Qui parle français ?

viande

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J'm'en viens du Canada, et le français, c'est ma langue maternelle. Je parle aussi l'anglais et l'allemand (un p'tit peu, je suis en train de l'apprendre)
 

B_DoubleMeatWhopper

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Originally posted by clownboots19@Dec 30 2004, 08:11 AM
Being such the communist, liberal country France is, the last thing I would wanna speak is the language of a leader named Jock Strap Chirac...or something like that...I'll stick with English, after all this is America!
[post=270778]Quoted post[/post]​

Jacques Chirac does not 'own' the language. French is the language of many countries, not just France. It is spoken in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Haiti, Monaco, French Guiana, Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Bénin, Gabon, Laos, Madagscar, Sénégal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Rwanda, Togo, Burundi, Niger, Cameroon, Kampuchea, Tunisia, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles, Luxembourg, Chad, Guinea, Djibouti, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Mauritania. You've decided to exclude a big chunk of the world.
 

Solis25

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Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper+Dec 31 2004, 07:37 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoubleMeatWhopper &#064; Dec 31 2004, 07:37 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-clownboots19@Dec 30 2004, 08:11 AM
Being such the communist, liberal country France is, the last thing I would wanna speak is the language of a leader named Jock Strap Chirac...or something like that...I&#39;ll stick with English, after all this is America&#33;
[post=270778]Quoted post[/post]​

Jacques Chirac does not &#39;own&#39; the language. French is the language of many countries, not just France. It is spoken in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Haiti, Monaco, French Guiana, Algeria, Côte d&#39;Ivoire, Bénin, Gabon, Laos, Madagscar, Sénégal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Rwanda, Togo, Burundi, Niger, Cameroon, Kampuchea, Tunisia, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles, Luxembourg, Chad, Guinea, Djibouti, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Mauritania. You&#39;ve decided to exclude a big chunk of the world.
[post=271019]Quoted post[/post]​
[/b][/quote]


Not to forget the USofA, even though the historical french-speaking minority doesn&#39;t benefit from much recognition...
 

B_DoubleMeatWhopper

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Originally posted by Solis25@Jan 1 2005, 02:28 AM
Not to forget the USofA, even though the historical french-speaking minority doesn&#39;t benefit from much recognition...

Bien sûr, il y a des francophones aux Etats-Unis ... but I was listing countries where French was an official language or at least widely spoken by a considerable percentage of the population. I could&#39;ve listed Andorra, where most of the people speak French as well as they speak Catalan and Spanish. Or India, because Pondicherry was once a French colony and French is still in common usage there. In the United States, French is definitely a minority language, but I did live in New Orleans, which was the centre of French culture in the US, and you can still here French spoken there from time to time.
 

B_Dantesco

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Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper@Jan 1 2005, 06:17 PM
Bien sûr, il y a des francophones aux Etats-Unis ... but I was listing countries where French was an official language or at least widely spoken by a considerable percentage of the population.

Pourquoi est-ce que tu n&#39;as pas mentionné Martinique? (A propos, oui -- je parle français aussi.)
 

jonb

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I should point out that the French spoken in Canada is very archaic. Kinda like the Spanish spoken in what used to be the northern half of Mexico.

Oh, a bit of advice when going to different countries which speak the same language: Be careful what you say. Different regions have different meanings, and most often, if you are misunderstood, it&#39;ll be of a sexual nature.
 

madame_zora

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Originally posted by jonb@Jan 1 2005, 10:38 PM
I should point out that the French spoken in Canada is very archaic. Kinda like the Spanish spoken in what used to be the northern half of Mexico.

Oh, a bit of advice when going to different countries which speak the same language: Be careful what you say. Different regions have different meanings, and most often, if you are misunderstood, it&#39;ll be of a sexual nature.
[post=271335]Quoted post[/post]​


Well, that&#39;s not always so bad. When I was in Spain, I discovered that the Spanish I know is more Mexican, but the cops there sure were pretty&#33;
 

B_DoubleMeatWhopper

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Originally posted by madame_zora@Jan 2 2005, 01:33 AM
When I was in Spain, I discovered that the Spanish I know is more Mexican, but the cops there sure were pretty&#33;

And I discovered just the opposite in Mexico. My parents were educated in Spain, and my brothers and sisters and I all grew up speaking Castilian Spanish, which is a completely different animal from you hear spoken in Nuevo Laredo. There were some pretty policemen in Mexico as well&#33;
 
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surf221: je parle le francais un peu...je le prends pour 5-6 ans...
 

hcjones7

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I&#39;m not even gonna try to respond in french (lest I make some horrid grammatical mistake), but I did take two semesters of it my freshman year of college... about four years ago. Never got very far, but I remember enough that I can follow this thread without too much trouble.

