French is a Logical Language

Anthony Lodge

Myth: French is a logical, clear language. (What the French have been claiming over the
past three and a half centuries.)
Question: What do they mean?

1647, Claude Favre de Vaugelas (French purist grammarian): clarity is a property which French
possesses over all other languages in the world
1784, Count Antoine de Rivarol (self-styled aristocrat, son of an innkeeper, winner of the prize
for the best essay at the Berlin Academy): describes French as having order and structure of the
sentence. In French the subject of the discourse is named first, then the verb which is the action:
This is the natural logic present in all human beings... French syntax is incorruptible. [...] what
is not clear is still English, Italian, Greek or Latin.
Rivarol claims that "French was preferred by all rational-minded people on account of its
inherent logical structure". What about France being a top nation in Europe for a century and a
half?
19th century, C. Allou (mining engineer turned grammarian): One of the chief characteristics of
French is its extreme clarity which renders it less susceptible than any other language to
obscurity, ambiguity and double-meaning.
F. Brunetiere: [...] it is not the French language which is in itself clearer and more logical than
the others, it is French thinking.
1910, Abbe C. Vincent: Our national language, so clear, so subtle, so logical, so distinguished,
is becoming increasingly fuzzy, turgid, deformed and vulgar.
The eve of the First World War, J. Payot: We find everywhere among French people the
courageous striving after clarity.
1963, J. Duron: I doubt whether there has ever existed since the time of the Greeks, a language
which reflected thought so transparently... [...] it makes clear the most difficult ideas [...] It
carries further than any other language the requirement and the capacity for clarity.
President Mitterrand (socialist): talks about the French language and its clarity, its elegance, its
nuances, the richness of its tenses and its moods, the delicacy of its sounds, the logic of its word
order.
Professors of French in Britain: Looseness of reasoning and lack of logical sequence are our
common faults... The French genius is clear and precise... In translating into French we thus
learn the lesson of clarity and precision. (Ritchie and Moore)
The French language conforms much more closely to the demands of pure logic than any other
language. (W. von Wartburg)

MAIN CLAIMS

1. French syntax follows the order of logic

Main argument - word order (agent, action, patient), SVO (unlike Latin or German)
But...
... French is not the only SVO language, English is also SVO (Rivarol describes it as unclear
and illogical)
... how fundamental is the SVO order in French?
- in formal style subject-verb inversion (1) is frequent;
- in informal style dislocated structures (2) seem to be the rule not the exception;
- passive sentences (3) seem to be a breach of the natural order.

(1) Sans doute vous écrira-t-elle. (O V S)

No doubt she will write to you.
(2) Mon chien, je l'ai perdu. (O S V)
I have lost my dog.
(3) Le vieillard a été soigné par un guérisseur. (patient, action, agent)
The old chap was looked after by a healer.

2. The organization of French grammar and vocabulary with the 'natural' ordering of time and
space
Expectation: one linguistic expression for every distinct idea, and one idea for every linguistic
expression
But...
... the speakers of most languages consider their mother tongue to provide the most natural
vehicle for their thoughts
... the ideas that human beings can have are unlimited. There are surely many ideas for which
French provides no "neatly coded expression".
Examples:
- the French past-tense system provides no distinction between the English I sang and I have
sung;
- same words for sheep and mutton, ox and beef;
- numerous words with more than one meaning (e.g. poser = put down/ask (a question)/pose (for
a picture);
- numerous words which sound the same (e.g. ver = worm, verre = glass, vert = green, vair = a
type of fur, vers = towards/verse)
=> no more clarity, ambiguity

:) Napoleon: 'Ma sacree toux' (= My bloody cough!)

Dim officer takes this to mean 'Massacrez tout!' (= Massacre everything!), so he liquidates the
entire population of the village.

3. French is a lucid language

Rivarol: What is not clear is not French.

However, both the unlettered masses and the educated elite produce "jumbled and confused 'non-
French'".
But languages, their properties and systems, are not good or bad, clearer or more logical,
beautiful or ugly.
Clarity and logic depend on the users' abilities.
So how did French end up being considered a logical language?
i. A century ago in Europe many national stereotypes developed. Examples: Italian is a musical
language (associations with the Italian opera), German is a 'harsh, guttural language' (Prussian
militarism), Spanish is a romantic language (bull-fighters and flamenco dancing), French is a
logical language (prestigious philosophers such as Decartes, who had a way of thinking that
contrasted with that of the 'pragmatic English').
ii. The standard language1 played an important role in the development of French culture. In the
sixteenth century France the concept of standard language gained ground. Standard French, the
best form of French was the one spoken by the best people (namely the King and his Court). This
was the language considered clear, logical, and worthy of being called French.
iii. In 1793 the king was decapited and France needed a new symbol of indentity that would
ensure solidarity within the country. Solution: 'Her Majesty the French language'. The language
of reason and logic became the symbol of the country and using it improperly made you a
"traitor to the national cause".
Idea that is still alive: speaking French badly, breaking the rules of grammar, using foreign
words frequently in unpatriotic.

1980, Raymond Barre (politician): The first of the fundamental values of our civilization is the
correct usage of our language. There is among young people a moral and civic virtue in the
correct usage of our language.

Language Myths and the Historiography of French (Anthony Lodge, speech)

Question: how did the standard ideology developed in French?

i. Two big sociolinguistic developments between the Middle Anges and the 20th century: in the
later Middle Ages an h-variety emerged in France (took over the functions traditionally
performed by Latin) + the imposition of the high variety as the national linguistic norm (13th
century: h-function (Latin) & l-function (the vernaculars) -> later Middle Ages: leakage of
functions -> between the 13th and the 16th centuries: a new French came into being, similarities
with Latin, dignity and prestige?, make French illustrious, hierarchization (social elite, social
distance)).
ii. The second half of the 18th century: an incipient industrialization > a wider market and a
bigger economical and political unit was required > a nation > homogeneity > standardization
of language (standard ideology assumed its powerful political form) > one language = one
nation; language promoted internal cohesion and distinguished the nation from competing
nations > variation had to be suppressed > the h-variety of the elite was chosen as the norm.
iii. Next step: extending the standard > training teachers, new subdiscipline (Histoire de la
langue) to provide historical legitimacy > French = standard French (the language of the
cultural society of Paris), only changes which affected the standard were included, the vernacular
of the majority - condemned.
iiii. Between the 16th and the 17th centuries: onset of standardization; the myth of
homogeneity (real language = pure uncontamined language > locating the standard away from
the German border (no contamination, purity, French is not an amalgam); language
boundaries = political boundaries; wish to periodize vs. change as a continuum); the myth of
inherent superiority (universality of norms, BUT the high variety was used by the elite; French:
clearer, more logical, more precise, it embodies the genius of the nation; the Parisian norm is
based on universal reason, confusion language use with language systems (qualities inherent in
the system)); the myth of a legitimate language (during the 19th century the standard was
promoted to become the sole legitimate language; vernaculars were systematically downgraded
all over Europe).
Histories of French are still heavily standard oriented: some regions (and their
dialects) are still ignored when talking about the history of language (erasure); the role of the
vernacular in language change is not dealt with in French histories of language.

1
Standard language = a set of ideas about what constitutes the best form of a language, the form
which everyone ought to imitate.

Bibliography:
Lodge, A. 1998. French is a Logical Language. In Bauer L. and Trudgill, Language Myths, 23-
30. London: Penguin Books.
Lodge, A. Language Myths and the Historiography of French. Speech held at the University of
Saint Andrews. http://diobma.udg.edu/handle/10256.1/3135. Accessed on March 22nd 2017.