Comment: The French language does not match the country's values
Columnist Peter Wyeth ponders why they say ‘I’ when the English say ‘we’ – is this a historical anomaly?
French égalité does not appear to have reached all aspects of French discourse
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My wife was tempted by a dress in Galeries Lafayette in central Paris.
The hauteur of the vendeuse, wholly unearned when faced with the Duchesse du Berry, as my wife is universally known, was underlined by declaring that “Je” did not have the frock in stock.
She was obviously not the owner, but an employee assuming all responsibility for the stock of that huge department store, in a way designed to be able to refuse the customer by declaring ‘she’ did not have the item.
In the more modest stall in our local outdoor market, the chicken-man’s employee, while standing next to him, declared ‘J'en ai pas’ (I don’t have any) in a neutral tone.
French friends could throw no light on the reason, and in fact they were not even aware of the issue and were nonplussed to try to explain it.
If it had been a matter of debate at some point, by now it was lost in the distant past.
In England, mere subjects of the King would admit that “we” do not have the item, usually accompanied by the inevitable “sorry…”.
Where is Republican égalité?
However, in Republican France, not possessing a monarchy was perhaps compensated at some point, counter-intuitively, by use of the first person in such scenarios.
In England, where one would not expect a Republican inclusiveness, the individualist “I” is replaced by the democratic “we”. Most confusing.
Read more: Learning French: be careful with the many words for a meeting
In a Republic, should it not be “we” do not have the dress, and in a Monarchy “I”?
For the opposite to apply requires an attempt at some sort of explanation. Did the loss of the Ancien Régime hierarchy require the creation of one to replace it?
Where citizens jostle for position, as against the banal equality of all being mere subjects (of the King), perhaps these small distinctions assume great importance.
A familiar visual sight are those so-called ‘banana republics’ where the generals have medals down to their waists.
Perhaps in a modest, linguistic way, the first-person singular sustains the individual in their position, where the first-person plural submerges one in the crowd, losing identity in the masses?
However, the spirit of the first-person (singular) is surely the diametric opposite of true Republicanism, in which all are equal.
Language can reveal what is otherwise hidden, forgotten or denied, but instead of the faint suspicion that the official letter headed Liberty, Equality, Fraternity doth protest too much, and suggests an absence of asserted qualities, should we not see it as a brave aspiration, at least proclaimed in a Republican spirit if not always achieved to the letter?
To the old-fashioned and more conservative British, humility is true and bragging is rhetoric, the nervous pretensions of inferiority.
But France has its own truth, one maybe born under the tricoteuses spattered with the blood of the guillotine, as another aristocratic head drops, and “we” gives way to “I”?
Have you noticed any peculiarities of the French language that do not sit well with French values? Let us know via letters@connexionfrance.com
