La Langue Contemporaine

Abstract

A living language never stands still, and battles will always rage between the purists who want, at all costs, to hold on to the standards of the past, and the progressives who welcome change in the language. The arguments are perhaps sharper in France than in most countries, since the recognition of the national language as an essential part of the national culture is perhaps more clearly perceived in France than in any other country. The Académie Française is the institutionalised proof of that concern, having been set up by Cardinal Richelieu, in 1634, ‘pour veiller à la pureté de la langue’. However, even an institution dedicated to linguistic purity cannot hold the flood-gates against the contemporary jargon which Beauvais satirises as ‘l’hexagonal’, or the influx of anglicisms which have created le franglais.