian Pidgin English
known as Camfranglais or Frananglais. Many educational authorities disapprove of Frananglais in Cameroon and have banned it in their schools. Nevertheless, the language has gained in popularity and has a growing music scene.
Franglais also occurs in other communities where imperfect English-French bilingualism is common. UN
officials in Geneva
often speak of "the UN Office at Geneva", rather than "in Geneva", in an imitation of the French "à Genève". Note: "UN Office at Geneva" is the official name of that office appearing on official documents.
Another example is provided by the civil servants in European Union
institutions (European Parliament
, European Commission
, European Court of Justice
), based in French-speaking Brussels
and Luxembourg City. They often work in English, but are surrounded by a French-speaking environment, which influences their English (e.g. "I'm a stagiaire at the Commission and I'm looking for another stage in a consultancy").
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
") and "anglais" ("English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
"), is a slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
term for an interlanguage
Interlanguage
An interlanguage is an emerging linguistic system that has been developed by a learner of a second language who has not become fully proficient yet but is approximating the target language: preserving some features of their first language , or overgeneralizing target language rules in speaking or...
, although the word has different overtones in French and English.
English sense
In English, Franglais means a mangled combination of English and French, produced either by poor knowledge of one or the other language or for humorous effect. Franglais usually consists of either filling in gaps in one's knowledge of French with English words, using false friendFalse friend
False friends are pairs of words or phrases in two languages or dialects that look or sound similar, but differ in meaning....
s with their incorrect meaning or speaking French in such a manner that (although ostensibly "French") would be incomprehensible to a French-speaker who does not also have a knowledge of English (for example, by using a literal translation of English idiomatic phrases).
Some examples of Franglais are:
- Longtemps, pas voir. Long time, no see.
- Je vais driver downtown. I'm going to drive downtown. (Je vais aller conduire au centre-ville)
- Je suis tired. I am tired. (Je suis fatigué)
- Je ne care pas. I don't care. (Ca m'est égal OR Je m'en fiche)
- J'agree. I agree. (D'accord)
- M'en va tanker mon char. (Québec) I'll go fill up my car. (Je vais faire le plein)
Franglais may also mean a diplomatic compromise such as the abbreviation UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
for Co-ordinated Universal Time.
In English humour
ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Prioress
The Prioress' Prologue and Tale
"The Prioress's Tale" follows The Shipman's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, but it is second in group B2, followed by Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas...
knew nothing of the French of Paris, but only that of Stratford-atte-Bow ('Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
French'). Similar mixtures occur in the later stages of Law French
Law French
Law French is an archaic language originally based on Old Norman and Anglo-Norman, but increasingly influenced by Parisian French and, later, English. It was used in the law courts of England, beginning with the Norman Conquest by William the Conqueror...
, such as the famous defendant who "ject un brickbat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist". A literary example of the delight in mélange occurs in Robert Surtees
Robert Smith Surtees
Robert Smith Surtees was an English editor, novelist and sporting writer. He was the second son of Anthony Surtees of Hamsterley Hall, a member of an old County Durham family.-Early life:...
' Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities:
- "You shall manger cinq fois every day," said she; "cinq fois," she repeated.--"Humph!" said Mr. Jorrocks to himself, "what can that mean?--cank four--four times five's twenty--eat twenty times a day--not possible!" "Oui, Monsieur, cinq fois," repeated the Countess, telling the number off on her fingers--"Café at nine of the matin, déjeuner à la fourchette at onze o'clock, diner at cinq heure, café at six hour, and souper at neuf hour."
The 19th century American writer Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, in Innocents Abroad
Innocents Abroad
The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain published in 1869 which humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American...
, included the following letter to a Parisian landlord:
The humorist Miles Kington
Miles Kington
Miles Beresford Kington was a British journalist, musician and broadcaster.-Early life :...
wrote a regular column Parlez vous Franglais which, for a number of years starting in the late 1970s, appeared in the magazine Punch. These columns were collected into a series of books: Let's Parler Franglais, Let's Parler Franglais Again!, Parlez-vous Franglais?, Let's Parler Franglais One More Temps, The Franglais Lieutenant's Woman and Other Literary Masterpieces.
