Le Petit Robert Adds Gender-Neutral Pronoun
French dictionary accused of “le wokeisme” for adding gender-neutral pronoun
Last week Le Petit Robert, a major French reference dictionary, added the pronoun “iel” to its online lexicon. “Iel” is a combination of the masculine pronoun “il” (he) and the feminine pronoun “elle” (she). It is a personal pronoun subject of the third person singular and plural that can refer to a non-binary person.
Gendered languages such as French pose a distinctive challenge to advocates of inclusive and gender-neutral language. Unlike English, French categorizes all nouns as either masculine or feminine. Despite these stringent grammatical constructs, it is apparent that the evolution of the French language faces an even more significant threat: resistance from political leaders in France.
The decision to include “iel” in the online dictionary Dico en ligne Le Robert sparked a major uproar amongst French politicians. François Jolivet, an MP from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, took to Twitter to express his disaffection with the term. He accuses Le Robert of embracing “woke” ideology, or as has he puts it: “le wokeisme”. (Ironically, he genders this non-french term by adding the masculine pronoun “le”).
Screenshot from Twitter
Joviet also included a copy of a letter addressed to the Académie Française, a 400-year-old institution considered to be the “caretaker” of the French language. In the letter, he expressed his “astonishment” with the addition of the non-binary pronoun and asked the Académie for their opinion on the matter.
France's Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer expressed a similar point of view. In a tweet, he stated that “inclusive terminology is not the future of the French language”. Blanquer also expressed that this addition will negatively affect students who rely on Le Robert as a reference dictionary.
Screenshot from Twitter
Charles Bimbenet, the general director of Éditions Le Robert made a statement on November 16th to explain the choice of adding the gender-neutral pronoun to its online dictionary, Dico en ligne Le Robert.
Bimbenet explained that although the usage of the term “iel” is rare (which has been noted in the dictionary entry with the term “rare” preceding the definition), increased uses of the term have been noticed in recent months. As such, Le Robert decided it would be helpful to provide a definition for any french speaker who comes across the term, regardless of whether they choose to use it or not.
Bimbenet went on to explain that the goal of the dictionary is to observe developments in the language and report on those changes: “Définir les mots qui disent le monde, c'est aider à mieux le comprendre” (My translation: “defining the words people use helps us better understand the world we live in”).
There is no denying that we live in a world of constant change; those who are quick to criticize the addition of new terms into a language fail to acknowledge this reality. Like any other aspect of society, the evolution of language is inevitable. Take tweeting, for example. This verb used to only describe the chirp of a bird, but now it also describes how old French politicians voice their opinions on the internet.