No reason for lack of English

I CANNOT comment on whether Britain’s sinking of the French fleet in 1940 (Connexion, July) was the reason English is excluded from French user manuals but I do know influential sections of French academia and the establishment manifest an attitude close to paranoia when it comes to what they see as the possible adulteration of their “glorious” language.

However, the French people we come into contact with seem relaxed about the language obstacle (provided that we expats are trying hard and doing our best to overcome it).

In the 80s a French friend told me about the work of an Academie Française group which agonises over such vital questions as the gender of new words in the language – but which also instigated the law which led to shopkeepers being fined for daring to use English words to help sell their products.

Whether or not this law still exists or is simply ignored, it serves to illustrate an official attitude towards the ever growing use of English globally and the pique engendered by the historical ousting of French as the language of diplomacy. In short, the ‘lingua’ is no longer ‘Franca’.

Whether this is also why English is not included in manuals for French appliances I cannot say, but it does seem to me an odd coincidence.

Like Trish Miller, (Connexion, August) I too have lived in France for more than a decade. Although I did not find her statements “staggeringly fatuous” nor did they make me “writhe with irritation and embarrassment”, I did find them trite, self-righteous, smug and ill-considered.

She also seems to be missing the point on user manuals. If they were only in French her point would carry some validity, but they can be in 10 languages including Slovakian and Romanian. This gives some weight to Angeline Lomack’s original letter (June) which asked why English was not one of them.

English is more or less the global language, so to exclude it from a user manual which might be needed anywhere on the planet is at best commercially unsound.

Ms Miller has also overlooked the plight of newcomers setting up home in a new country, quite often with new locally purchased equipment, struggling to translate sometimes quite complex technical terms and nomenclature. Is she ‘daring’ to suggest when we come to live in a foreign country we should arrive already fluent?

As for UK-bought products and manuals, I have never found one in multi languages that excluded French.

Peter SMART, Tarn et Garonne
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