The French language is seen to be under threat, according to the linguists. Not a new phenomenon though, as any language is always changing and evolving as it borrows and merges and takes on words from other languages by a process not dissimilar to osmosis. As there are more than 200 million French speakers around the world and spoken from Canada to Africa, the Caribbean to the Pacific, and as it is apparently the second most popular second language, it is all the more natural that the language would evolve faster than those languages which are geographically secluded. However, as someone who loves language with a passion, and in particular the French language, it does irritate when perfectly good and beautifully descriptive French words are pushed aside for their Frenchified English intruders. Le hot dog and le week-end have been around so long they have almost become accepted as non-budging house guests, but forwarder un e-mail instead of transférer un courriel, or le business instead of les affaires are not welcome in my home.
A word that has recently come into popular usage after Sarkozy used it in a press interview, and which is not taken from English as such but from the brand name of a product, is kärcher -- used as a verb in French -- to power hose/wipe out/clean out/ sweep away something or someone.
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