France Localizes Gaming Terminology; English Terms Banned
The French Ministry of Culture proposes its own terms to replace English borrowings of the video game world.
On May 29, 2022 the French language enrichment commission issued a statement that prohibits the use of English borrowings in the field of video games. Along with it, it provided a list of expert-determined equivalents to be used by public figures in France.
French gamer's new dictionary
List of translations proposed by the committee includes the most commonly used terms for video game jargon. Among the most interesting of these are:
- casual gamer - joueur occasionnel (occasional gamer)
- cloud gaming - jeu vidéo en nuage (cloud video game)
- e-sport - jeu vidéo de compétition (competitive video game)
- pay-to-win - payer pour gagner (paying to win)
- free-to-play - jeu vidéo en access gratuit (video game with free access)
As you can see, most of the translations are very literal. According to Ministry of Culture's website, the committee consisted of both video game laymen and hardcore (or if we want to borrow from the French hyper) gamers, who tried to ensure that the new terms were natural and correct.
Why is 'gaming' the enemy of France?
Since the dawn of time, the French are a nation extremely proud of their language. Older people do not use English in everyday situations. However, everything has changed with the new generation, which, thanks to the access to the Internet, started to introduce more and more English words into everyday language.
Gamers all over the world undoubtedly make great use of the universal English names, the knowledge of which facilitates gameplay over the network and eliminates the need to search for equivalents in all languages. According to a committee under the French Ministry of Culture this is unnecessary and harmful to the language. On the official website its members explain:
"The main mission of the French language enrichment system is to create new names and expressions to fill in the gaps in our language and to transfer the concepts appearing in foreign languages to French."
Banning certain words certainly sounds threatening to most people. The French order to use new expressions only applies to public figures and does not stop gamers from speaking in the way they choose.
