Dans un courrier daté du 23/03/00 18:24:20 , Tom a écrit :
> Humorous, but not surprising. Umberto Eco writes in his book _The
> Search for the Perfect Language about one Frenchman, the Count
> Antoine de Rivarol and that man's book _De la universitalité de la langue
> française_:
>
> "According to de Rivarol, French possessed a phonetic system that
> guaranteed sweetness and harmony, as well as a literature incomperable
> in its richness and grandeur; it was spoken in that capital city which
had
> become the 'foyer des étincelles répandues chez tous les peuples'. In
> comparison with French, German was too gutteral, Italian too soft,
Spanish
> too redundant, English too obscure. Rivarol attributed the superiority
of
> French to its word order: first subject, then verb, and last object. The
> word order mirrored a natural logic which was in accordance with the
> requirements of common sense.... [D]e Rivarol asserts that if other
people,
> speaking in other tongues, had abandoned the natural direct word order,
> it was because they had let their passions prevail over their intellect."
> (p. 300-1)
>
> It sounds disturbingly similar to modern day members of the French
Academy,
> or the editors of _Le Monde_. :)
i can't get what is "humorous" or "disturbing" above.
of course french language is close to perfection thanks to the french people
and their academie's genius.
mathias
>>>>>i feel the need to dismiss mathias' comment with a swwping gesture.
>swoosh<. there we go.
byron