New French words ?

[Mpprh]

The Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie, or French Language Police have been busy inventing new French words.

A worthy cause, but largely ineffective. Le Macdo, le weekend, and le foot show little signs of being abandoned.

Many of the words are for technological innovations. However, they are

not used in other Francophone countries. So, a Belgians "le PC", "le

mouse", and "le keyboard" become "l'ordinateur", "le souri" and "le

clavier" as you cross the border.

Earlier attempts in this area have not shown the results intended.

"Le Courriel" has not replaced "email" and there are signs that the

French techies have evolved a new word "le mel". And "adresse de

courrier électronique" seems a cumbersome alternative to "email

address".

So what has the latest "brainstorming" (or I should say "un remue-méninges") produced?

Amongst the latest batch of new words are :

jeunes pousses (start up)

bloc-note (blog)

diffusion pour baladeur (podcasting)

débat-spectacle (chat show)

pavé tactile (touchpad)

poste à poste (peer to peer)

heure de grande écoute (primetime)

Unless of course, you happen to be in Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso,

Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros,

Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire,

Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg,

Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo

or Vanuatu.

Peter

[DZ]

Fascinating!  Are these new words actually being used or do people prefer to use the English equivalent in France?  Just wondering if I should be learning them!

[allanb]

Peter: thank you for giving us the name of this organization (the Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie).  Its website contains some entertaining stuff.  For instance, under "computers and internet" there's an entry on the English word "chat", which they helpfully define as:

Conversation entre plusieurs personnes connectées en même temps à un réseau, qui

échangent des messages s’affichant en temps réel sur

leur écran.

Apparently in a 1999 decree they gave their blessing to the French word causette.  However, they have had second thoughts and (according to an announcement in 2006) now recommend dialogue en ligne.

Isn't it good to know that people are working on these important matters?

 

[powerdesal]

Peter,

I think you forgot le barbecue at le week-end.  [:D]

[Cassis]

[quote user="allanb"]... under "computers and internet" there's an entry on the English word "chat", which they helpfully define as:

Conversation entre plusieurs personnes connectées en même temps à un réseau, qui

échangent des messages s’affichant en temps réel sur

leur écran.

Apparently in a 1999 decree they gave their blessing to the French word causette.  However, they have had second thoughts and (according to an announcement in 2006) now recommend dialogue en ligne. 

[/quote]

In real life, the French use the term "chat" but to avoid being catty they spell it "tchat".

[Hoddy]

A bit like Sheffield northwards then where people use t'internet.

Seriously, I think this academy's efforts are doomed to failure; people will use the words they prefer.

 

Hoddy

[Pierre ZFP]

So how is the gender of new words determined then?  Does it take the same as the nearest 'old' equivalent?  I've often wondered how the gender of nouns is applied, there seems to be no hard and fast rules.

[Christine Animal]

Laughing away to myself as I often do, I once said to Jean-Pierre "do you know how they write chat on French forums, they say "tchat" (as in "smatch" in tennis, something between smash and match).

He said "Non ! it comes from a word used long before "tchatcher" " 

Maybe he was right, as usual    [:@]

http://www.languefrancaise.net/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8863

 

[Rich]

My favorite is "restopouce" a nice translation for fast-food.

Rich