Quoi qu'on die d'Italiennes, / Il n'est bon bec que de Paris. (François Villon)
1A. THE LANGUAGE
French, at least that of oïl, is
exceptionally equal. It forms a transparent film between the speaker and what
he speaks of. But also between the speaker and he to whom he speaks, even
between the speaker and himself. This goes to a certain incorporeity.
Everything concurs to this effect.
1A1. Phonosemics
The accent that is regularly placed
on the last syllable of the phonetic group (that can include several words)
gives the utterance a calmly decided allure. The fact that, alongside
consonants there are also multiple vowels and that the latter are oral and also
truly nasal, ensures the stability of the diction, which is still balanced and
smoothed by a very advanced point
of application in the mouth. All phonetic productions are firmly
dissimilated. The tessitura is larger than with Spanish but lesser than with
English. At the same time, syllables are all pronounced with more or less equal
lengths and impacts, which excludes variations of rhythm and of local
intensity. The jolts in the evenness of syllables (gouvern’ment) betray foreign
speakers, however expert they may be. This transparency has excluded noisy
consonants, such as those that were truly aspirated (the different Arab ‘h’),
real gutturals (Dutch ‘ch’ or ‘g’), or the eluding English ‘the’. Even the ‘r’,
formerly rolled in a first while’, has been tampered down, filtered until it
became this rare speciality, the Parisian softly guttural ‘r’. Excessively long
words such as 'communautarisation' are out of tune. In addition to some fluctuations of pitch and
displacements of accents towards the first syllable, one of the few rare
moments of insistence is the stridency, for example in the word ‘injustice’,
which was predestined to this reinforcement of high frequencies because of the
suite of a nasal ‘è’ (‘in’), the ‘ü’ and the ‘iss’.
Assuredly, the evenness of this
verbal carpeting repulses the original pronunciation of foreign words, which
are all Frenchified, particularly with an accent on the last syllable. Their
crude intrusion is obscene, since it almost always provokes an entrance of
bodily or worldly noise in the French semics incorporeity. ‘I come to it’
excuses the correct naming of an English or Dutch club. It is rare that a
French speaker briskly moving into English or Dutch should not provoke a moment
of unease.
1A2. Semantics
Many words
are very good at designating an object (merlon, douve), tools (gouge, varlope),
and the hence-developed actions (vriller, forer), thanks to which the
environment is stabilized into substances that secondarily have qualities,
accidents. In this respect, the French speaker often displays a very vast and
fine knowledge. In the same frame of mind, we find many substantives defining
general ideas, often judicial (‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’), but also
abstractly physicist (‘ayant subi une rotation’). Seeing the appropriate
incorporeity, analogical words such as ‘hop’, ‘vlan’, ‘bof’, are rare and
reputed vulgar, as they trouble the evenness of the diction and of the
idealization as they mime the vocal (even the whole) body. The whole
descriptive vocabulary of concrete movements is poor compared to that of other
languages, English in particular. As we know, an English speaker ‘swims across
the river’ where the French speaker ‘traverse la rivière à la nage’: those draw
two ontologies. Moreover, French has practiced the limitation of the lexicon
since the early 17th century. Racine’s tragedy is based on the
pathetic narrowness of the vocabulary, at the opposite of Shakespeare.
In this determining abstraction, word
classes are very clear, and more often than not a word in a class does not
automatically engender its corresponding in another: no ‘concretude’ for
‘concret’; no ‘planéité’ or ‘plainement’ for ‘plainness’ and ‘plainly’. Modes
are also firmly set apart. To the opposite of the indicative is the conditional
and the subjunctive, to which the imperfect and pluperfect add to the their general
declaration the support of the initial ‘que’ (“que je fusse”) and the evasive
doubt of their final ‘-asse’, ‘-isse’, and ‘-usse’.
1A3. Syntax
Finally, we reach a crucial choice.
Many languages place the determiners canonically (epithet, determinative
complement) before the determinatum: ‘a black table’, my brother’s book; we are
even led to think that this is the minimal syntactic mechanism, since we spare
a preposition (‘de’) and that we directly see that the determiner concerns the
determinatum, and does not have to create special terms to signal its function
(‘de’, ‘que’, ‘don’t’). The French speaker does the exact opposite when he
canonically places the determiner after the determinatum. ‘la table noire’ le
livre de mon frère. For him, the environment is organised in substances (or in
almost substantivized ideas) with their accidents. It is therefore essential
that, except in some particular cases, the determinatum should come before (it
is the essential) and that the determiner should follow it (it is the
accidental).
The grammatical concord intervenes
everywhere, in number, gender, right to the past participle. Indeed, it
reinforces the dependence to the organising substances (‘the little table that
I polished’) but specifically the whole subject hence appears to be complete,
sufficient, like a good form, whose every element is a true integral part
(integrating of the whole), with the least background noise as possible. Hence,
the term ‘phrase’ naturally designates the complete sentence in the sense of
linguists, and not its main portions as with English. Therefore, the logical
modalities affecting the ‘phrase’ in the French sense are also encompassing,
and for this precede it. There are countless introductions such as: 'Il serait utile
que...', 'Il est évident que...', 'Je suis convaincu que...', which are or missing (unthinkable
or not thought of) in many other languages.
