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Has French changed much since Napoleon?

  Tags: History | French
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vanityx3
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 Message 9 of 14
08 April 2008 at 8:02am | IP Logged 
Here is a lot of good insight written by native speakers mostly.

Has french changed much in the last 100 years

Not only has French not changed much since Napoléon. It hasn't changed much since Molière. Molière was writing his plays only 40-50 years after Shakespeare but Molière's French seems much more modern than Shakespeare's English.

Sure, Molière uses a word or two that is dated, as does Shakespeare. But the syntax and grammar of Molière's sentences is almost identical to modern French.

Edited by vanityx3 on 08 April 2008 at 9:25am
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Makrasiroutioun
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 Message 10 of 14
08 April 2008 at 10:21am | IP Logged 
A word or two? I'd be impressed if you can find an average 16 year old English speaker who can understand more than 50% of Shakespeare!

As for Molière... that really isn't a problem for any French schoolboy or schoolgirl. We were doing reading and analysing Molière's plays in middle school. You'll have to go back in time a bit more for the mutual intelligibility to decrease (think Pantagruel!)
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vanityx3
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 Message 11 of 14
09 April 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged 
Makrasiroutioun wrote:
A word or two? I'd be impressed if you can find an average 16 year old English speaker who can understand more than 50% of Shakespeare!

As for Molière... that really isn't a problem for any French schoolboy or schoolgirl. We were doing reading and analysing Molière's plays in middle school. You'll have to go back in time a bit more for the mutual intelligibility to decrease (think Pantagruel!)


I think most 16 year old English speakers would know 75-80% at least of Shakepeare, if he is writing in prose instead of poetry. His prose isn't hard to understand, but his poetry is, especially since he like to play with words a lot, sometimes using common words to have sexual overtones.


I think most 16 year old French speakers could understand 95% or more of Molière though.
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vilas
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 Message 12 of 14
21 July 2009 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
I have read that Napoleon had to learn French before entering the school, but he spoke with a marked Italian (Corsican is an central Italian dialect ) accent throughout his life and never learned to spell properly.
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dmg
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 Message 13 of 14
22 July 2009 at 2:24am | IP Logged 
From "The Story of French", by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow:

Quote:

In 1835 the French Academy published the sixth edition of its Dictionnaire, which got its usual lukewarm reception. However, partly because of Guizot's influence, th French government decided at this time that candidates for the civil service had to pas written and oral tests. That meant that the government needed a standard, so it turned to the French Academy. This was the first (and only) time the work of the Academy took on a genuinely official character and, predictably, this became the heyday of its influence. Lexicographers even published unauthorized versions of the Academy's dictionary on their own. In 1836 and 1837 no fewer than four of this abridged (basically bootleg) editions of the dictionary came out. Joining the movement, publishers edited and republished the classic French authors, including Molière, Racine, and La Fontaine, with the new, official spellings. Ever since then, francophones have entertained the myth that classic French authors wrote exactly like the French bourgeois of 1830. This linguistic revisionism fed (and still feeds) a quasi-religious belief among francophones that the French language has been fixé (set) set the time of Louis XIV. That's patently false, but most French speakers and many foreigners believe it.



This is a fascinating book and a must-read for anybody studying French.

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Belardur
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 Message 14 of 14
22 July 2009 at 8:43am | IP Logged 
vanityx3 wrote:
Makrasiroutioun wrote:
A word or two? I'd be impressed if you can find an average 16 year old English speaker who can understand more than 50% of Shakespeare!

As for Molière... that really isn't a problem for any French schoolboy or schoolgirl. We were doing reading and analysing Molière's plays in middle school. You'll have to go back in time a bit more for the mutual intelligibility to decrease (think Pantagruel!)


I think most 16 year old English speakers would know 75-80% at least of Shakepeare, if he is writing in prose instead of poetry. His prose isn't hard to understand, but his poetry is, especially since he like to play with words a lot, sometimes using common words to have sexual overtones.


I think most 16 year old French speakers could understand 95% or more of Molière though.


I think you're both wrong about 16 year old English speakers. I think you'd find that the average 21 year old English speaker can't understand Shakespeare alone. Has read it in school, yes. Has read about it, yes. Has had it explained by a teacher, perhaps. Can read it in isolation, with any level of comfort? Probably not (note: average, not by any means all).


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