France bans English gaming terms

French government officials have announced their decision to ban the use of gaming jargon in order to “preserve the purity of language”. In official use, words like “pro-gamer” or “streamer” will now have to be replaced with their descriptive French counterparts. 

The changes passed by the French government on Monday, May 30, require all French government representatives use the ‘correct’ French words in any official communications. 

Based on the report by The Guardian, the French ministry of culture told Agence France-Presse that the gaming industry is filled with English terms that can act as “a barrier to understanding” for non-gamers. 

New French alternatives 

Aiming to make the communication around gaming easier for the public, the French ministry of culture substituted multiple globally used words with origins in the English language with their French alternatives. For example, the word “pro-gamer” now translates as “joueur professional”, while the word “streamer” becomes “joueur-animateur en direct”. Other terms that have been changed include “eSports”, which is now “jeu video de competition” and “cloud gaming”, which now translates as “jeu video en nuage”. 

According to the report, the ministry also said that before making changes official, it assigned multiple experts with the task of researching gaming websites and magazines to see if French terms for such words already existed. 

Académie Française, the watchdog of the French language, reportedly raised the attention to the issue of English terms influx back in February, describing it as “degradation that must not be seen as inevitable.”

From Anglicisms to intricacy

This is not the first time that the French officials tried to ban the use of Anglicism in official communication. According to the French news portal The Local France, the Académie Française previously tried to replace the word “wifi” with “l’access sans fil à internet”, which wasn’t supposedly received well. 

That’s not a surprising outcome, given how complicated and lengthy the French alternatives seem to be compared to their English counterparts. Anglicisms that become used in languages all around the world become global for a reason — they’re short and explicit, and everybody involved in the culture usually knows what they mean, regardless of the language they speak. 

While the new changes are binding only to French government officials, it’s unlikely that the French media, companies and public will change how they use terms related to gaming and esports. That said, it remains to be seen whether the new ban will gain acceptance in French society.

Header: ESL / HELENA KRISTIANSSON