[net.nlang] "Parisian French"

barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) (03/15/85)

For readers of net.nlang, this all began with some flaming about the
delightfulness of bilingualness in Canada, and just what language it was
that the Canadian francophones spoke.  Dave Harris commented:

<   All the Canadian francophones I know are not too upset about not
<   speaking whathey call `francais francais'.  They make fun of it,
<   In fact, they make more fun of the way Frenchmen speak than Frenchmen
<   do of the way Quebecois speak.

<   By the way, PLEASE do not EVER refer to standard French as 'Parisian'
<   French.  That's one of my pet peeves.  Parisian French is one of the
<   most God-awful accents I've ever heard, and NOBODY teaches it (except
<   perhaps Parisians in Paris).  The world standard is, of all things,
<   called `francais standard', and the region that comes closest to that
<   is Tours, in France.  So if `standard French' bothers you, at least
<   call it `Touraine French'.  It would make me very happy.

Back when I took Linguistics, "Parisian French" was an acceptable term for
referring to the medieval dialect of French which later evolved into
modern French (as opposed to Norman French, which had /w/ instead of /gu/
among other linguistic uniquenesses).  English ended up borrowing some
pairs of words from BOTH dialects (e.g. guard and ward).

As for Canadian French (doubtless its native speakers have a more endearing
term for it), we found last time we were in Quebec that people seemed to
understand my UCLA-taught francais francais and replied in kind--and then
turned to speak to one another in an incomprehensible dialect.

This was better than in Belgium where the semi-French spoken is so variant
a dialect that I was totally incapable of understanding native speakers.
Of course there the situation is confused by the fact that native speakers
of Flemish must be officially bilingual in the capital city of Brussels,
but are EXTREMELY prejudiced against francophones.  My mother encountered
a Belgian Flemish-speaker in a Flemish area who refused to speak as much
French as to *understand* "Beaux Arts Museum."  Instead he insisted the
name of the place was the "Beautiful Arts Museum," (a better English
translation would be "Fine Arts Museum).  In Brussels, I met an official
at the train station who was incapable of hearing French accurately.
	<  "Nous desiron aller a Avranches."
	<  "Oui, Madame.  Ou en France?"
	<  "Avranches.  C'est un petit ville pres de Mont St. Michel."
	<  "Oui, Madame.  Quest-ce que le nom du ville?"
	<  "Avranches.  Ah-vay-erre-ah-en-say-ahsh-euh-ess."
	<  "Hein?"
I now agree with the author of Hitchhiker's Guide that Belgium is a
curse word.)

--Lee Gold