Date:  Wed, 16 Mar 1994 12:54:25 -0600

From:  Charles F Juengling-2 <juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation



On Wed, 16 Mar 1994, Gregory J. Pulliam wrote:



> Regarding Mike Picone's point about the French perception that their ways

> of thinking may be losing ground to anglo-style ways, well all I can say

> is good riddance! ;-> Their condescending attitude toward tourists who

> try to use French but screw it up seems to be unique in the world, and

> probably accounts in large part for the ascendancy of English and Spanish,

> whose speakers seem to think in ways that are much are accepting and

> encouraging. One of the in-jokes on the new Star Trek series is that

> French is a dead language in the 24th century.



The real joke is when DATA informs the crew, much to Picard's ire, that

French was a relatively minor/ unimportant language!









 In all seriousness, it

> does seem to me that if the French academy continues to prescribe usage, the

> official and vernacular versions of the language are bound to diverge ever

> more greatly, which could make official French a modern-day Latin.

> GPulliam

> humpulliam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minna.acc.iit.edu