If, like me, you wondered what the exact meaning is of Je suis Charlie, here is some background: The inspiration [for the Je suis Charlie slogan], obviously, is the famous “I’m Spartacus” scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 movie Spartacus. But Je suis Charlie is unlike I’m Spartacus in one respect: it’s ambiguous. The verb être (“be”) and the verb suivre (“follow”) share the first-person singular present tense form suis, so Je suis Charlie can be read either as the mostly intended defiant moi aussi solidarity claim (I am Charlie too, and if you attack the magazine Charlie Hebdo you attack me), or as simply “I follow Charlie.” The two meanings could be intended simultaneously, of course. The ambiguity is only there in the first-person singular. If Language Log wanted to say “We are Charlie”, taking the side of Charlie Hebdo rather than the side of the cold-blooded murderers who slaughtered the staff in the magazine’s weekly editorial conference, the French would be Nous sommes Charlie, and it would mean only “We are Charlie”, not “We follow Charlie.”
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:12:06 +0000
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