Another classic is Jean Loup Chiflet's Sky My Husband! Ciel Mon Mari! which is a literal translation of French into English. However in this context, the correct translation of Ciel! is Heavens!.
Perhaps the oldest example of Franglais in English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
is found in Henry V
Henry V (play)
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. A French princess is trying to learn English, but unfortunately, "foot" as pronounced by her maid sounds too much like foutre (vulgar French, "semen" or "to have sexual intercourse" when used as a verb) and "gown" like con (French "cunt
Cunt
Cunt is a vulgarism, primarily referring to the female genitalia, specifically the vulva, and including the cleft of Venus. The earliest citation of this usage in the 1972 Oxford English Dictionary, c 1230, refers to the London street known as Gropecunt Lane...
", also used to mean "idiot"). She decides English is too obscene a language.
French sense
In French, franglais refers to the use of English words sometimes regarded as unwelcome imports or as bad slang. An example would be "le week-end". Though it is often used in many French dialects, Quebecers would use "la fin de semaine" (literally: the end of the week) instead (while "fin de semaine" in France refers to the end of the work week, ie Thursday and Friday). Franglais also refers to nouns created from Anglo-Saxon roots, often by adding "-ing" at the end of a popular word—e.g., "un parking" (a car park or parking lot; "un stationnement" in Quebec French), "un camping" (a campsite), or "shampooing" (shampoo, but pronounced ʃɑ̃pwɛ̃, not *[ʃɑ̃pu.iŋ]). A few words that have entered use in French are derived from English roots but are not found at all in English, such as "un relooking" (a makeover) and "un rugbyman" (a rugby player). Others are based either on mistaken ideas of English words (e.g. "footing" meaning jogging, not a pediment), grammar (e.g. "un pin's" (with the apostrophe in both singular and plural) meaning a collectable lapel pin) or word order (e.g. talkie-walkie meaning a walkie-talkie, a hand-held two-way radio). For those who do not speak English, such words may be believed to exist in English. (Note however that in QuebecQuebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, where both English and French are spoken, expressions such as "footing" and "relooking" are not used.)
Owing to the worldwide popularity of the internet, relatively new English words have been introduced into French (e.g. e-mail and mail, referring to either e-mail or an e-mail address). The Quebec government has proposed the use of an alternative word for "e-mail" which is derived from French roots, "courriel" (from "courrier électronique") and this term is now widely used. The Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
has also suggested the use of the abbreviation "mél." (from "message électronique") as an analogy with the abbreviation "tél." for telephone, to be uniquely used in front of an e-mail address, however the term is now used more broadly in France. Another example from Canadian French
Canadian French
Canadian French is an umbrella term referring to the varieties of French spoken in Canada. French is the mother tongue of nearly seven million Canadians, a figure constituting roughly 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English...
is the word look. The verb "to look" in French is regarder but the noun "a look" (i.e. the way that something looks) is look, so the sentence "This Pepsi can has a new look" in Canadian French would be "Cette cannette de Pepsi a un nouveau look".
France
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a backlash began in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
over the increasing use of English there. "Corruption of the national language" was perceived by some to be tantamount to an attack on the identity of the country itself. During this period, ever greater imports of American products led to the increasingly widespread use of some English phrases in French. Measures taken to slow this trend included government censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
of comic strips and financial support for the French film and French-language dubbing industries. Despite public policies against the spread of English, the use of "Franglais" is increasing in both written and oral expression.
In recent years, English expressions are increasingly present in French mass media:
- TV reality shows generally use English titles such as "Loft Story" (Big Brother), "Star Academy", "Popstars", and "Secret Story".
