France, the culture wars over head scarves

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, (Charles Hawtrey) wrote:

Probably for the same reason that the Academie Française worries over
the incursion of terms such as "email" into the language;

I'm always amused when anglophones get all excited about the Academie
francaise. They think that it has much more importance than it really
does. I've worked as a professional translator-revisor for over ten
years and I've never even *seen* the "Dictionnaire de l'Academie".

Robert and Grevisse (the authors of the standard French dictionary and
grammar, respectively) are much more influential that the Academie, and
neither is French.

About 15 years ago, the Academie made a perfectly sensible proposal to
spell "oignon" as "ognon", which is the way it's pronounced, but nothing
ever came of it.

Many languages have academies, but anglophones seem to be obsessed with
the Academie francaise.

Yves

--
Yves Bellefeuille , Ottawa, Canada
Francais / English / Esperanto
Esperanto FAQ: http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq.html
Rec.travel.europe FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/travel/europe/faq

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, B Vaughan wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, the government should make no rules about the
wearing of any religious garb unless absolutely necessary.

The French attitude is not only that the state should be neutral in
matters of religion, but also that it should be neutral regarding
whether one should believe in religion or not. Any expression of
religious opinion in a state context -- and public schools are obviously
run by the state -- is unacceptable.

American presidents like to say "God bless America"; the French find
this shocking and unacceptable. (And I agree.)

--
Yves Bellefeuille , Ottawa, Canada
Francais / English / Esperanto
Esperanto FAQ: http://www.esperanto.net/veb/faq.html
Rec.travel.europe FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/travel/europe/faq

Well it was done in the US; the plural marriages of Mormonism were
outlawed in US. Although as I understand it there are still some small
pockets of resistance in the more remote corners of Utah and Arizona.
Dunno if Europe allows plural marriages, anybody?
--
wf.

Padraig Breathnach wrote:

Worrying about franglais is relatively harmless; attempting to
prohibit people from behaving in accordance with their religious
conviction when that behaviour does not impinge on anybody else is not
harmless: it's oppressive. I am quite willing to tell my French
friends that. A friend who is not prepared to tell you when you are
getting something wrong is not a good friend.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

(Yves Bellefeuille) staggered to the nearest keyboard and
wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, (Charles Hawtrey) wrote:

Probably for the same reason that the Academie Française worries over
the incursion of terms such as "email" into the language;

I'm always amused when anglophones get all excited about the Academie
francaise. They think that it has much more importance than it really
does. I've worked as a professional translator-revisor for over ten
years and I've never even *seen* the "Dictionnaire de l'Academie".

"Excited" isn't quite the right word. I can't think of a single word
that fits, but we (if I may speak for Anglophones) tend to think the
pronouncements of the Academie francaise are silly but harmless, like
Don Quixote tilting at windmills. The Academie probably gets more
attention because its actions seem consistent with certain stereotypes
about French cultural chauvinism.


--
hambu n hambu hodo

Looks like Zachary Taylor didn't do his job?

Earl Evleth wrote:


Since the Hispanics will eventually take over a portion of the USA
they have a vested interest in not losing their language and culture.

Earl

Yves Bellefeuille writes:

The French attitude is not only that the state should be neutral in
matters of religion, but also that it should be neutral regarding
whether one should believe in religion or not. Any expression of
religious opinion in a state context -- and public schools are obviously
run by the state -- is unacceptable.

Explain state-owned churches, then.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On 12/12/03 0:40, in article 9i7Cb.207$J77.76@fed1read07, "Miles"
wrote:



Charles Hawtrey wrote:


Which Anglos? Maybe a few protectionists. The "English-only"
movement is generally regarded as a fringe group. In fact Spanish is
by far the most commonly studied foreign language in the USA.

English only is not for the preservation of culture and language. It's
to stop unneccesary expenses in having to print all government forms and
documents in multiple languages. There is not need for it. When I
travel to Mexico I do not demand that they talk to me in English and
give me only English papers to fill out. Sometimes they do, sometimes
they do not. I will learn the spanish needed to be able to communicate
properly in another country.

The English only movement is not to prevent spanish from being taught.
It's only for official government communications and documents. How
many languages should be printed up and who pays for it?

In France, English is widely accepted professionally, out of necessity.

As I wrote, all my articles and almost all of the French colleagues articles
were in English.

I was hired into the CNRS without speaking French, it was not a condition
for my employment. My professional competence and what I would bring
to the group were the main considerations. It was assumed that I would
learn French. Since all verbal activity in a French lab is in French,
one does learn French. I have had American colleagues who went to
Germany or Holland, same thing, they learn the language out of
everyday necessity.

People coming to give seminars in France can give them in English, Germans
scientists often did. I can`t imagine an invited foreign speaker at an
American
University speaking in his or her mother tongue. And obviously speaking
English well is a condition for obtaining a post at an American University.
French would be required for those teaching here too. But the French are
also quite tolerant of those who speak French poorly as long as they
are on a learning curve.

The French will even allow Americans to take driving tests for a French
drivers license with a English speaking agent!

Speaking a "latin" languages gives one a feeling for others. In fact
years ago a group of "latin speaking" quantum chemists formed an
international group at which the talks were given in the mother tongue of
each speaker. Scientists from Spain, France, italy, Portugal and
South Ameerican gave talks. One could understand what each individual
was saying because using visual aids allowed one to see tables or
figures which explained things too. So while one did not get every
word, one understood.