I&#39;ve been to Paris once, and to Quebec once, also. And I was in the french-speaking part of Switzerland. Becoming more adept at other languages is one of the things on my "wish I had time for it" list.

*sigh*
 

Solis25

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Originally posted by jonb@Jan 2 2005, 12:38 AM
I should point out that the French spoken in Canada is very archaic. Kinda like the Spanish spoken in what used to be the northern half of Mexico.
[post=271335]Quoted post[/post]​

dunno how to react at that... is our french in québec archaic in the sense that it ressembles what Louis XIV used to speak? Because that&#39;s not how we speak anymore...

For whoever cares at a little bit of history of the french language, here goes...

when france got its colony in north america up and running, france itself was only 20% french-speaking, in the greater paris area. 40% of the population in what is roughly the northern half of france spoke similar dialects so they could understand french but not speak it. the remaining 40% in the southern half of france spoke totally different dialects more similar to catalan and italian and just couldn&#39;t understand any french. even at the beginning of the 20th century, some populations in some regions of the south of france still had no functional knowledge of french.

when populating the colony of new france in what is today roughly ontario and québec, colonists came from different regions of france and spoke different dialects. in order to understand each other, the parisian or king&#39;s french was adopted as a lingua franca (common language). in an attempt to help populate new france (the british colonies already counted 1 million souls when new france only had about ten thousand), the king sent off a number of orphan girls from the greater paris area to marry with the (mostly male) new french colonists. they of course brought along their own dialect with them, the &#39;proper&#39; king&#39;s french and educated their children to speak that language. almost within few generations, the entire colony spoke the same french as in paris. merchants and other visitors from france coming to new france in the middle of the 18th century marvelled at how just everybody, from mayors and landlords all the way down the the simplest servant all spoke perfect king&#39;s french.

later on in the 18th century, france lost new france to england, and at the same time had to break all contact to its former colony. less than 10 years later was the french revolution, where anything having to do with royalty was tossed out the window, including the king&#39;s french. instead, the slightly more complex french spoken by writers and philosophers was adopted as official french language. this of course, did not happen in the former new france, who probably only heard of the french revolution many years later, and who were in these regards little or not influenced by the french revolution.

the french spoken in québec and ontario still reflects some features of the original french spoken by Louis XIV, whereas the generally accepted &#39;real&#39; french from france is actually another type of french. one could argue that we quebeckers are the true inheritors of the french language ;o)

both varieties of french have continued to evolve since the 18th century and aren&#39;t quite what they were back then anymore so i don&#39;t suppose one can say either one is archaic, which is the affirmation which got me started in the first place. thanks for the inspiration, this felt good ;o)

i&#39;m open to critic&#33;

and i know my english had gone down a bit so i apologize for any &#39;unenglish&#39; things in may have written.
 

Freddie53

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I should point out that the French spoken in Canada is very archaic. Kinda like the Spanish spoken in what used to be the northern half of Mexico.
[post=271335]Quoted post[/post]​

dunno how to react at that... is our french in québec archaic in the sense that it ressembles what Louis XIV used to speak? Because that&#39;s not how we speak anymore...


MY QUOTE

Thanks for your wonderful infromation. I did not know a lot of that. My question. Is the French spoken in France and the French spoken in Quebec compare to the Enlglish spoken in Britain and the Engish spoken in the United State. or Canada, New Zealand or Austria for that matter.

In Enligsh I find that is is the accent and pronunciation of words that is the largest hindrance to understanding each other. The actual words are not that different. Some of the figurative language is of course different.
 

titan1968

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I should point out that the French spoken in Canada is very archaic. Kinda like the Spanish spoken in what used to be the northern half of Mexico.
[post=271335]Quoted post[/post]​

dunno how to react at that... is our french in québec archaic in the sense that it ressembles what Louis XIV used to speak? Because that&#39;s not how we speak anymore...


