Francosphere rising
A Quebecois couple -- she's anglo, he's franco -- write a riveting tale, in English, of how the French language is flourishing. How timely

Janice Kennedy
The Ottawa Citizen

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Communication is everything to Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, partners in life and in professional writing.

When the Quebec-born Nadeau and the Ontario-born Barlow were at McGill University together nearly 20 years ago, they would occasionally bump into the little linguistic dissonances that are natural in any refinement of second-language skills.

When Nadeau meant to say he was disappointed, for example, he'd cause Barlow some bafflement by telling her he was "deceived" -- thinking of "decu," the French equivalent of disappointed. "In the early days," he laughs, "yes, we had a couple of misunderstandings."

But such miscues are a thing of the past. The fluently bilingual pair, who live in Montreal, have established a successful writing partnership that has produced not only numerous journalistic contributions, but also a bestselling book. Now, three years after the success of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, they have published another exhaustive cultural exploration inspired by the same source.

The Story of French is a riveting look at the history, culture and politics of the language, both in its European birthplace and around the world, including Canada. Scrupulously researched -- he and Barlow both worked full-time on it for two years -- it is lavish with revelations and rich with detail. The history alone is mesmerizing, a colourful look at the powerful influences of everyone from Francois I and Rabelais, to du Bellay and Ronsard, to Descartes and Moliere, Diderot and Voltaire -- in fact, every great writer and thinker who had an impact on the language, right down to the present day and Helene Carrere d'Encausse, Madame le secretaire perpetuel of the Academie francaise. Madame le secretaire maintains the "le" because, on behalf of the Academie, she opposes the feminization of titles.

But it goes far beyond history, making abundantly clear that French is also a vibrant part of the present, and even the future, a language with a global political context, as well as contemporary usefulness in science and technology.

In a particularly Canadian way, Barlow was determined that people should know this, says her partner. "Julie has always been incensed at the idea that French is just for becoming the prime minister or for sipping wine. It's not just a cute language. There's a world in French, and she realized it's not a landscape very well known to anglos."

There is an illusion, says Nadeau, that the whole world operates exclusively in English, but it's false. He says Barlow liked the idea of initiating English readers into the French-language universe.

The English-French thing has always been fascinating, a love-hate relationship that the pair explores delightfully through scholarship and a lightness of touch. Nadeau says the conflicted feelings are historically rooted, dating back to the politics of the 14th century.

Describing England as effectively the oldest and largest colony of France -- thanks to the Norman invasion in 1066 -- Nadeau says that in 14th-century England, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and most city dwellers spoke French. That explains why 30 to 50 per cent of basic English vocabulary comes from French. Think veal (veau) and mutton (mouton), or close relatives like merchant and parliament. It also begins to explain the emotional dichotomy.

"Semantically, anglophones carry this idea that French is chic and cool -- but also that French is aristocratic and normative and all the other things they don't like."

And there is some truth to that latter perception, he admits. "French has always been more prescriptive than English. And it's also always been a struggle between conservative purists and realists."

Among other manifestations of purism, the book explores the august institution known as the Academie francaise, the body established in 1635 to uphold linguistic standards with the help of its strictly-elected members, "The Immortals."

Of course, such reverence is fitting for a language that is so much more than a language. As the clever design of the book jacket suggests with its wraparound text spelling out ma patrie, c'est la langue francaise, French is really a homeland. This home is not defined by geography -- it's not France, and it's not Quebec -- but it is an almost spiritual commonality for all who share its linguistic culture across the globe.

That goes a long way in explaining the raison d'etre, and the success, of the cultural commonwealth known as the Francophonie. "In the last 20 years," says Nadeau, "there's been an intensity of movement within the francophone world that didn't exist before." And that movement is not just among former colonial partners. With lawyers from New Brunswick and Quebec helping fellow francophones halfway around the world, interesting potentials are developing in what is being called the "francosphere." Nadeau and Barlow devote generous space to the implications of the Francophonie and this francosphere.

The Story of French is also a surprising book, in a fundamental way. Nadeau and Barlow paint a clear picture of the misperceptions of many people today, especially English-speaking people: The language has faded in importance on the world stage; fewer and fewer people are speaking it; it's weakening so much it needs protection to keep it from disappearing. (That last is a view also shared by many Quebec francophones, especially those who favour the legislation passed 30 years ago by the Parti Quebecois and still known as "Bill 101.")

But as the authors show clearly, the fortunes of the French language are anything but waning.

A chart-filled appendix shows its growth in a number of ways. English may be the world's pre-eminent language, with anywhere from 375-600 million speakers. But French occupies a comfortable third position, with 175 million regular speakers, 100 million occasional speakers and -- hopeful signs for the health of the language -- 100 million students of French.

And that's not the end of the surprises. It turns out that Canada is in the forefront of the language's current evolution. After being marginalized in Canada for two centuries, explains Nadeau, and not considered a language of social promotion, French began its ascent here 40 to 50 years ago. The de-marginalization happened thanks to Quebec's Quiet Revolution, official bilingualism and Quebec's controversial language laws, which he defends.

"Quebecers and all French-Canadians," he notes, "are extremely conscious of their delicate situation in North America."

As a result, says Nadeau, Quebec is at the cutting edge of linguistic development for French, and the idea that Parisian speakers are superior to Quebec's is 25 to 40 years behind its time. (And yes, he says, the French from France do indeed laugh at Quebec accents. But they laugh at their own regional differences, too.) For one thing, the vast database of terminology that Quebec maintains gets many times more hits worldwide than that of the Academie francaise.

The Story of French is an undeniably engaging narrative, although, so far, available just in English. Nadeau says he expects work on a French translation to begin soon.

He and Barlow, meanwhile, have a few other irons in the fire. He's toying with doing a humorous travelogue on Canada, not unlike the one he did on France. Together, they might embark on a book about Americans, similar to Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong. They're giving some thought to a companion book about "the story of English."

But none of this will happen for a while. Nadeau and Barlow are new parents, having just adopted three-year-old twin girls from Haiti.

The girls, who speak Creole, will be brought up knowing both their new parents' languages. For the first while, he says, he will speak to them in French, and she will speak in English.

For Nadeau and Barlow, it seems, the challenges of communication are an ongoing project in every way.

Janice Kennedy is a senior writer at The Citizen.

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The Book

The Story of French

By Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow