[QUOTE=trupa]
And what is it with the New-York times crowd and their fascination with French? Is it worth going to the trouble of learning such a capricious language merely as a symbol of wealth and sophistication? Cause it can’t be for for practical reasons.
[/QUOTE]
I could very well be incorrect in this, but according to my observations, (although I do speak only English and French, and this could thus be confirmation bias) in reading literature, I find that I encounter a larger amount of books (written in English) with bits of French in them than other languages.
It’s also seems to me (from observation only, not research, I hasten to add) that up until relatively recently, France had a lot of cultural influence, moreso than most other languages/cultures, which is reflected in English literature. A brief search on wikipedia* seems to confirm this:
[QUOTE=wikipedia article on French literature]
Although the European prominence of French literature was eclipsed in part by vernacular literature in Italy in the 14th century, literature in France in the 16th century underwent a major creative evolution, and through the political and artistic programs of the Ancien Régime, French literature came to dominate European letters in the 17th century.
In the 18th century, French became the literary lingua franca and diplomatic language of western Europe (and, to a certain degree, in America), and French letters have had a profound impact on all European and American literary traditions while at the same time being heavily influenced by these other national traditions (for example: British and German Romanticism in the nineteenth century). French literary developments of the 19th and 20th centuries have had a particularly strong effect on modern world literature, including: symbolism, naturalism, the “roman-fleuves” of Balzac, Zola and Proust, surrealism, existentialism, and the “Theatre of the Absurd”.
[/QUOTE]
(I hope that wasn’t too much to quote from an outside source.)
In short, although nowadays the day-to-day practicality of speaking Spanish as a second language (in the US) overwhelms that of speaking French, and the practicality of speaking French in the rest of the world outside France and Quebec and other current/former French colonies/strongholds is greatly diminished, there is still literary (and culinary, for that matter) practicality in learning it, if for no other reason (I do find it to be quite a lovely language).
*Linky: French literature - Wikipedia