Let it be said: the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be spoken in French. They will be the first Summer Games organized in a French-speaking city since Montreal 1976. A historic opportunity to put the official language of the IOC – with English – back in a better place in the decor.
An evidence ? On paper, no doubt. In reality, not really. For the four additional sports chosen by the COJO – breaking, climbing, skateboarding and surfing – French has always been a foreign language. Their vocabulary is English, often without translation into the language of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
At the initiative of the French authorities, a group of experts was appointed to work on a French version of the terms of these four disciplines. His work has been completed for two of them, surfing and breaking. The result is two brochures, “Do you speak break? and “Do you speak surfing? ".
In the first, the term “ crew” simply becomes “ team ", The " cypher” is translated by " circle " and the " battles” by " challenges ». For surfing, the experts have changed to “ heart " the " curl” of the wave and in “ tube " are " barrel”.
The explanations of Daniel Zielinski, senior official for the French language for sport, at the helm of this patient linguistic mission.
FrancsJeux : How did things start?
Daniel Zielinski : Very simply. At the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, via the General Directorate of the French Language and the Languages of France (DGLFLF), a working group was set up to look into the question of new sports at the Olympic Games. They often come from Anglo-Saxon countries and rely on English terminology, without a French translation of their technical terms. In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Games, we worked on additional sports – surfing, climbing, skateboarding and breaking – to find a French translation. It will be able to help journalists in their comments, but also the public to better understand what is happening on the competition field. The idea was obviously not to try to change the name of the sport in general, but rather to translate the different movements and sequences of these new disciplines.
Who did you work with?
We involved a large number of stakeholders: athletes and technicians or managers of sports federations, but also representatives of the COJO Paris 2024, the French Academy, the DGLFLF and the academic world. The working group brought together people who know sports very well and others who know the French language very well. It is chaired by Arnaud Richard, professor at the University of Toulon.
How did you do it?
We first asked the DTNs or presidents of the French federations concerned to give us a list of the 10 or 15 terms most used in their discipline. Then we contacted a linguistic laboratory, Lattice, specialized in the study and analysis of words in the French-speaking world. The working group then agreed on terminology in French. It was submitted for opinion to the French Academy. The French words definitively adopted will appear in the Official Journal.
Is the job complete?
No. We started with two of the four additional sports at the Paris 2024 Games, “breaking or breakdance” – translated as break in our French-speaking lexicon – and surfing. We will continue with sport climbing and skateboarding. Then we will look at the case of rugby, with a view to the two upcoming World Cups in France, this year for the XV, in 2025 for the XIII. Its terminology has been enriched in recent years with new words which do not have a French translation. At the same time, the COJO Paris 2024 asked us to also work on Paralympic sports to find a French-speaking version to use during the next Games.
Of the four additional sports, did any prove more difficult to translate?
No. Breaking, climbing, surfing and skateboarding have in common that they use almost exclusively English-speaking terminology. The work is therefore quite comparable for the four sports. In some cases, such as break, the words do not exist in either English or French. They were invented for the needs of the discipline. The terms of Bboys et Bgirls, for example, which designate the competitors, are a pure invention. We translated them as break dancers.
How can we succeed in imposing a French-speaking version on terminology that is so anchored in the culture of these sports?
We are aware that the hardest part begins: how to use words in French, in particular at the Paris 2024 Games. Imposing terms in French would not be effective. Followers of these disciplines have been using English terms for years, they are not going to change them so easily. The idea is rather to raise awareness among the media, to help them with their articles or comments, but also to get the English and French terms to appear together. At the Paris 2024 Games, in particular on the screens of the competition sites where the performances of the athletes are mentioned, the results will appear in the two official languages of the IOC, English and French.
Can the work carried out for the Paris 2024 Games help to strengthen the place of the French language in the international sports movement?
This is one of the objectives. The work we carry out also takes on a political dimension. It can help strengthen French-speaking influence in the Olympic movement, where technical terminology is very often English-speaking. We realized that the market calls for tenders for companies in the sports sector in the French-speaking world were all written in English! But many new French-speaking sports alliances have emerged over the last two years. There are now 16 or 17 of them. The phenomenon is very interesting. Likewise, we will need to work with the IOC to move forward together.
