“It’s kind of a national delirium. It is in these incisive terms that linguist Julie Neveux described Friday, June 9, on the Quotidien (TMC) TV set, the relationship that France would have with… dictation. A few days earlier, the largest exercise of its kind gathered around 5,000 people on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

The member of the collective Les linguistes atterrées added on Twitter that this method of learning was “not very effective”. She also considers that French spelling is an “object of social discrimination” and that its complexity would cause “linguistic insecurity”.

Ps correction/precision, outside the tempo of TV: – only France, among all the countries with the Latin alphabet, organizes dictation competitions… for adults! (in English, spelling bee) – as a learning method, dictation is not very (not?) effective.. (Read us:) https://t.co/LimBVFAh1a

Le Point spoke with linguist Alain Bentolila. The professor at the University of Paris-Descartes, author of twenty essays, recognizes the limits of the exercise, but deplores the ideologization of spelling.

Le Point: Is dictation a French “delirium”, as Julie Neveux asserts?

Alain Bentolila: No, dictation is not a national delirium. She’s a tool for mastering spelling, and she’s not the only one. Personally, I do not believe in the pedagogical virtue of dictating a text chosen at random and imposed on children, during which the “s” are sounded in a caricatural way. I prefer other exercises, such as soliciting the spelling memory of words and the so-called “prepared” dictation.

Is spelling an object of social discrimination?

Absolutely not ! Spelling brings us together. And, when we negotiate its rules, we run the risk of our society not understanding each other. These rules are essential to express your thoughts as accurately as possible. Take the phrase “The death of the man I always wanted”. Whether or not an “e” is present will determine the actual meaning of the sentence. It is not indifferent, in this example, to know if the subject desires the death of the man in question or, on the contrary, expresses his attraction…

No way to simplify the spelling?

No question. Let’s not touch the rules of agreement, because they carry our thought. Let’s not touch the etymological markers, because they tell us the history of the language. It is very important to know why we write hippodrome – which refers to the horse – in a certain way and not another.

We can, however, reform at the periphery. Why do we write “honor” with two “n’s”, but “honourable” with only one? It doesn’t make sense, it’s silly! If there is ever a review, it must be very marginal. Let’s not touch brutally and without any thought what we have taken centuries to build.

Does spelling become an ideological marker?

“Tell me how you write, I’ll tell you who you are, popular or not. Everything becomes an ideological marker. Even spelling, unfortunately… So-called inclusive writing is the most recent expression of this ideologization. If you put a midpoint, then you definitely pass for someone respectable.

However, the fight for equality between men and women must take place on the political and social terrain. Not in the living rooms, where one wishes to impose this or that embellishment supposed to give thanks to the masculine or the feminine.