This syntactic grasping had to give
way, in any event after the 17th century, to an explicit and
balanced punctuation, devoid of overload and without gap. Specifically,
relatives are firmly attached to the antecedents with an expressed relative,
and the absence or the presence of comas distinguishes the defining relative
clause and the explicative relative clause. Sentences are often linked by such
adverbs as ‘par conséquent’, ‘en effet’, ‘néanmoins’, that organise them into
paragraphs that are both consistent and integral. The passage from one
paragraph to another supposes transitions that absorb a good part of the
drafting effort. A well-drafted chapter recalls its main theme in regular
intervals that has sometimes been called semantic ‘staples’. The baccalaureate
comprises an essay that enforces these requirements
The interior rhymes and repetitions
of words are held in contempt. In this equal fabric, they would create an
insistence, solely tolerated to oratory or lyrical ends, as with Pascal. The
obligation to vary terms has for consequence the antithesis or the subtle
weighing between nearby terms: “elle vous prêche quand on lui parle”, writes
Guez de Balzac. This may complicate the drafting and particularly the
translation of scientific information, which favours the same words for the
same things, but flourishes the moral discourse, which is fed of nuance, and
sometimes fecundates the theoretical generalisation by encouraging it to
explore other terms. In everyday life, the verbal variability pullulates word
plays (“fils de pub”, “parti prix”) that is favoured by the neatness and small
number of the different syllables used. Etymology is not very present to the
speaker, except with a few writers (“procède” for “avance” with Valéry). Apart
from the fact that Latin, which is at the root of many French words, has
often-obscure etymologies, the ostensible semantic thickness would compromise
the smoothing transparency and jolt the expression.
The taste for stability is such that
the French speaker usually speaks as he writes, right until strange liaisons
(vers eux = <z>eux). Furthermore, we stick to common use expressions.
What has not been said or written is suspicious; and leads to opening the
Littré to check whether the expression figures there. Hence, quotations are
valorised as manifestations of culture, and being cultured almost demands for
regular quotes: “as Jaurès said”, “as Montesquieu underlined”. Few neologisms,
few foreign loans, the Académie has kept its watchful eye opened since around
1630, and the French speaker is marked by linguists as one of the most severe
in the world on what Chomsky calls “linguistic competence”.
In summary, everything is designed
for the designator to disappear before the designated (object, event, idea,
interlocutor), so that it may be a mental equivalent, without jolts, without
any vocal embarrassment and without too many meanders of the brain. Foreigners
like to say that French speakers are superficial. The remark is malicious if we
understand that they do not go to the bottom of things. It is pertinent if it
notes that, even when they speak of jazz, madness or excesses, they are forced
to bring everything to the thin, continuous, transparent, formally globalising
and integrating layer: the French language.
1B. CULTURAL CONSONANCES
All this results in a self-assured
speaker, who has the feeling of seeing clearly in his thoughts, and of being able
to express any matter adequately: ‘je vais être très clair’, ‘vous m’avez mal
compris’, ‘vous m’avez mal lu’. Addressing listeners that are equally
transparent, this speaker has a declared moral. He has political opinions that
present themselves as morals, deciding of a Right and a Left. He knows what
taste and good taste is. Human actions are understood as lines of conducts (120
lines in the Littré) rather than behaviours (5 lines in the Littré). Each
individual has the obligation of knowing everything, and in certain circles, of
having read everything, i.e. the texts read by the guests at the same table.
Power is centralised like a phrase-sentence. If it is true that one speaks as
one writes, the law is all the more written. This has made the international
fortune of the Code Napoléon.
In the daily news, information,
comment and opinion are more or less separate, since each is invited to have an
opinion on everything in his language. It would seem trivial to linger on the
arguments of the opponent, except to demonstrate their ridicule. Television
news presenters assure transitions (concords) between themes, in such as way
that the entire news is orchestrated, agreed like a French ‘phrase’ or
paragraph, which is not something that we find in the news of other languages.
This is a case where it is useful to distinguish French speakers and French
people, as Belgian French-spoken news display this same desire for a global
nature, latent opinion and entertainment, which is something that Belgian
Dutch-speaking news do not seek.
Naturally, the literature is very
abundant and diversified (like consonants, oral and nasal vowels are in
phonetics). For the same reasons, it is also constantly moralising. “Love
itself is political”, remarked Stendhal, who went on to add that the fright for
ridicule is a foremost imperative. Everything is matter to discourse, in the
etymological sense of a course proceeding by successive disjunctions
(dis-duo-currere). The intelligentsia, which justifies itself by the task of
maintaining the quote, enjoys a prestige unknown anywhere else. There is a
beautiful style known as clean. There is very little humour, but an intensive
use of irony, as everyone feels that he understands it all clearly so that
others are fatally wrong. We shall note the extent to which all these practices
are maintained by the obligation of not repeating words and of playing with
almost synonyms in a subtle manner.
