France bans official use of anglicised gamer words

French government officials are banning a number of anglicised gamer words to preserve the purity of the language.

The culture ministry has said the video game sector is rife with English words that could be "a barrier to understanding" for non-gamers, writes The Guardian.

That means that pro gamer becomes "joueur professionnel", and streamer becomes "joueur-animateur en direct".

Then there's cloud gaming, now "jeu video en nuage", and eSports, now "jeu video de competition".

French language watchdog the Académie Française warned in February of a "degradation that must not be seen as inevitable", highlighting English terms like "big data" and "drive-in".

Now it's moved to the gaming world. The culture ministry noted that experts have searched video game websites and magazines for existing French video game terms.

However, the ban is only binding for government workers in official documents.

Previous attempts at similarly changing jargon have failed, such as using l'access sans fil à internet instead of le wifi, says The Local France.

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