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iad58A remarkable observation:
Linguistically, Je suis Charlie is unlike I'm Spartacus in one respect: it's ambiguous. The verb être ("be") and the verb suivre ("follow") happen to 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 the much less dramatic "I follow Charlie." I suppose the two meanings could be intended simultaneously, but it is surely the first that predominates.The ambiguity is only there in the first-person singular. If we at Language Log wanted to say "We are Charlie", taking the side of Charlie Hebdo rather than the side of the cold-blooded killers who slaughtered the staff at the magazine's morning editorial conference, the French would be Nous sommes Charlie, and it would mean only "We are Charlie", not "We follow Charlie."
—Geoffrey K. Pullum @ Language Log
