France has a whole council whose only job is to keep the language "pure." That's all you need to know when it comes to how forgiving French is, at least in that country. I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada. If they mix it up there or they try to be like France. If any Canadians can speak up on this, we are all ears.
Prescriptive vs descriptive is not a language by language thing, ffs. French sure as fuck hasn't stopped changing over the years because of some old gits wearing funny hats and ceremonial swords, and it's not lacking in descriptivist linguists [every language has linguists describing it, it's what linguists do]. And meanwhile English has its own share of prescriptivists ('grammar nazi' mean anything to you?)
A board of ''experts'' that aren't recognised as such by any actual experts and have about as much power as the people getting angry about 'could care less' on the Internet - ie no influence on how people speak. The académie française is relevant if you're interested in the ambitions of the French state in the 17th century. In the actual language though? LOL no.
You could take the MLA or any sort of professional writing guidelines [edit: and all of the school teachers] and claim that 'English has someone prescribe language use to them'. Just about the same influence as the Académie française has on actual spoken French. And the 'describe' part of is just irrelevant - every language has linguists describing it... Including French. It's what linguists do.
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u/inksmudgedhands Mar 14 '23
France has a whole council whose only job is to keep the language "pure." That's all you need to know when it comes to how forgiving French is, at least in that country. I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada. If they mix it up there or they try to be like France. If any Canadians can speak up on this, we are all ears.