To the editor:
Too often we hear Valley-ites say, “On parle pas le bon français.” (We don’t speak the good French). We have been conditioned to apologize for our language – as we do for our hometown, our valley, our county, our state. C’est plus fort que nous autres! We just can’t resist.
I believe that a language, or any variation thereof, is valid if it achieves its primary goal — communication. The guttural, monosyllabic utterances of the cavemen were as efficient in their context as the elaborate sentences of the most erudite people of this century. To each his own language! Valley French is as worthy in this area as Parisian French is in the French capital.
If Shakespeare’s English merits accolades, so does Molière’s French. Both seventeenth century expressions are often regarded as the Golden Age of the language. Since our first French emigrants to the New World left their homeland in that century, they brought with them the language of Molière. We enjoy this writer’s plays because he speaks our language; we are probably the best living repository of the great French playwright’s dialect.
Today there are over 100 variations of French in France itself. The much-extolled Parisian French is simply one of many. On one of our trips to France in the 1990s, Judy and I stopped at a gift shop in Aix-en-Chapel. Hearing us talk in French, the female clerk asked us what part of France we were from. When we finally convinced her with our passports that we are American, she blurted out “Monsieur et Madame, vous parlez mieux français que nous!” That felt good.
Soyons fiers de notre français!
Ross Paradis
Frenchville
