Inside the Académie Française – France Today

Hazel Smith looks at the Académie française’s centuries-long battle for linguistic purity…

The Académie française is a fiercely proud cultural institution whose aim is to protect the purity of the French language. Dating back to the late 1620s, it symbolises the respect the French have for their native tongue… although for some, it is an absurd anachronism. Once a clandestine gathering of like-minded men who mused over literature and linguistics, news of their meetings eventually reached the ears of a sympathetic Cardinal Richelieu, who offered them official recognition in 1635. Ironically, most of the members would have been happier to remain cloistered away.

Most Recent inductee Florian Zeller_Césars -wikimedia

The Académie sought to refine the French language through specific rules, making the language pure and eloquent. Members proposed to “cleanse the language from the impurities it has contracted in the mouths of the common people, from the jargon of the lawyers, from the misuses of ignorant courtiers, and the abuses from the pulpit”.

AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB

The 40 life members of the Académie are known as ‘the Immortals’. New members are chosen by the Immortals; no rank or nationality is necessary, only a recognised contribution to the French language. Notable past members include writers Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas-fils; scientists Louis Pasteur and Jacques Cousteau; presidents Clemenceau and Poincaré; and playwrights Ionesco and Jean Cocteau. Most recently, playwright and director Florian Zeller was elected to the Académie at the age of 46, making him one of its youngest members in modern times. Since 2010, members have been required to be under 75 when elected. With five vacant seats, the Académie currently has 35 members, five of them women. After centuries of exclusion, women were finally admitted in 1980 with the election of novelist Marguerite Yourcenar.

Louis_Duchesne_recevant_son_ami_Lyautey_à_l’Académie_Française. wikipedia

Since its beginnings, the Académie has been entrusted to compile a Dictionnaire de l’Académie française. The first edition was published in 1694. The ninth edition was completed with the publication of its final volume, R to Zzz, and was formally presented to President Emmanuel Macron in November 2024. Work on it had begun in 1986, and its publication came 89 years after the previous complete edition, published in the early 1930s. New words, which appear yearly in other dictionaries, have been ignored: the Académie prefers not to accept newfangled terms.

AN ONGOING BATTLE

The Académie feels that English words, such as email, selfie, or hashtag, are a threat to French culture. Instead, French substitutes, S such as courriel for email and mot-dièse for hashtag, are promoted. However, most French people are perfectly happy to use words such as le selfie, le sandwich, le brunch and le week-end.

Debates flare whenever English infiltrates, but the Académie’s disapproval has little effect: legally, it has never had a say in what words people can use. Yet in 1994, the Toubon Law supported the Académie, requiring French to be used in official communications, advertising campaigns and the workplace. A win at last in the Académie française’s ongoing battle to guard traditional French from the encroaching language of convenience.

From France Today Magazine

Lead photo credit : Academie Francaise is locaed in this building. Institut_de_France_-_Académie_française_et_pont_des_Arts