Scientific English is stylized in a way that those who do not
need to speak perfectly in face-to-face encounters. They usually
do. But I have corrected a lot of papers for French colleagues,
some wrote better English than I did. My wife also aided
those who did better since she has a eye for errors.

While Americans have the notorious reputation of not speaking other
languages, this is not as true as one might think. I would say
that about half the American seminar givers in our lab spoke
reasonable French. But they are under no international pressure
to do so, so many do not. Of all the nationalities the Germans
seemed to be the most multi-lingual (rulling aside the Swiss).
We hired a number of Germans as University teachers in France over the last
10 years.

All those I encountered spoke good French and English.

We have one Black friend, Cecil, living in the South Central LA war zone of
Watts-Lynwood who speaks and writes excellent French. He communicates daily
with people in France by the internet, so his writing is quite
good. He also has spent considerable amount of time in Africa.
He is a giant of a man, 6ft 5 inches and at least 250 pounds.
You can see us all "a Table" in LA.

http://homepage.mac.com/evleth/PhotoAlbum10.html

"Cecil, Lallia, Earl, and Donna at dinner in LA"

Lallia is an American born woman of Algerian-French heritage.
Ironically, of the three "a table" Lallia does not speak
French (although has French nationality). Born in Brooklyn, she has a slight
NY accent. We are the core group, along with Lars from Holland, supporting
Barry, a American naturalized African who is in prison here in France.
Barry at one time spoke no French, but prison life has furnished him
with an education.

One learns languages in a variety of ways, or sometimes not at all.
There is no single path.

Earl

On 12/12/03 1:04, in article , "Alan
Harrison" wrote:

I think the students reached a consensus that hijab isn't quite the same as
the other religiously significant items of dress, Wearing a crucifix or
kippa is a sign of religious devotion. The former is ceratinly not a
requirement of Christianity nor is wearing or not wearing one seen as an
issue of morality. While not all Muslim women wear hijab, those who do
perceive it as a requirement of modesty and therefore as an issue of sexual
morality. The "beurettes" who wish to wear a headscarf would probably regard
a demand to remove it not as the equivalent of a Catholic girl taking off a
crucifix but of taking off her blouse.


It seems to me that actual number of incidents of conflict over wearing
the scarves is small, therefore the whole debate has ane element
of "much ado about nothing much at all".

As I said, the main issue and worry in France should be over the larger
issue of discrimination against Arabs generally, the "Arabophobie".

The Stasi report is attempting to play off that aspect and recommend
changes which would reduce the phobic content.

Next, the other side of the Fence, those in the Islamic community
against scarves, is not getting sufficient play in the English language
press. Part of this movement may be by those Algerians of Berber descent
against Arabization (including making Arab the official language in
Algeria).
So the culture wars in the Muslim community are more complicated that
the Anglos realize.

Lastly, some of the wearing of scarves are part of the "teenage" rebellian
against adult authority, it is seen in some of the confrontations.

People do things for at least two reasons

1) the one they verbalize

2) the real one.

The real one is involved in the culture war. Religion, in some cases, is
secondary.


Earl

Mxsmanic wrote in message . ..
Charles Hawtrey writes:

The obsession of the French with preserving their language and culture
against outside influence is something many of us find difficult to
comprehend, but in the end it's their own business.

Unfortunately, they indulge their obsession in the wrong way, by
treating the symptoms, rather than the cause.

For example, the decline of French is an effect, not a cause. It is the
consequence of the declining influence of France in the world. The
incursion of English words into French is a consequence of the
overwhelming influence of the United States in the world. The only way
to change the balance is to change the influence wielded by these
societies, but the French attempt to fix the problem by simply outlawing
English words and coming up with French translations for them. That
never works, alas!

Well, it seems to have worked almost perfectly for icelandic. It is
still almost completely free of anglisisms, despite their country
being exposed to even more anglosaxon cultural influence than France.

Bjorn

On 12/12/03 1:31, in article ,
"Padraig Breathnach" wrote:

Earl has made the point that some wear it for political reasons, and I
accept that this is probably true. But one can't practically
discriminate between those who wear it for religious reasons and those
who wear it for political reasons. It's a classic student outflanking
move; they do that sort of thing all the time in relation to all sorts
of things.


The pressure to reduce religious dress in western societies has stretched
to the church. I live in a very Catholic area of Paris, surrounded by
convents, so we get a lot of nuns, sisters and priests on the street.

The traditional garb for females has evolved from what was a dress
from form the middle ages, not very practical in modern times.
So conservative dress has come into style replacing the habits
of yesteryear.

Some people need a uniform to feel like they are members of the group,
a form of external and internal advertising.

If one wishes to read about a local culture war in American I advise
reading Stephen Bloom's "Postville", about Hasidic Jews coming to
a small down in Iowa and facing the mild but real anti-Semitism
of Lutheran Iowa. In fact racism exists on both sides of that
fence with the Hasidics expressing the view of the basic
superiority of Jews over non-Jews. That arrogance is matched
by the Christians assuming that Jews are faulted in not
accepting Christ.


The "message" of special dress at least IN PART must be both defensive
and offensive, the declaration "I am different" and also that
"I am superior" in some fashion to you.

The toning down the dress code in Catholic "professionals" says
to me that "I am not superior" but this is my way of doing things.
The collective egoism aspect goes away.

Earl