An English author’s views about the French language – Peter Mayle in Toujours Provence* (Part 1)

We are constantly being told that French is a supremely logical language. I think that is a myth, invented by the French to bewilder foreigners. Where is the logic, for instance, in the genders given to proper names and nouns? Why is the Rhône masculine and the Durance feminine? They are both rivers, and if they must have a sex, why can’t it be the same one? When I asked a Frenchman to explain this to me he delivered a dissertation on sources, streams, and floods, which, according to him answered the question conclusively and, of course, logically. Then he went on to the masculine ocean, the feminine sea, the masculine lake, and the feminine puddle. Even the water must get confused.

His speech did nothing to change my theory, which is that genders are there for no other reason than to make life difficult. They have been allocated in a whimsical and arbitrary fashion, sometimes with a cavalier disregard for the anatomical niceties. The French for vagina is vagin. Le vagin. Masculine. How can the puzzled student hope to apply logic to a language in which the vagina is masculine.

There is also the androgynous lui waiting to ambush us at the threshold of many a sentence. Normally, lui is him. In some constructions lui is her. Often we are left in the dark as to lui ‘s gender until it is made known to us sometime after he or she has been introduced, as in: “je lui ai appelée”  (I called him), “mais elle était occupée” (but she was busy). A short-lived mystery, possibly, but one that can puzzle the novice, particularly when lui’s first name is also a mixture of masculine and feminine, such as Jean-Marie or Marie-Pierre.

And that is not the worst of it. Strange and unnatural events take place every day within the formalities of French syntax. A recent newspaper article, reporting on the marriage of the rock singer Johnny Hallyday paused in its description of the bride’s frock to give Johnny a pat on the back. “Il est”, said the article, “une grand vedette.” In the space of a single short sentence, the star had undergone a sex change and on his wedding day too.

It is perhaps because of these perplexing twists and turns that French was for centuries the language of diplomacy, an occupation in which simplicity and clarity are not regarded as being necessary or even desirable. Indeed, the guarded statement, made fuzzy by formality and open to different interpretations, is much less likely to land an ambassador in the soup than plain words that mean what they say. A diplomat, according to Alex Dreier is “anyone who thinks twice before saying nothing.” Nuance and significant vagueness are essential, and French might have been invented to allow these linguistic weeds to flourish in the crevices of every sentence. But it is a beautiful, supple, and romantic language, although it may not quite deserve the reverence that inspires a course of French lessons to be described as a “cours de civilisation” by those who regard it as a national treasure and a shining example of how everyone should speak. One can imagine the dismay of these purists at the foreign horrors that are now creeping into everyday French.

The rot probably started when le weekend slipped across the Channel to Paris at about the same time that a nightclub owner in Pigalle christened his establishment Le Sexy. Inevitably, this led to the naughty institution of le weekend sexy, to the delight of Parisian hotel owners and the despair of their counterparts in Brighton and other less erotically blessed resorts.

The invasion of the language hasn’t stopped in the bedroom. It has also infiltrated the office. The executive now has un job. If the pressure of work becomes too much for him, he will find himself increasingly stressé, perhaps because of the demands of being un leader in the business jungle of le marketing. The poor, overworked wretch doesn’t even have time for the traditional three-hour lunch, and has to make do with le fast food. It is the worst kind of Franglais, and it goads the elders of the Academie Française into fits of outrage. I can’t say I blame them. These clumsy intrusions into such a graceful language are scandaleux; or, to put it another way, les pits.

* Title: Toujours Provence

Author: Peter Mayle
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Vintage
Date of publication: June 2, 1992
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679736042