Should English replace French as the international fencing language?

[gladius]

ENGLISH OR FRENCH?

Let me start by saying that I love French (the language) and use it as much as I can in my social interactions. I studied in France, I lived in France, I love the French culture, history, cuisine, a French kiss and a French grip. French is the language of diplomacy, but it is not, in my opinion a suitable language to convey clear and unambiguous concepts (ditto for Italian). So here is my thought:

If fencing had English as its official language, because it is less ambiguous, more universally spoken, used, and understood, many of the disputes and circular arguments going on between experts and non experts, referees, coaches, fencers, everyone else entitled to express their opinion would just fade away reducing confusion and/or bruised egos ("how dare you question my knowledge/experience/expertise or of my personal idols/teachers/friends etc.").

Let's see if I can make a point -- being a non expert in fencing, but rather familiar with French, English, and Italian (just to remain in the domain of languages used in fencing and its tradition).

Take a look at the "gestures" and "words" (les gestes et les mots de l'arbitre d'escrime) the FIE require referees to use as described in the official rule book, page 14 (in French), December 2005 edition, and the non official rule book, page 18 (in English), as published by the British Fencing Federation, October 2005 version.

Compare the French and English text under the bottom left figure of both pages which indicate the occurrence of a "non valable touche" or a "not valid hit."

In the official French explanation of the gesture it says: "Touche en surface non valable de l'escrimeur a gauche de l'arbitre."

This is ambiguous depending on what the first preposition "de" is supposed to refer to. It could be "hit of/by the fencer to the left of the referee on an off target (of the fencer to the right)" in other words the touch is left-to-right, or "hit on the off target of the fencer to the left of the referee (by the fencer to the right of the referee)" that is the touch is right-to-left.

The English rules (which are not official, since French is the only official language of fencing) use "an off-target hit on the fencer on the Referee's left (by the fencer to the right of the referee)" which is a touch right-to-left, but interprets the ambiguous French expression as having ONLY the second meaning.

However, there are many referees (non French) who swear up and down that their own interpretation (the first one) of the French sentence is the intended one and insist using their hands accordingly. They justify this by pointing out that in all other figures on the same page the preposition "de" always refer to the word "fencer." So the problem is that the scribe of the FIE was sloppy in his writing (a case of Gallic confusion or ambiguity?).

I understand that at pre-competition briefings in world cup or world championships, the delegates of the FIE Referee Commission always stress to those asking what to do that the gesture ought to be interpreted as touch by the fencer to the right on the off target of the fencer to the left. So hearsay (i.e., what you hear people tell you) remains the point of reference for many referees. When they return home, they spread around what they "heard" to the rest of the referees community who did not have the chance to travel abroad.

The question is why nobody at the FIE has ever thought to clarify or change the sentence in an unambiguous way?

This is but one example, with pictures, of the semantics problems in fencing. Keep it in mind when you dissect the rules book in English about more complex issues. And don't quote other experts either, since they too may be victims of linguistic ambiguity and relative interpretation or inexact translation.

Who wants to vote for English to become the official language of the sport of fencing? The first step will be to change from FIE to IFF...

[MyrddinsPrecint]

yes, but there's specific words in french that english doesn't have too. like falling, or disorderly falling. or whatever it was........


i think we should change the official fencing language to either hungarian (just because) or maybe esperanto.

[Steve Khinoy]

ENGLISH OR FRENCH?
... French is the language of diplomacy, but it is not, in my opinion a suitable language to convey clear and unambiguous concepts (ditto for Italian). ...
If fencing had English as its official language, because it is less ambiguous, ...

I suspect Gladius either of shameless trolling or of exploiting the Francophobia resulting from the run-up to Iraq that led us down the path to Freedom Fries. English is highly ambiguous, as in the following examples:

A: "What did you say this dish was?"
B: "Duck!"
A: [Picks up knife and fork, only to be decapitated by a cannon ball.]

or

A: "What did you say this dish was?"
B: "Duck!"
A: [Quickly lowers head, only to plant his face in his canard à l'orange.]
These errors are impossible in French or Italian.

Classical French of the 17th and 18th centuries prided itself for its superlative clarity and elegance. Think of the example that every fencer knows, from Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme:
“Je vous l’ai déjà dit, tout le secret des armes ne consiste qu’en deux choses, à donner, et à ne point recevoir; ...(“I have already told you, the whole secret of fencing lies in two things only, to give and not at all to receive [hits]; ...”) How elegant the French! How klutzy the English!

But in fact all languages are ambiguous.

The problem with the rules is partly (1) that they presume that the reader already understands what is meant -- always a dangerous assumption -- and (2) that they are in any case badly and unclearly written. This is the fault of the writers, not of the French language.

To illustrate (1), as George Kolombatovich is always fond of pointing out, the rules don't specify which arm is to be extended inorder to begin the attack -- the weapon or the non-weapon arm. But if you get this wrong, the problem isn't with the French language.

(2) is illustrated by Gladius' example. It could be made perfectly clear in French, or in Italian, or in any other language. The rules-writers simply blew it.

[Mr Epee]

Trust me Steve. Gladius is not a Francophobe, or a troll. If you are sincerely concerned I encourage you to seek out a handful of his previous posts. He among the most valuable contributors on this forum.

This is a very legitimate issue.

For many years it has been a point of humor that the official language of fencing is French despite the fact that almost all fencer-to-fencer communication is in English.

English is clearly the language of international commerce, and it should also be the language of international sport.

[Steve Khinoy]

... This is a very legitimate issue.

For many years it has been a point of humor that the official language of fencing is French despite the fact that almost all fencer-to-fencer communication is in English.

English is clearly the language of international commerce, and it should also be the language of international sport.

I wouldn't mind having English become the official language of the rules, but not because English is clearer than French (or vice versa). I'd be curious, though, how some of the underlying terms would be translated.

[downunder]

surely the costs of such a move are unneccessary?

[Mr Epee]

I agree. The argument that one language is inherently clearer than another is invalid.

But since most fencers already speak English (and they do) then it would make sense to work to avoid situations that are confused by translation.

Translation is always imperfect even between Brit Eng and American Eng.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


As the resident Frenchman, who also has perfect command of English:

Can you give the rest of us some info on which language is more inherently unclear, if any? Any language-specific pros and cons to either language?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Steve Khinoy]

Hi!


As the resident Frenchman, who also has perfect command of English:

Can you give the rest of us some info on which language is more inherently unclear, if any? Any language-specific pros and cons to either language?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

Linguists agree: no language is more or less clear than any other. (I write as the resident American, who can't hold a telephone conversation in French -- and only sometimes in German -- but can read French pretty decently.)

[Durando]

Mais...non. A quoi ,ca sert, changer? La langue soi-dissante officielle a déjà changée dans les reglements américains. Ceci ne suffit pas? Vous n'arrivez même pas à gérer votre fédération nationale et maitenant vous voulez foutre la merde dans la FIE?

Se hablan tres idiomas en el deporte. Trés es mejor que uno, no? De todos modos estoy harto de accentos extranjeros en inglés. Todo el mundo debe hablar su proprio idioma.

Vale,
N.

[Durando]

To illustrate (1), as George Kolombatovich is always fond of pointing out, the rules don't specify which arm is to be extended inorder to begin the attack -- the weapon or the non-weapon arm. But if you get this wrong, the problem isn't with the French language.

Brilliant.

Just saying...

[Durando]

This is ambiguous depending on what the first preposition "de" is supposed to refer to. It could be "hit of/by the fencer to the left of the referee on an off target (of the fencer to the right)" in other words the touch is left-to-right, or "hit on the off target of the fencer to the left of the referee (by the fencer to the right of the referee)" that is the touch is right-to-left.

I'm not wildly convinced by the clarity of your English solutions.

