Each year, the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language, which works hand in hand with ministries, terminologists and experts, publishes an annual report.
In 2021, nearly 268 terms proposed by the Commission were published in the Official Journal.
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The report indicates that this commission, placed under the authority of Matignon, has the mission of "
promoting the enrichment of the French language, developing its use, particularly in economic life, scientific work and technical and legal activities, to improve its distribution by proposing new terms and expressions that can serve as a reference, to contribute to the influence of the Francophonie and to promote multilingualism
”.
Concretely, it creates and institutionalizes a French vocabulary adapted to contemporary demands (scientific or technical, such as the language of video games for example) and applicable to all, particularly in ministerial or official communications.
His work is great and his work is therefore continuous to come up with sensible and relevant neologisms to the corresponding term in English.
For example, it was necessary to find equivalences for the words “
fishing-tourism
”, “
value at risk
” (“critical loss threshold”) or even “
grey hydrogen
” (hydrogen of fossil origin). .
How does she proceed?
The objective of the Commission is that its neologisms become the terminology of reference.
To do this, it verifies the compatibility of each proposal with the following criteria: its relevance, its clarity in relation to the notion that it must designate, its consistency in relation to the terms published previously and finally, its conformity with the morphological and syntactic system of the French.
The proposals are also subject to comments from the Commission's partner institutions - such as the French Academy, the Academy of Sciences, organizations from other French-speaking countries or university terminology teams.
Lastly, the ministers concerned (those whose neologisms relate to the field of their ministry, for example the minister in charge of industry approves the project of publication of the vocabulary devoted to the lexicon of fossil energies) indicate if they validate or not the publication in
the Official Journal
of these new terms.
Terms published in 2021
Among the neologisms proposed and recommended by the Commission, we find words corresponding to the images of English terms, for example "surprise box" to replace "
lootbox
" in video games, "financial mule" for "
money mule
" or even " béticulteur” for “
birch syrup producer
”.
Other neologisms move away from the English terms to get closer to the very meaning of the expression: while English says "
plastic soup
", the Commission recommends the use of "continent of plastic" to get closer to the idea of a vast floating expanse.
Similarly, "erasure culture" is recommended to overcome "
cancel culture
".
We also find the "escape game book" proposals for "
escape book
”, “video micro-narrative” for “
story
” or even “surprise sale” for “
drop
”, “natural agriculture” for “
natural farming
”.