You can no longer say “game” or “Esports” in France

Mon dieu! France wants to get rid of the un-French terms of the gaming and esports world by encouraging alternative French words.

We Dutch borrow a lot of words from English. Because ‘gaming’ is so much easier than ‘playing a video game’. We also don’t really have a term for ‘live streaming’ yet, because it hasn’t been around that long. All fine, you would think. In France, however, they think differently.

France bans “game” and other English words

France is known for rather glorifying their own language, but it has now gone so far that you are officially no longer allowed to use the English jargon from the game world in France. For example, “pro-gamer” becomes “joueur professionnel” and you now have to say “joueur-animateur en direct” instead of “streamer”. A game also becomes a “jeu video” and Esports is now “jeu video de competition”. Another funny one: cloud gaming is becoming “jeu video en nuage”. French is a beautiful language, but for lovers of short but sweet, this is not good news.

Will you be arrested on the street if you say the English words? No of course not. It is about integrating the French terms in official documents and thus the English terms are not officially words in French. A bit as if the words are not included in the Dikke Van Dale and thus the signal is given that you should not say these words.

A special news from France, but certainly not the first time that language purism has been applied to English terms such as “games”. For example, France has already put a stop to words such as “big data” and “drive-in”. Also a brand name of SNCF, the French NS, was not “we go” but “Ouigo”. Parbleu! (via The Guardian)