MY QUOTE

Thanks for your wonderful infromation. I did not know a lot of that. My question. Is the French spoken in France and the French spoken in Quebec compare to the Enlglish spoken in Britain and the Engish spoken in the United State. or Canada, New Zealand or Austria for that matter.


In Enligsh I find that is is the accent and pronunciation of words that is the largest hindrance to understanding each other. The actual words are not that different. Some of the figurative language is of course different.
[post=271704]Quoted post[/post]​

Thank you Solis25 for your input. I have never heard the history of the French language explained so well.

To answer Freddie&#39;s question, we have some of our own words, often borrowed from Indian words (e.g. &#39;orignal&#39; from the Indian word &#39;orignac&#39; instead of the standard French word &#39;élan&#39;= elk) but the basic grammar and syntax are the same.

There are of course regional differences in the French spoken in Québec, Ontario, Atlantic Canada (les Acadiens) and Western Canada: there are different words and different accents.

I almost forgot: Bonne et heureuse année à vous tous&#33; Bonne chance dans toutes vos entreprises.
 
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patinero38: It&#39;s like we in Flanders, Belgium speak dutch, but not quite the same as in Holland.

Et, en Belgique on est bilingue, mais comme je suis un Flandrien je ne suis pas habitué à ecrire en Français...

Mais je comprend quand même...

En Nederlands is een taal die men niet zo vaak begrijpt. Tja, in België, in Nederland, in Zuid Afrika, en in oude Nederlandse kolonies zoals Indonesië en Suriname...

Ha, wie spreekt er hier Nederlands?
 

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Originally posted by patinero38@Jan 4 2005, 05:33 AM
It&#39;s like we in Flanders, Belgium speak dutch, but not quite the same as in Holland.

Et, en Belgique on est bilingue, mais comme je suis un Flandrien je ne suis pas habitué à ecrire en Français...

Mais je comprend quand même...

En Nederlands is een taal die men niet zo vaak begrijpt. Tja, in België, in Nederland, in Zuid Afrika, en in oude Nederlandse kolonies zoals Indonesië en Suriname...

Ha, wie spreekt er hier Nederlands?
[post=271925]Quoted post[/post]​
Neat, I actually figured out the last line. There are more similarities between the European languages then most folks know. Seventy percent of English words have a Latin background. But the spellings and pronunciations have varied some. I suspect the same is true for all European languages. The one that I remember the best is the world democracy. It is spelled exactly the same in French and English, but the pronunciation is totally different.

Thanks for the post. I wonder how many Americans could read your posts?
 

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Freddie and titan (and whoever else): you&#39;re very welcome&#33; languages are a passion for me, and like a number of passionate people, i&#39;m glad to be able to share it with others.

Patinero: Op frans bent je een &#39;flamand&#39;, maar &#39;flandrien&#39; is al grappig... ;o)

Freddie: Dutch is also one of english&#39;s closest relatives, as far as language families go so it&#39;s no wonder you can pick up some of it when you see it written down. hearing it is another story. i love dutch&#33; it always puts me in a good mood somehow. it&#39;ll probably become my 5th language.

oh and democracy is spelt with -cie and the end in french... may have been borrowed from the french language at some point, not sure... can anyone confirm/infirm this?
 

D_Harry_S_Taint

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Originally posted by Solis25@Jan 5 2005, 12:43 AM
oh and democracy is spelt with -cie and the end in french... may have been borrowed from the french language at some point, not sure... can anyone confirm/infirm this?
[post=272111]Quoted post[/post]​

"démocratie" in French

The word came from ancient greek : demos- : le peuple (people) and -cratie : le pouvoir (power/control)
so it may have been litterally translated to english from french.

BTW, there&#39;s a famous book from Tocqueville : "Democracy in America"
 

Solis25

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[/quote]

"démocratie" in French

The word came from ancient greek : demos- : le peuple (people) and -cratie : le pouvoir (power/control)
so it may have been litterally translated to english from french.

BTW, there&#39;s a famous book from Tocqueville : "Democracy in America"
[post=272285]Quoted post[/post]​
[/quote]

boy i really feel dumb now... i might as well not be a native speaker of any language... :unsure: