As I said in my previous essay, I have just moved to Strasbourg, France. It is a relief to be here, where life is just not as dangerous as in America. In America, there may be more guns than people. And in America, if you need a bottle of Jardiance pills for diabetes, you will have to pay $800, even if you have Medicare and supplemental insurance. In France, it will be a long time before I qualify for French health care, but even if I have to buy pills for myself, it won’t be any freaking $800.
But meanwhile, I am going through a period of adjustment. This is the inspiration for my short series, Welcome, Stranger. Today, the French language.
One problem with the French people is that they speak French. And French is a very difficult language. To people who have grown up speaking it, it is simple, and this is true for any language in the world. My granddaughter, age 5, already talks in French, not thinking about grammar or vocabulary. She just learned it from the other kids at school. She has even gotten the French snotty-sounding R, perhaps a little too much. But for older people like myself, learning a new language is difficult. I have studied French not intensely but consistently for ten years, and I can read it fairly well, and construct a few simple sentences. But a French person speaking at full speed leaves me behind in the dust. I watch Jamy Gourmaud’s Youtube videos, but even at speed 0.75 I can only understand it with the French subtitles.
In Paris, I am told (having been there as briefly as possible on my way to or from Strasbourg), the people pretend to not understand you if you try to speak French. This has led to some comedy routines such as Chef Louis and Garrison Keillor on the old Prairie Home Companion radio shows. Keillor would try to order something off of the menu, and the waiter would get angry at him: “Why did you call my mother a suitcase?” But in Strasbourg, at least, if a native English speaker is quiet, polite, and makes a sincere effort, most people are appreciative. In our suburb, Hoenheim, we are about the only Americans, and my wife and I have the reputation of being the cute little old couple who are trying to speak French.
Don’t get me wrong. French is a wonderful language. Even just to look at it is beautiful. One of the first things you will notice is the diacritical marks. Lots of them. They have two kinds of accent marks for e, one of them rising, the other falling. What is a shepherd? Il élève des moutons. They denote slight differences in pronunciation. Sometimes diacritical marks denote differences in meaning; a means he/she/it has, while à means to. A C with a cedilla means that the C, which would normally sound like a K before vowels a, o, and u, instead sounds like an S: Ça y est! And then there is the circumflex, which as far as I can tell exists only to designate that, in the past, the vowel was followed by an s or an x. In French, forest has become forêt, castle has become château, and hostel has become hôtel. Être used to be like the Spanish estar (to be). When you look at a page of French writing, the diacritical marks poke at you like the piqûres of mosquitoes. It is surely (sûrement) and extremely (extrêmement) thrilling.
And the French love their diacritical marks. Recently the French Academy, the gatekeeper of French language, decided that diacritical marks were unnecessary. But the marks are still everywhere. The French love them because they are part of what it means to be French! You will find them even at tram stops, as in these two photos: the Général DeGaulle tram stop, and the map that says you are here (vous êtes ici).
If the government tried to remove the diacritical marks from public signs, there would probably be a big strike that would shut down the tram lines. Give us back our diacritical marks! Strike is grève, where we get our word grievance.)
I have more examples in the next essay. See you then.
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