Are Roman Numerals Dying ?: Strong debate in France over the decision of two famous museums

The Carnavalet Museum has tried to put down the controversy by declaring that it will not write “Luis 14” in its exhibition halls, but admits that, in about 170 texts intended for the public, the centuries will be written in arabic numerals “to facilitate understanding”. The Louvre has already been making this change for four years. The initiative has sparked a controversy that goes beyond French borders.

It is one of those very French polemics, even if in this case it comes from Italy, which speaks of “cultural catastrophe ”,“ stupidity ”or“ scourge of political correctness ” by decision of the Parisian Carnavalet Museum, which reopens its renovated doors after four years of work.

“Luigi XIV diventa Luigi 14” “Louis XIV becomes Louis 14”, complaint The Corriere de la Sera, for which “The passage from IV to 4 then becomes the symbol of the progressive renunciation of the teaching of classical culture.” No more no less.

Italian indignation crossed the Alps and the French ate breakfast which they carried with their Roman numerals in the name of mass tourism and ever lower cultural democratization.

Museum authorities dismissed the accusation via Twitter. “Roman numerals have not been abandoned: they are used for the names of kings and emperors in nearly 3,000 texts in the rooms, with the exception of 170 texts of universal mediation accessible to all audiences.”

From the town hall of Paris, the Minister of Culture Carine Rolland confirms: “We are not going to take anything away, but we have to be ambitious and innovative in terms of accessibility.”

However, the centuries will cease to be in Roman numerals to be replaced by Arabic numerals. And this is not the only French institution to adopt this policy in the name of inclusion: the Louvre museum has already abandoned the Roman sticks four years ago to make them accessible to as many people as possible.

Now, despite the clarifications of the Carnavalet museum, the controversy has not died down among those who see a new decline in culture in the name of “inclusion”.

Rocky IV and the Super Bowl LV

“The problem is not that this spelling is arbitrary, but that its deletion conforms to the giving up learning the subjunctive in primary school, cleaning up children’s literature to eliminate all traces of the indefinite past and all the slightly complex words. Let us be clear, it is not a few Roman figures who explain the irremediably monocoloured character – social, ethnic, geographical – of the museum public, but the failure of a republican school which for decades has decreed that instead of raising the towards a non-bourgeois but universal culture, it was necessary to abolish any scale of values ​​and to be ecstatic in the face of the latest ups and downs of the cultural industry ”, writes the magazine in its editorial Marianne. As a complaint, the magazine numbered the pages of its latest edition with Roman numerals.

“It’s the story of the chicken and the egg,” he told the newspaper. Le Figaro François Martin, president of the Coordination of teachers of ancient languages. “The less Roman numerals you use, the less you can understand them. But that’s a shame, because in elementary school children love to learn Roman numerals, for them it’s like a game, ”he says.

Whether Rocky IV or the episodes of the Star Wars saga can continue to be understood globally and in the United States until the latest edition of the most popular sport is celebrated as Super Bowl LV (55), is it normal that French museums renounce Roman numerals? The debate continues on the networks, since museums remain closed due to the pandemic.

Originally posted by RFI