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French Government Bans Term 'E-Mail'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-le-words dept.

Licensed2Hack writes "'Goodbye "e-mail," the French government says, and hello "courriel" -- the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.' . Curriel? 'Hey Pierre, curriel me those sales figures.' Just sounds wrong!" Especially if you don't actually speak french ;)

4 of 1,094 comments (clear)

  1. if the french had created e-mail... by sydlexic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    we would now be calling it 'freedom mail'. while I think the french culture police are a bit over the top, the same can be said for a lot of people on capitol hill.

  2. Re:can't you tell by my ridiculous accent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I think it's perfectly legitimate for a language to have new words for new technologies/items and use words proper to the language rather than import words from other languages. That's what it is to be living language."

    No, its not normal. Normally, lanaguages evolve by their speakers, not by a government based commission.

    Still more proof that french culture is dead.

  3. Re:can't you tell by my ridiculous accent? by grondu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the last six years I have been living two miles from Quebec and one thing I notice is that from the french people's POV, no matter what country you are from, either your "one of us" (French) or "one of them" (non-French).

    For the last 51 years I have been living in the USA and one thing I notice is that from the American people's POV, no matter what country you are from, either your "one of us" (American) or "one of them" (non-American).

    --

    I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist... I don't exist

  4. Word importing by Cappy+Red · · Score: 5, Insightful

    English is probably more open to importing words from other languages because England was invaded several times in the middle ages(Normans, Vikings), and is populated with people originally from an area in northern Germany. Thus, English gets its Germanic roots, and large numbers of words from(or through) French and more German(Vikings spoke... something. Norse variant of German is as far as I got on short notice).

    This story is just goofy, though. "Mail" comes into English from French. "Courrier" came into French from Italian.(Electronic and variants come directly from Latin)

    Languages survive through the adoption of new words, whether they be homegrown or imported. Attaching more value for one method over the other is just silly.

    (More info on borrowed words in English. French and Norse invasions mentioned a few paragraphs from the bottom of the page.)


    *honk*

    --
    This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things