French Forbidden from “Computing in Cloud”

Posted by Mike on October 15, 2009 under Language Study, Translation News | Read the First Comment

We’ve blogged before about the French Academie, a group that purports to preserve and protect the French language, particularly against encroaching Anglicisms.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reports on the Academie’s attempts to come up with French equivalents for English-language computing terms such as cloud computing (which, for those not in the know, consists of accessing remote data over a network, so as to preserve the resources of the computers on the receiving end). The suggested phrase was “informatique en nuage,” literally “computing in cloud,” a phrase which left the board of the Academie cold.

The reaction, as reported by Max Colchester:

“What? This means nothing to me. I put a ‘cloud’ of milk in my tea!” exclaimed Jean Saint-Geours, a French writer and member of the Terminology Commission.

“Send it back and start again,” ordered Etienne Guyon, a physics professor on the commission.

Although the French should, on the one hand, be commended for trying to preserve their own culture, one can’t help but wonder if it’s futile in a way, particularly considering the immense influence of the largely English-speaking internet as it continues to grow, evolve, and change the way we communicate with one another on a global scale.

Read Max Colchester’s full article on the Wall Street Journal: The French Get Lost in the Clouds Over a New Term in the Internet Age