Français fondamental is a list of words and grammatical concepts created in beginning of the 1950s for teaching foreigners and people part of the Union française so that France could improve the spread of the French language. A series of investigations in the 1950s and 1960s showed that a small number of words are used the same way orally and in writing in all circumstances; thus a limited number of grammatical rules were necessary for a functional language.
Origins
Français fondamental was developed by the Centre d'Etude du Français Élémentaire, which was renamed to the Centre de Recherche et d'Etude pour la Diffusion du Français in 1959. It was headed by linguist Georges Gougenheim. The Ministry of Education of France sanctioned and promoted it as a method of learning French. The use of français fondamental was common in French textbooks, and especially prevalent in audiovisual learning methods used in the 1960s. Gougenheim, Réné Michea, Paul Rivenc, and Aurélien Sauvageot served as researchers for the project. There are 1,475 words in the "first degree" and 1,609 words in the "second degree."
Characteristics
The core words for usage consist of around 270 grammatical words, 380 nouns, 200 verbs, 100 adjectives, and 50 words for various other uses, making up a total of one thousand words. There is a second group of words which are common to all French speakers, who can use spontaneously use around 1,500 words when needed in particular circumstances. The Académie française prefers to distinguish "fundamental french" and "elementary french" as it says in its page "Langue francaise - Questions courantes" in the rubric Nombre de mots de lalangue francaise : "Based on frequency surveys, 'Fundamental French' and 'Elementary French' include just over 1000 to 3000 entrees respectively.
Role and influence
Fundamental French certainly had an influence, particularly in teaching the language to foreigners. But it was rejected in 1970 with the renewal of language teaching, without being replaced by a new tool. A seminar organised at l'École normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines de Lyon in December 2005 tried to take stock of the developments that had occurred since its creation. In a similar spirit but without the apparent affiliation, Radio France Internationale released a 10-minute Journal in easy French with a restrained and simple vocabulary that gave the context of the events once a day. This step is analogous to that of the Voice of America, who released a program in 1959 in Special English, a form of basic English with a vocabulary restrained to 1500 words.
