Language Activists are Tying to Make French Gender-Neutral

Again, you can't make this stuff up! Unfortunately, the left is very, very aware that to control language is to control thought. As George Orwell writes in his prophetic novel, 1984,

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?

Their aim is to make rational thought impossible. I have railed against the degradation of language at the hands of the left, beating a dead horse, for years. Wake up, people! As one person has written of Orwell's Newspeak (my emphasis),

The particularities of Newspeak make it impossible to translate most older English (oldspeak) texts into the language; the introduction of the Declaration of Independence, for instance, can be translated only into a single word: crimethink.

From The Economist

Liberty, equality, brotherhood and sisterhood

IN FRENCH, as in English, full stops traditionally belong at the end of sentences. But lately they have been invading the middle of words. Organisers of recent university sit-ins have called on étudiant.e.s(students) to join the blockades. Pressure groups urge their militant.e.s(activists) and adhérent.e.s (members) to take part in rallies. Normally, the forms of these nouns ending with “es” are feminine; those with just an “s” are masculine. The optional “e” between full stops attempts to make them unisex. It is all part of l’écriture inclusive, or inclusive writing—a defiant response to charges of French linguistic patriarchy.

As every student of French knows, the traditional rule is that “the masculine form takes precedence over the feminine”. So an adjective that refers jointly to masculine and feminine nouns—des garçons et des filles intelligents (clever boys and girls)—agrees only with the masculine one (adding just an “s” in the plural, not an “es”). This principle has long been implicit in the use of masculine nouns to cover feminine cases too. Un sénateur (senator) traditionally refers to both men and women who occupy the office.

Such practices vex feminists. A group of 314 teachers issued a public appeal a few months ago against a grammatical tradition that amounts to “the domination of one sex over the other” and makes women invisible. Eliane Viennot, who describes herself as a literature professeuse(professor), recalled that such rules were codified only in the 19th century. In 1480 Madeleine de France, Charles VII’s daughter, described herself as an autrice (female author). The pre-Napoleonic French language referred to a charpentière (female carpenter) or doctoresse (woman of letters). Indeed, Quebec recommended the use of feminised forms for job titles in 1979. Today, French advocates of gender-neutral language would also prefer the adjective to obey a rule of proximity, and agree with the gender of the nearest noun in a sentence. In the example above, this would lead to des garçons et des filles intelligentes.

Needless to say, the linguistic purists are aghast. Last October the Académie Française, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635, issued a “formal warning” against l’écriture inclusive, calling it an “aberration” and declaring the French language in “mortal danger”. Such was the controversy that Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, whose government has made sex equality a priority, felt obliged to step in. Affirming that he was all for the “battle against stereotypes”, he called nonetheless for a compromise. All public-sector job titles would henceforth be feminised. So a female chef de cabinet (head of staff) is now une cheffe, and a female préfet (prefect) is une préfète.

Yet Mr Philippe drew the line at the encroaching dot. He ruled that all official job adverts should call for “un candidat” or “une candidate”, so as to encourage both male and female applicants. All references to candidat.e.s, however, will remain strictly interdit.e.s.