- A leading national newspaper, Le MondeLe MondeLe Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, publishes a weekly article selection of The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
entirely in English and uses anglicisms such as "newsletter", "chat", and "e-mail" instead of French substitutions ("bavardage"/"clavardage" for "chat" or "courriel" for "e-mail").- Note that saying "bavardage" to a French person instead of Internet "chat" may cause confusion to them, since bavardage refers in France to real-life conversation and is rarely used in an Internet context. The word clavardage (a portmanteau of clavier (keyboard) and bavarder (chat)) is hardly known at all. The word chat in writing can be confusing as well since it means "cat" in French, thus the unique respelling "tchat" is occasionally seen.
- In James Huth's blockbuster movie Brice de NiceBrice de niceBrice de Nice is a 2005 French film, directed by James Huth. It is set in France, centering on the city of Nice.-Plot summary:The main character, a thirty-something surfer named Brice, lives for one thing: the perfect wave, despite the fact that Nice lies on a completely waveless bay on the...
(to be pronounced as if it were in English), Franglais is used in a satirical way to make fun of teens and other trendy people who use English words to sound cool.
Most telecommunication and Internet service providers use English and Franglais expressions in their product names and advertising campaigns. The leading operator, France Télécom
France Télécom
France Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
, has dropped the accents in its corporate logo. In recent years, it has changed its product names with trendier expressions such as Business Talk, Live-Zoom, Family Talk. France Télécom's mobile telecommunications subsidiary Orange
Orange SA
Orange is the brand used by France Télécom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. It is the fifth largest telecom operator in the world, with 210 million customers . The brand was created in 1994 for Hutchison Telecom's UK mobile phone network, which was...
runs a franchise retail network called mobistores. Its Internet subsidiary, formerly known as Wanadoo
Wanadoo
Wanadoo is the former name of the ISP division of Orange SA, which is a subsidiary of France Télécom. It operated in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Mauritius, Madagascar, Lebanon, and Jordan...
(inspired by the American slang expression "wanna do") provides a popular triple play
Triple play (telecommunications)
In telecommunications, triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of two bandwidth-intensive services, high-speed Internet access and television, and a less bandwidth-demanding service, telephone, over a single broadband connection. Triple play focuses on a combined business...
service through its Livebox. The second-largest Internet service provider in France is Free, which offers its freebox. Set-top boxes that are offered by many other providers are also following this trend (e.g. neuf-box, alice-box, livebox...) and the word "box" by itself is gradually ending up referring to these set-top boxes.
SNCF
SNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
, the state-owned railway company, has recently introduced a customer fidelity program called S'Miles. Meanwhile, Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
has renamed its Fréquence Plus frequent flyer program Flying Blue. The Paris Transportation Authority (RATP) has also recently introduced a handfree pass system called NaviGO.
Public authorities such as the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
and the Conseil supérieur de la langue française
Conseil supérieur de la langue française
* France's Superior Council of the French Language* Belgium's Superior Council of the French Language* Quebec's Conseil supérieur de la langue française...
generally propose alternative words for anglicisms. The acceptance of such words varies considerably; for example, "ordinateur" and "logiciel" existed before the English words "computer" and "software" reached France, so they are accepted (even outside of France in the case of "ordinateur"). On the other hand, "vacancelle" failed to replace "weekend" or "fin de semaine" (the latter being in current usage in Canada). The word "courriel", a substitution for "e-mail" initially proposed by the Office québécois de la langue française
Office québécois de la langue française
The Office québécois de la langue française is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage...
, is increasingly coming into use in written French. However, most French Internet users generally speak about "mail" without the prefix "e-". Note that English words are often shorter, and they are usually coined first (the French alternatives are generally thought of only after the original word has already been coined, and are then debated at length before coming into use). This is partly why they tend to stay in use.
