Rally and institutionalization of Bitcoin, debate on digital currencies in central banks ... The rise of “digital assets” in global economic life has prompted the French language enrichment commission to look into on the subject.
In a sector totally monopolized by the language of Shakespeare, it has just formalized equivalents in the language of Molière.
The notion of “cyberjeton public offering”, translation of the notion of “Initial Coin Offering” (ICO), made its appearance in the official journal in January.
On its site, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers has hitherto used this Anglo-Saxon term to designate this form of fundraising, in which a company issues “tokens” (which in good French have become “cyberjetons”), to which investors subscribe mainly with cryptocurrencies.
Screenshot of the AMF website taken on January 18, 2021 Capture of the amf-france.org website
The Official Journal proposes the following definition: "an
issue of cyber tokens which aims to finance a project or an organization
"
An automaton executor of clauses
The notion of "smart contract" has also found its official definition: "the automaton executor of clauses" (it was until now most of the time translated approximately and literally by "intelligent contracts", term that the commission not recommended).
Among the other proposed translations: “distributed ledger technology” becomes “shared electronic recording device” and “digital asset” translates to “digital asset”.
Below is the table of all the equivalences offered:
Screen capture of the Official Journal of January 15, 2021 Capture site legifrance.gouv.fr
The commission regularly offers French translations to try to fight against the proliferation of technological anglicisms.
But it is clear that they find it difficult to supplant their Anglo-Saxon equivalent.
Rare are those who speak of "videotox" to designate a "deepfake" or "paid research of computer security breaches" instead of "bug bounty".