The lack of an official (British or American) language academy is regularly compared to the situation in France with its time-honoured Académie Française. All too often, however, a passing imprecise reference is made to the French Academy; all too often it is lumped together with other academies; and all too often the true nature of the work of such academies is ignored. This paper takes a closer look at some of the foreign academies, considers why there is no academy in Britain or America, discusses the only existing official academy of English (based in South Africa), and considers foreign academies' attitudes to English.