• BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It’s shit like that why I wonder people just don’t update their languages, remove useless letters, nonsensical loan words exonyms, etc.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Oxford University Press doesn’t have governmental enforcement powers the way the OQLF does.

        • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          No, French has private dictionaries that aren’t normative. This isn’t that.

          The Académie is a quasi-governemental institution built by Louis XIV to impose a normative version of French. They initially reformed the language but quickly ended up enforcing the linguistic status quo. French hasn’t had a (much needed) structural reform in about two centuries.

          What the academy defines to be “proper French” is essentially the only French that is used by the government, media, and school system, and they refuse to acknowledge changes in usage at every turn.

          This means that French is set in stone and mid-19th century books have essentially the same grammar as 21st century French apart from some very minor differences.

          (I won’t get into the systemic and very successful repression of minority languages which is closely related).

    • JayObey711@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      German did. And it worked. One of the reasons is probably that written German is uniform everywhere. I imagine language reformes are harder and less effective when dialects are still big.

    • Taigagaai@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Like many things in life, languages aren’t necessary logical but I’m looking forward to your efforts to finally get everyone into Esperanto!