Alternative words proposed by the Académie française are sometimes poorly received by an aware (often technical) audience and unclear to a non-technical audience. The proposed terms may be ambiguous (often because they are artificially created based on phonetics, thus hiding their etymology) which results in nonsense (e.g. "cédéroms réinscriptibles" for CD-RW
CD-RW
A CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
(literally "rewritable CD-ROMs", despite "ROM" meaning "read-only memory"). Some words are considered uncool (for example, adding the initial T to "chat" to form "tchat" (in accordance with French phonetics) or rendering DVD as "dévédé" (reproducing the French pronunciation of the letters D, V & D).
The use of English expressions is very common in the youth language, which combines them with verlan
Verlan
Verlan is an argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words...
. The letter J is thus sometimes humouristically pronounced the English way in words such as "jeunes" (youth), rendered as "djuns" and thus written "djeun's", to refer to this trend.
Quebec
Franglais should not be confused with Quebec FrenchQuebec French
Quebec French , or Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language in Canada, in its formal and informal registers. Quebec French is used in everyday communication, as well as in education, the media, and government....
, which has a number of longstanding borrowings from English as the result of the historical coexistence of two linguistic communities, largely within Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
(and especially around Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
). Likewise, Quebec English
Quebec English
Quebec English is the common term for the set of various linguistic and social phenomena affecting the use of English in the predominantly French-speaking Canadian Province of Quebec....
, the language spoken by the anglophone minority there, has borrowed many French words such as dépanneur
Dépanneur
A dépanneur is a convenience store, usually part of a chain, or an independently-run corner shop, general store or deli, in the province of Quebec in Canada...
(convenience store), autoroute
Autoroute
Autoroute may refer to:* Controlled-access highway, particularly in French speaking countries* Routing , when routes to wires in a design are automatically assigned...
(highway), stage (internship), metro (subway
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...
), circular (flyer, from the word circulaire, a pamphlet that circulates as opposed to being round) and many others (See Quebec English). These are permanent and longstanding features of local usage rather than the incorrect speech improvised by any given individual user with poor knowledge of the other language.
These expressions have mainly become part of a common tongue born out of mutual concession to one another. In fact, the substantial bilingual community in and around Montreal will occasionally refer to Franglais, usually after it is pointed out that someone has used a variety of French and English words, expressions or propositions in a 'correct' fashion in the same sentence, a surprisingly common occurrence.
Rest of Canada
Franglais can refer to the long-standing and stable mixes of English and French spoken in New BrunswickNew Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Eastern Ontario
Eastern Ontario
Eastern Ontario is a subregion of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies in a wedge-shaped area between the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence River...
and northern Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
(see Chiac and Acadian French
Acadian French
Acadian French , is a regionalized dialect of Canadian French. It is spoken by the francophone population of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, by small minorities in areas in the Gaspé region of eastern Quebec, by small groups of francophones in Prince Edward Island, in several tiny pockets...
), Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, some parts of Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a region of the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron , the French River and Lake Nipissing. The region has a land area of 802,000 km2 and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it contains only about 6% of the population...
, and even certain towns on the west coast of Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
. This mix uses approximately equal proportions of each language (except in Newfoundland), although it is more likely to be understood by a francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
, since it usually uses English words in French pronunciation and grammar.
Franglais is the common language of communication in French immersion
French immersion
French immersion is a form of bilingual education in which a child who does not speak French as his or her first language receives instruction in school in French...
schools in Ontario, where most students speak English as their preferred language and yet know school-related terms only in French (e.g. "Hey, could you pass me a feuille lignée?", instead of "Hey, could you pass me a sheet of lined paper?"). As most French immersion classes have a strict "French only" policy, such Franglais is used discreetly between students, or out of class.
