Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:26 pm Post subject:
Julian wrote:
The strangest one to me was the Alsacien accent sample. I almost didn't recognize it as being French.
Same here. However, the very fact that it didn't sound like standard French made it easier for me to understand. Standard French is so smooth and seems to have so many sounds that disappear that it's difficult for me to distinguish words. But in the accents from Alsace, Bretagne and Languedoc, every syllable sounds punctuated, so for someone like me who's not used to listening to French and who can't guess what certain words are just by their context, these accents are much easier to understand. I also found the Gascon accent easy for the same reason, but that person also spoke slowly. (What's the correct adjective for things having to do with Gascogne?)
The strangest one to me was the Alsacien accent sample. I almost didn't recognize it as being French.
Il prononce [Ri:sliNg] [ʁi:sliŋg] là ou le français standard (du Nord) serait [RisliNg] [ʁisliŋg]. Parfois le locuteur roule les <r> : il dit [r] [ɾ] au lieu de [R] [ʁ].
Quand il parle des couleurs de l'argile, il cite la couleur <jaune>, soit [ZOn] [ʒɔn] en français standard — mais la prononciation du locuteur alsacien se rapproche de [So:n] [ʃo:n].
Un Français qui ignorerait l'allemand pourrait penser qu'il s'agit d'un accent allemand. En fait il s'agit d'un accent alémanique qu'on retrouve en France, en Suisse et en Allemagne et dans au moins trois langues : le français, l'alsacien et l'allemand.
Actually a lot of these accents are quite difficult to hear since the people who speak it are generally old and very rural.
Concerning the Alsacian accent, I would have thought that the man was a german if I wasn't have been told. I think he should be a native Alsacian speaker who had learn french as a second language later as many of the people who were born in Alsace before 45 when it was still German.
I noticed something about the accents of northern France and Belgium. They sound harsher, and as if they have some more "Celtic" influence. I hear this very "Celtic" sound a lot that I could best describe with the letters "ouoo". _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:46 am Post subject:
Porthos wrote:
I noticed something about the accents of northern France and Belgium. They sound harsher, and as if they have some more "Celtic" influence. I hear this very "Celtic" sound a lot that I could best describe with the letters "ouoo".
I also thought they sounded harsher, but I attributed it to "hitting" the syllables, making them more staccato.
I also thought they sounded harsher, but I attributed it to "hitting" the syllables, making them more staccato.
The language of Quebec is also more harsh like the northern French accents. The reason being is because most of the French settlers in Quebec were from northern regions like Normandy. So, their accents are most similar to the traditional dialects or accents of northern France.
Besides being "anglicized", the reason we pronounce a lot of French words completely different from standard Parisian French is because our influx of French vocab came from the Normans, who spoke a different dialect, which was heavily influenced by their Norse ancestors. Of course, other words were added were borrowed from French at a later date, particularly during the Francophile phase of the Victorian era. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
Besides being "anglicized", the reason we pronounce a lot of French words completely different from standard Parisian French is because our influx of French vocab came from the Normans, who spoke a different dialect, which was heavily influenced by their Norse ancestors. Of course, other words were added were borrowed from French at a later date, particularly during the Francophile phase of the Victorian era.
It is true that a quick look at how French loanwords in English are pronounced may give you a fairly accurate hint about when they were absorbed *with respect* to the period of the great vowel shift (GVS). For instance En <machine> is /m@Si:n/ (X-Sampa) or /məʃi:n/ (IPA in English = API en français) — that's very close to Fr <machine> = /maSin/ or /maʃin/ (the length of the last English vowel being probably a kind of "hypercorrection" due to En <machine>'s specific stress pattern that's departing from the default accentuation for two-syllable words). If you look up at Etymonline, you'll find indeed that En <machine> was borrowed around the half of the 16th century, that is when most of the GVS process was completed.
If Fr <machine> had been taken into English before the GVS took place, it would still be written En <machine> while pronounced ?/meI_^t_SaI_^n/ = ?/meɪ̯tʃaɪ̯n/ — or perhaps written En *<machin> and pronounced ?/meI_^t_SIn/ = ?/meɪ̯tʃɪn/... I'm not too versed in GVS development ; maybe Kirk, Lazar & Travis could help !
By contrast, a word like En <divine> is /dIvaI_^n/ = /dɪvaɪ̯n/ differs greatly from the feminine French form it was taken from : Fr <divine> is /divin/. Etymonline states Fr <divine> was taken around 1300 (before the GVS).
That said, it is not totally accurate to claim that Medieval French spoken in the British Isles « came from the Normans ». First off, « Normans » were not the only Old-French-speakers landing in England : it is plausible, even likely, that many Old-French variants were used among the troops and followers of the Conqueror. And it is certain the Angevine house spoke a ancient form of Western Oïl rather than whatever offshoot of Old Norse and Old French... No less certain is the fact that Insular and Continental Francophones continued to trade and communicate with each other without needing translation or recoursing to Mediolatin. Now Normans themselves did not speak the same variant since the features traditionally exhibited as distinguishing « French » from « Norman » are found within « Norman » itself...
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It's actress Mathilde Casadesus, in character as a Parisienne aristocrat. So I think she was a bit over the top.
