"The Story of French" by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I got this book from my favorite thrift store, thinking I'd be able to read it soon, but I didn't start doing so until I decided I could learn a thing or two from its espousal on making French one of the leading international languages (based on it's brief review on its back cover) even in these times when Mandarin is actually spoken by more people than English (considered by most as the international language of business). Who actually reads a book that presents a political treatise on the "French" language except perhaps readers like myself who's into freelance writing work most times, and academicians who are paid to read and share their knowledge to their captive market (their students)? I mean, I'm not exactly reading nor studying French at all---it does not appeal to me at all personally (except upon remembering that one of my favorite modern day saints, St. Therese of the Child Jesus spoke French when she was still with us). I'd rather become competent in Spanish, or Mandarin anytime soon even before I get to learn my first lessons in French (though I know some good friends who speak French, plus I've seen many great French films). I have to admit the image of the French can be mesmerizing, given the ads & the images that we see all around us about things of beauty, style, and design. In comparison, the English, of which I speak, read & write since I was small (as in practically native for all intents & purposes), looked eccentric and weird to me given their apparent emphasis on things of royalty and class differences---but that's already going too far for our purposes here. This review will then be focused on what mainly got into my mind while perusing seriously the contents of this book while I went about in my daily city trips here in NYC.

What struck me really about this book is its well-researched narrative of the author's well founded grievances against well-observed tendencies of those who are in positions of power, or the powers that be, to use language in shaping the minds and controlling the behaviors of people who don't fit in their ideas of what's good and bad. It's all the same story all over again, just like in my experiences with my ability to use English, in which we who have learned our English not really in UK, in Ireland, or in the US are easily thought or dismissed by others as not really learned in real English at all (unless proven by having passed language proficiency exams that very well bring money into their pockets!)---well, this is the same line story in this particular book. The authors have described their terrible experiences of being discriminated because they speak and possess a tone that has been decided by the powers-that-be as not "real French."

Reading through this book, I particularly remember how the couple Nadeau (Jean-Benoit) and Barlow (Julie) narrated that the French they know and have learned is considered below par---there were even periods before when French language teachers were thought to be of poor competency when they come from Quebec, or in Montreal, Canada---as the French used here sound archaic, and have been kept away from latest developments in other areas where French is officially used (including, of course, France). Even recently, I met two or more people who have told me about how aghast they were at listening to Canadian brand of French---they thought of it as "provincial."

I can very well relate to the experience. Applying the ideas to what we non-US or non-UK, or non-Australian, or non-New Zealand, or non-Irish, or non-Canadian natives experience when people get surprised at finding out that we have learned our brand of English in our respective countries (in my particular case, I was exposed to English in the Philippines, which country was a colony of the US from 1898 to 1945, hence the exposure to the English language, being part of the heritage, no matter how badly colonial that could be to others). Of course, for all intents and purposes, I speak with an accent in English, and I'm proud of it---it's my heritage. It doesn't in any way make my English bad in any form from the regular English used in the UK, the US, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Ireland. My English is as native as it can be, having grown up with it---in fact, I even used English when my late Father and I would have serious arguments on certain issues as he could explain himself better in English than in Ilocano (his first language, being a major language spoken in northern part of Luzon, the Philippine archipelago's largest island) or Tagalog (the basis of the Philippine national language) to me who remembers being exposed to English most strongly from TV's Sesame Street.

This book is a great example of work that advocates a more international, more expansive brand of multi-lingualism, or the use of several major languages all the same time, and not at the dire expense of one language thought to be not international enough these days (in this case, French, which used to be considered the "international language" at least a hundred years ago). It's refreshing in my case, and warmly assuring to get myself reminded that my set of experiences on the languages I know and use have similarities (or something parallel to) with the authors' experiences --these are just familiar to those who grew up in environments where several languages are used and spoken simultaneously. In this case, I'm happy to be assured that the authors have a fairly clear idea of the experiences of people who speak/read/write/listen/pray in two or more languages daily - & that this is actually an advantage, a great strength, rather than thought to be a weakness or even at worst as copy-cats by certain people who are aghast at our awesome language abilities.

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