French is not a dead language

[on:]

Many of you probably think that in the Futurama universe, French is a dead langauge.  This is not true: it is used only by aliens!  I did not see this freeze frame gag already reported, so I'm posting it here.  It shows
1. French is now an alien language
2. Its spelling has changed.
In Season 2's Xmas Story, Fry buys a parrot for Leela.  Just after he walks out of the shop, he passes some sign in an alien language.  I noted this down, and decoded it: it read "Joyeux Noex".
Now, "Joyeux Noël" is French for "Happy Christmas".  However, in Futurama Christmas is now Xmas.  In the same way, Noël is Noex! Clever, eh?  So French is an alien language.

[Reply #1 on:]

"Joyeux Noël" is probably just one of those phrases common enough to be remembered centuries from now, like "bonjour" and "Je suis Napoleon". The slight misspelling (Noëx) support that this was written by someone who had heard about the phrase but didn't know French and thus made a spelling error, just like most people have difficulties getting Latin grammar correct when using Latin quotes and phrases.

Final verdict: French is the Latin of the future, ie. dead.

More French theories

Welcome to PEEL, Passing user. Enjoy it here. 

[Reply #2 on:]

Yeah, I mean voila is a French word and you could probably find that in any English dictionary.

[Reply #3 on:]

Hmm...true.

Oh, I'm not sure how the secong alien alphabet works (how can one icon mean different letters?) but in A Bicyclops Built for Two, the chatroom in the background is:
Codebreakers Chat Room

I found other freeze frames (apparebtly, the cinema in Raging Bender is named after a type of infinity - I love director's commentary) but most of them have been reported.
Oh well.  Au revoir!

[Reply #4 on:]

"Noex", is NOT meant to be a French typo...it's a pun on the word X-mas. They did the same thing in the sign reading "Cerrado para Xavidad". Xavidad is Spaish for X-mas....sorta. About as Spanish as "Noex" is French.

[Reply #5 on:]

Zoidberg speaks French "J'cuse!" in 'Bendless Love'

[Reply #6 on:]

He just know that one word, and it's approximate meaning. I can say "good morning" in Serbo-croatic, but that doesn't mean I speak it.

[Reply #7 on:]

Yeah, lots of people use Latin phrases.  (Some people even know what they mean.)  That doesn't mean that Latin isn't a dead language.

[Reply #8 on:]

Yeah, I think Noex is meant to be like Xmas.  Farnsworth didn't seem to recognise any of the French given out by his translator.  I would like to think that the French decided to all jetpack of Earth and start a new, designer, sexy life as aliens.  Mmm...Planet France.

[Reply #9 on:]

Or maybe the French were aliens all along, and they decided to bugger off home. It would explain some things...

[Reply #10 on:]

french is a dead language.

[Reply #11 on:]

But why is it?

[Reply #12 on:]

Ironic fate.

The French are some of the most zealous people when it come to the purity of their language. Rather than using an internatinal accepted (usually English) word, they'd rather make a new French word and use that instead. I think it was an actual law at one point. The idea was to ensure French would survive as a lnaguage rather than being diluted by foreign words. And what's more ironic than having the language die out?

Plus it's an absolute bastard to learn, and your only gain would be the ability to communicate with French people. I mean, really...

[Reply #13 on:]

 

I would like to think that the French decided to all jetpack of Earth and start a new, designer, sexy life as aliens. Mmm...Planet France.

Well, Earth still has the Nation of French Stereotypes.

[Reply #14 on:]

 

Originally posted by VoVat:
  Well, Earth still has the Nation of French Stereotypes.

I think the death of the French language made that joke all the funnier.
Anyway, maybe the French words that are used are part of an evolved French language..."New French" as compared to "Old French". It happened to English in a period much shorter than a thousand years, but the roots and some words are the same. It could be like that for 31st century French.

[Reply #15 on:]

One thing does confuse me. The Professor, clearly the most intelligent and educated among the crew of Planet Express, doesn't recognise the French word for hello, while Bender understands the word with ease in his Napolean song.

[Reply #16 on:]

Yeah, but you have to remember that the Professor's a senile amoral crackpot.

[Reply #17 on:]

Ah, but Bender is pretending to be insane, so there's a percentage in it for him in knowing a language no-one else can understand. *swish!*

Ah, the Nation of French Stereotypes - "everybody hates them!"

[Reply #18 on:]

Blackadder11, bonjour means "good day".I hardly know any, and frankly, I don't care.And if France (I'm assuming that if the language was dead, the country would be, too.)was dead,how would Bender know about Napolean?Or would Sil's theory apply to that, too?

[Reply #19 on:]

France doesn't have to an empty wasteland just because French is dead. Latin is a dead language, but Italy is still a very populated country.

Napoleon is pretty famous, surely people will remember him even if his nation seized to exist, just as we all know who Gaius Julius Ceasar is.

[Reply #20 on:]

 

Originally posted by Young_and_Angry:
I'm assuming that if the language was dead, the country would be, too.

We know France isn't dead - we see it in the second SP3K countdown, in The Honking when they're looking for the were-car, and again in TMLH when Pazuzu is explaining to the baby gargoyle (who is almost unbearably cute, by the way).