No, French has private dictionaries that aren’t normative. This isn’t that.
The Académie is a quasi-governemental institution built by Louis XIV to impose a normative version of French. They initially reformed the language but quickly ended up enforcing the linguistic status quo. French hasn’t had a (much needed) structural reform in about two centuries.
What the academy defines to be “proper French” is essentially the only French that is used by the government, media, and school system, and they refuse to acknowledge changes in usage at every turn.
This means that French is set in stone and mid-19th century books have essentially the same grammar as 21st century French apart from some very minor differences.
(I won’t get into the systemic and very successful repression of minority languages which is closely related).
… A dictionary? We already have those in English lol.
Oxford University Press doesn’t have governmental enforcement powers the way the OQLF does.
Users dictate a language more than anything else
No, French has private dictionaries that aren’t normative. This isn’t that.
The Académie is a quasi-governemental institution built by Louis XIV to impose a normative version of French. They initially reformed the language but quickly ended up enforcing the linguistic status quo. French hasn’t had a (much needed) structural reform in about two centuries.
What the academy defines to be “proper French” is essentially the only French that is used by the government, media, and school system, and they refuse to acknowledge changes in usage at every turn.
This means that French is set in stone and mid-19th century books have essentially the same grammar as 21st century French apart from some very minor differences.
(I won’t get into the systemic and very successful repression of minority languages which is closely related).