Incorrect and unstable usages
Franglais, in the sense of incorrect usage by second languageSecond language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
speakers, occurs across Canada. An example of an anglicism turned Franglais is the unintentional translation of English phrases into French by students unaware of the Canadian French
Canadian French
Canadian French is an umbrella term referring to the varieties of French spoken in Canada. French is the mother tongue of nearly seven million Canadians, a figure constituting roughly 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English...
term. For example, a hot dog is sometimes called "un chien chaud" (literally, a dog that is hot) when in fact the French term is simply "un hot dog". (This is in spite of the Quebec government's suggestion of using expressions such as "chien chaud" for "hot dog" and "hambourgeois" for "hamburger", neither of which has gained widespread acceptance.) In some ways, confusion over which expression is more correct and the emphasis many immersion schools place on eliminating anglicisms from students' vocabulary has promoted the use of Franglais. Franglais can also slowly creep into use from mispronunciation and misspelling by many bilingual Canadians. Common mistakes that immersion or bilingual students propagate include incorrect inflection and stresses on syllables, incorrect doubling of consonants, strange vowel combinations in their spelling and using combinations of prefixes and suffixes from the other language.
Recently, Canadian youth culture (especially in British Columbia and southeastern Ontario) purposely uses Franglais for its comical or euphemistic
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
characteristics (for example, in replacing English swear words with French ones). Some anglophone Canadians euphemistically use the Québécois sacres
Quebec French profanity
The literal translation of the French verb sacrer is "to consecrate". However, in Quebec it is the proper word for the form of profanity used in Quebec French. The noun form is sacre....
(religious words such as sacrament as expletive
Expletive attributive
Expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning "to fill", via expletivus, "filling out". It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding—the padding out of a book with peripheral material, the addition of syllables to a line of poetry for...
s) rather than swearing in English.
Cameroon
CameroonCameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
has substantial English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
- and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
-speaking populations as a legacy of its colonial past as British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
Southern Cameroons
Southern Cameroons
Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British Mandate territory of Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961 it is part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Province and Southwest Province...
and French
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
Cameroun
Cameroun
Cameroun was a French and British mandate territory in central Africa, now constituting the majority of the territory of the Republic of Cameroon....
. Despite linguistically segregated education since independence, many younger Cameroonians in urban centres have formed a version of Franglais/Franglish from English, French and Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole, is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok . Five varieties are currently recognised:...
known as Camfranglais or Frananglais. Many educational authorities disapprove of Frananglais in Cameroon and have banned it in their schools. Nevertheless, the language has gained in popularity and has a growing music scene.
Elsewhere in the world
Franglais is also spoken in London due to the number of French people living there.Franglais also occurs in other communities where imperfect English-French bilingualism is common. UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
officials in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
often speak of "the UN Office at Geneva", rather than "in Geneva", in an imitation of the French "à Genève". Note: "UN Office at Geneva" is the official name of that office appearing on official documents.
Another example is provided by the civil servants in European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
institutions (European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
, European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
, European Court of Justice
European Court of Justice
The Court can sit in plenary session, as a Grand Chamber of 13 judges, or in chambers of three or five judges. Plenary sitting are now very rare, and the court mostly sits in chambers of three or five judges...
), based in French-speaking Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and Luxembourg City. They often work in English, but are surrounded by a French-speaking environment, which influences their English (e.g. "I'm a stagiaire at the Commission and I'm looking for another stage in a consultancy").
See also
- List of dialects of the English language
- Cultural identityCultural identityCultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
and Cultural imperialismCultural imperialismCultural imperialism is the domination of one culture over another. Cultural imperialism can take the form of a general attitude or an active, formal and deliberate policy, including military action. Economic or technological factors may also play a role... - "I went to the market, mon p'tit panier sous mon bras", a song by Gilles VigneaultGilles VigneaultGilles Vigneault, is a Canadian poet, publisher and singer-songwriter, and well-known Quebec nationalist and sovereigntist.A poet deeply rooted in his native Quebec, Vigneault has become an icon at home and Quebec ambassador abroad...
- Macaronic, mixing languages for literary effect
External links
- La petite lesson en Franglais
- Au revoir Mister Franglais BBC reporting on the death of Miles Kington
- Le Grande Thanksgiving by Art BuchwaldArt BuchwaldArthur Buchwald was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary...