Talk:francais

RFD failed

For English definition of francais as the French language. DAVilla 04:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

RFD discussion: March 2021

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).

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francais

Not really an English word. Should be analyzed as code-switching into French.--Tibidibi (talk) 12:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Delete. Not an English word. Mihia (talk) 01:20, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Well what language is it then? The French word is français. DAVilla 03:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@DAVilla It would be the English pronunciation of a French word, in contexts where foreign words (not loanwords, still foreign words) are used for effect.--Tibidibi (talk) 03:48, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I would call it a misspelling of the French word caused by incompetent code-switching. If you asked the people who use this what language it is, I'm sure they would say "French". When Ronald Reagan famously said "mee cassa ess soo cassa", did the fact that the pronunciation was unrecognizable as Spanish make it English? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

If you ask people what language tour de force or tete-a-tete is, I'm sure they would say French, mispronounced or not. DAVilla 06:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

In the sense we're talking about here, I would call it Franglais. To me, allowing this kind of jokey or facetious French, such as "I don't parlez-vous francais" (the present example), spelled correctly or not, as English, would seem to open the door to e.g. "Where's Philippe? I think he's dans his chambre" or "Ma tante left me this bureau", etc. etc. Mihia (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I should say, this is assuming that English speakers who say e.g. "I don't speak francais" always say it jokily or facetiously, knowing that "francais" is not actually an English word. If there are any English speakers who genuinely do think that "francais" is an English word, and that e.g. "I don't speak francais" is a normal English sentence, not an intentional mash-up of English and French, then I guess that would be a different bouilloire de poisson. Mihia (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I feel like there's a joke to be made here about getting rich making soup and becoming a bouillon-aire, but I can't quite get there. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:51, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

A hilarious joke from the originator of Let's Parler Franglais, Miles Kington, that I think many people will already know, but is worth repeating anyway, is the supposed motto of the French Navy: A l'eau! C'est l'heure! Mihia (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

My delete vote notwithstanding, I don't think failure to reproduce a diacritic not generally present on Anglophone keyboards is much of an argument for the word being English. (nor, incidentally, do I think that the diacritical variation constitutes an English pronunciation, since the difference in pronunciation between français and "francais" isn't a matter of /s/ vs /k/) -Coreydragon (talk) 07:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

In that case, "mee cassa ess soo cassa" isn't mispronounced either. It's not the spelling difference that makes it mispronounced (as a French word) or not, it's the accent of the speaker. Presumably, the /ɹ/ vs. /ʁ/ would be the greatest difference here... that is, assuming the speaker knows the s at the end is silent. DAVilla 04:38, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• @DAVilla Hey- back in literally 2009 you seem to have said that francais is an English language word- [1]. Do you have any examples from Google Books, archive.org or etc that would show this is true? Thanks for any help. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:19, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

That didn't seem necessary. I mean, look at the related terms. Clearly, clearly it's used in English. For quick cites, look up "speak francais". DAVilla 03:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@DAVilla, "speak Espanol" has about seven times more g-hits than "speak francais", "speak Nihongo" also has 14,000 g-hits, etc. The expressions in the related terms list are idiomatic ones.--Tibidibi (talk) 03:46, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

You make a strong case for Espanol, which everyone in my region understands, and Nihongo, which I had to look up. On the one hand, how is it that we suddenly identify English-only speakers as being so multicultural? On the other, what is a dictionary for if not for looking up words? DAVilla 07:04, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so at least we've established this is pretty common. Then by no means would I want to dictate exactly how, but I'm pretty sure some-how we need to handle it. Imagine someone reads "speak Francais" in a book, no italics or anything and even capitalized, and they think, oh how exotic, I've never heard of that language. Maybe not a Brit or Canadian but an American, say, and pretty believable thus far. So they look it up where? On Wiktionary, of course! Just take that as a given. And for sake of argument let's presume it's not an English word. Because, there's a definite line in the sand between loanwords officially part of the language and borrowed words which are very, very evil.

Assuming Francais had been deleted — after all, its only definition is in English for a non-English word — search would redirect the capitalization to francais, which is already kind of a bad sign, but let's keep going. What would this person see? A word in Malay. Hopefully they'd be smart enough to realize no one on Wiktionary was kind enough to help them out, and not foolish enough to think that's what it means. So in the typical scenario, they'd wind up somewhere else, probably Google which does actually try to help from time to time.

But if we're not so pessimistic, maybe they'd see Français at the top of the page and wonder if that was it. A Frenchman? Strike two. By some stroke of luck, in the marginally related language of Norman, Français does mean the French language. Coupled with the fact that it's a French word, that might incite more investigation. And for sake of argument, maybe they do figure it out next, either by looking up the French translation of French or more likely by clicking on the other tiny text at the top and realizing as much. But damn that was exhaustive. They nearly struck out, and we nearly failed our mission. That's cutting it too close.

If a word not uncommonly appears by itself in an English context with nothing to indicate it isn't English, and everything to indicate that it is, viz. anglicization of the characters and in my example capitalization, then it's not just an English word for all intents and purposes, it literally is a word in the English lexicon. At least, that's my take. DAVilla 06:28, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

• Keep but move lemma to Francais following the rule of capitalization for language names. DAVilla 06:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 00:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete. Leasnam (talk) 05:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete. Coreydragon (talk) 07:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Deleted as 3+ to 1. My bad, I thought this was a discussion. I'll try to remember next time. DAVilla 04:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@DAVilla: Why was Francais kept? RFDs usually include forms. J3133 (talk) 07:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh really? I thought it was specific. Maybe wishful thinking. OK deleted. DAVilla 19:52, 26 March 2021 (UTC)