France’s Académie française, official custodians of the French language, has taken its battle to fight the invasion of English and bad French to the internet with a new interactive web service.

The Académie, a council of 40 writers and artists, is entrusted with protecting French from “Anglo-Saxon” attacks and writing an official dictionary, of which the latest unfinished version began in 1992.

Now, the body has decided to further embrace the 21st century with a section of its website called “Dire, Ne pas dire” (“To say, Not to Say”).

The site aims to be interactive, with visitors invited to exchange views on points of language and even campaign to “rehabilitate” French words fallen out of common usage.

It also contains a section dedicated to Anglicisms. As of Tuesday, the site only had two words on its black list. In pole position was “le best of”, often seen in French magazines and which it suggests replacing by “le meilleur de”. The second was the “franglais” verb “impacter” (to impact), which it urges purists to replace with “affecter”, the proper French equivalent.

“We want to restore courage to all those in France and outside France who endeavour to defend and enrich the language. Let French remain a great language of communication and culture,” Jean-Matthieu Pasqualini of the Académie told Le Figaro.

Agnès Oster, secretary of the body’s dictionary commission, told The Daily Telegraph that more English terms would be added to its online blacklist every month.

November’s additions will include the franglais term “supporter” to mean “support” (a team, for example). It suggests replacing it by “soutenir” or “encourager”.

It will also urge French-speakers to drop Anglicised superlatives like “top”, “must”, or “hyper” using instead proper French terms like “incomparable”, “très bien”, or “inégalable”. Read more.

See: Telegraph.co.uk

Also see:The Académie française: custodians of the French language