Descartes’ philosophy changed the
language signs into a universal vision of the world. There is a “good sense”
(and not only “common” sense), that is the thing most shared in the world, each
thinking that they have enough of it so that there are clear and distinct
ideas, the idea of ‘perfect’ even contains its existence, it is God, who has
the good sense (or the good taste), although his will is infinite, to act
according to the most direct, the most transparent, rational ways. Logic is
immediate, global, and fits completely in the visual grasping of equivalent
proportion A/B=C/D=M/N, no more. ‘Moi’ is a word that has a powerful voice; its
grammatical functions allow it to give the ‘je’ a consistency, ‘moi, je’, and
to treat it like an object: ‘je me vois moi’. Hence, the Cartesian ‘moi’ is
also a clear and distinct ideal, in some ways the first. Of course, it is
substance, the determinatum par excellence of all determiners, like with
Montaigne (“car c’est moi que je peins”), then with Corneille (“moi, Moi,
dis-je, et c’est assez”), Biran and Valéry (“inépuisable Moi!...”). In the
general transparency of the language, its incorporeal is such that “Moi”, René
Descartes, “j’ai vu que je pouvais feindre que je n’avais aucun corps, et qu’il
n’y avait aucun monde ni aucun lieu où je fusse”. French psychoanalysis will
speak of “Moi” and of “Sur-moi”, where Freud spoke of “Ich” and “Uber-Ich”).
This language, like all others,
favours some technical, political, economic performance and disadvantages
others. Let us remember a few examples at random and in summary, leaving the
reader to complements and nuances.
The world’s best cartography and road
mapping – worthy of the written punctuation – are consonant with
this language structure and fantasy. In printing, Garamond and Didot.
Declarations that are sufficiently abstract to conquer part of the planet, such
as the Declaration of Human Rights, or still to clarify (‘mettre à plat’) some
international negotiations (Jean Monnet). The taste for great and developed
designs: Concorde, Ariane, Eurèka, Superphénix, Sophia-Antipolis. A scientific
monthly magazine, entitled ‘La Recherche’, whose synthetic capacities are
unequalled. A precocious education of children made easy by a clear voice,
which soon creates small adults. A general demand for excellence, whose minimum
is defined nationally in the Baccalaureate. Physical and mental handicapped and
school-retarded are perceived as false notes. The Nobel Prizes are sacred
leaders of people.
In the same way, garments that make
the body evident and integrated, like the sentence, thereby creating an amiable
fashion, Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. A cuisine of sauces, which are as
agreeing as the past participle concord. A guillotine that excels in smooth and
perfectly disjunctive executions (“Tout condamné à mort aura la tête tranchée”
has triggered the conjoint admiration of Stendhal and Claudel). ‘À la
Française’ gardens, sorting, cutting, pruning nature’s wild growths and
withering, placing wooded paths like discourses. A rare classical music, like
its German counterpart, and in any event one that is not very fugal (Rameau,
Debussy), and that is transparent right to its timbre effects (Ravel). Few
popular choirs, like in England.
Impressionism, the French pictorial
moment, is probably the most surfacing painting ever produced. It continues
today in the balanced light that irradiates from the television set, where,
apart from news of a very high image and rhythm quality emanates a universally
sold advertising ‘French touch’. Correlatively, an almost invincible difficulty
to understand that cinema is not filmed moral theatre, but a play of lateral,
multidimensional photonic movements. Moreover, in the colourful television, one
finds none of these ‘talk shows’ or these debates and reports where Joe and
Jane Smith intervene, and that fill the screens of other languages, English,
Italian, but also those of the peripheral French, Canadians, Belgians, Swiss,
etc… Rather, some monarchic “Grands échiquiers”.
Every
language, because of its phonosemic coherence, produces ‘reactive formations’
in the sense of psychologists. Here, it is the abundance of Gallic wordplays,
due to the already phonetic availability, but also that the speaker does not
perform ‘ça’ that his language does not speak of ‘ça’, unless the voice is
altered (nymphomaniac heavy breathing of advertising). Similarly, since La Fontaine’s
Contes, the incessant ‘spirit’ allusions are probably due to
the need of adding the rawness of things to the smoothness of the expression.
Klossowski’s haute couture pornography in Roberte ce soir and Céline’s hand sewn decay are only conceivable in French and because of
French. Simpering is also a phenomenon that is more present than in other areas
of languages. We can think that because of the obliqueness of the pose and of
the diction it allows to somewhat rise to the surface of the body as it eludes
it.
Finally, Mallarmé’s text in
literature, Lacan’s in psychoanalysis, both of which are faraway from everyday
speech, are only understood as breakings into the field of a language that is
very stabilising, both structurally and in fantasies *.
* The Histoire langagière de la
littérature française, produced by France Culture, can be listened to on the
present internet site under the heading “Philogénies” and was only possible in
French because the equalities of the languages where the singularities defining
the ‘subject languages’ of every writer are bluntly apparent and diversified.
Henri Van Lier
Translated by Paula Cook