[veeco]

Hi Gladius,

As others have pointed out, I don't think it is quite appropriate to say that one language is more or less ambiguous than others. It all depends on who is speaking, and who they are speaking to.

I work in the field of software localization, and I see examples of mistranslations every day. The reality of it is, no matter what language is the "official" one, there will always be problems of that nature, as long as there isn't a universal language that everybody understands and speak natively. And that's not going to happen.

Yes, the choice of using French as the official language is a completely random and arbitrarily decision. I think (and I am certainly biased in saying that) that it adds to the charm and the interestingness of fencing that French is used by the referee. Other sports might actually be doing the same, but that is beyond the point I was going to make.

The point I would like to make is that there are probably as many people in Fencing for which English isn't their mother tongue, as there are people in Fencing for which French isn't their mother tongue. So choosing English over French wouldn't really add any benefit, except that more people sort of speak English, but actually don't really understand it. They might think they can speak it better, but it can actually lead to more misunderstandings, don't you think?

I like the current situation: French is the official language, but there are "working languages", which were defined as well, namely in addition of French, English and Spanish. Those encompass a quite large number of our international membership, I believe. I am actually more concerned that there isn't an Asian language that has been added to the list of working languages, than to decide which language the referee must announce the hits in.

I believe any international organization has to deal with those language issues. There are a lot of trusted solutions that have been used for a while by other, bigger international organizations. We use those (I think) and have interpreters, translators, whose job is to minimize those misunderstandings, and make sure that people can work together. Sure it's not an ideal solution, but I don't think changing to English as an official language would be one either.

The example you pointed out is such an example of a badly constructed sentence, but I am sure it could have been worded ambigously in a lot of other languages.

[Alan]

I am sure his majesty would prefer Chinese !

[max_mz]

i personally think french is quite fine:

- each fencer grows up with the language and understands the important expressions

- english terminology would have to use french words anyway where there exists no english word for a certain issue - 'riposte' is a french word for example. creating english neologisms would not result in higher tangibility for those whose native language is not english (the majority of fencers in the world)

- and i really think that retaining certain historical traditions doesn't do any harm sometimes...

referring to the phrase "Touche en surface non valable de l'escrimeur a gauche de l'arbitre." :
i think if it was meant to express "hit of/by the fencer to the left of the referee on an off target (of the fencer to the right)" the french phrase would be "touche en surface non valable par l'escrimeur a gauche de l'arbitre" - at least the expression can be clarified easily without using english

[jeff]

I think English is by far the most popular second language on the planet - far more than French, hence English is more likely to be understood in international conversations of any sort. If maximum comprehensibility for all was the goal, than making English the default language would make sense.

Despite the fact that this would benefit me as an Anglophone (despite my smattering of "Fencing French" and a little "normal life" French), I don't think it worth the conversion effort. Is there a problem today that this would solved? Would that justify the work needed to convert (and the hurt feelings from traditionalists and Francophones)? The rules book would have to be reviewed line by line to ensure that ambiguous statements caused by translation no longer were present - this would be necessary if the English version of the rules became the authoritative version. I had a different point of view from Semyon Pinchasov years ago: he said that Russia was the best fencing country, so Russian should be the official language. Well, we'd be changing official language ever few years...

Perhaps having language-neutral hand gestures already solves this. Equally incomprehensible in all languages

[Zilverzmurfen]

I think English is by far the most popular second language on the planet

Yes, so it should be your turn to make an effort!
Spoilt native english-speakers...pff!

As for the initial question; I think french is fine since that's what we use in Sweden. English would be ok too, but since it already works with french. *shrug*


It's a shame esperanto never really took off...

[Sciurus-Rex]

Recall french!

[joe_hoffman]

The real question is, should the official language of fencing be bad French or bad English?

Joe

(p.s. my Larousse says "riposte" is an italian word, with the final "a" french-fried.)

[fence1848]

I think that we should adopt a language that is easy to learn, consistant, and is at least understood by the largest number of people. Therefore, I vote for Spanglish as being the official language of everything.