Regional accents in France: evidence of linguistic diversity

[jrineakter]

When we talk about French accents , we immediately think of the Quebec accent, the Belgian accent or the Swiss accent. But did you know that there are about a hundred regional accents in France ? Traces of the local languages ​​once spoken in France , these varieties bear witness to the historical linguistic diversity of the country. In this article, I invite you to discover a completely different side of the French language !



Before getting into the heart of the matter, I would first like to provide a little explanation of the word "accent". According to the Larousse dictionary, an accent is a "set of articulatory features (pronunciation, intonation, etc.), specific to the members of a linguistic community (country, region), a group or a social environment."

In this definition, I retain two elements. First of all, the accent relates to the pronunciation of words, consonants and vowels. It therefore concerns neither grammar, nor conjugation, nor vocabulary.

Then, accents are variations specific to a territory or a social environment. Thus, an accent is often linked to a geographical location. This is why we speak for example of a Provençal, Marseilles singapore whatsapp number data or Savoyard accent. The common point between these accents is the territory, the region.

There are a multitude of French accents in the world: the Belgian, West Indian, Quebecois, Creole, etc. They form the different accents of the French-speaking world. In this article, I wanted to introduce you in particular to the regional accents in metropolitan France. This will allow you to better understand the history of the French language and learn more about the country's cultural heritage.

Why does each French region have its own accent?
In reality, France has only recently become French-speaking! Before the Second World War, most provincial students only spoke French at school. Outside of class hours, they spoke their local language.

To understand the phenomenon of accents in France, we need to go back a little further in time. Until the 16th century, the country had hundreds of regional languages ​​such as Occitan, Breton, Lorraine, Alsatian, etc. They were classified into two main groups: the Oïl languages ​​in the north and the Oc languages ​​in the south.

In order to unify the people, the institutions imposed the French of Paris as the language of administration. All inhabitants had to know how to speak French. Over time, the regional languages ​​disappeared, but the accent remained. Indeed, as the majority of the population learned French as a foreign language, their pronunciation was influenced by their mother tongue. Regional accents are therefore the living traces of these ancient dialects and dialects.


The central accent (Auvergne, Limousin-Corrèze, Sarthe, Charente, Poitou, Vendée).
I suggest you discover in more detail the most well-known accents: those of the south, the north, the east and the Parisian accent.

Southern accent
One of the most famous accents of France is the southern one. Also called the accent of the South, this singing accent marked the history of French cinema with the work of Marcel Pagnol. In reality, this accent includes many linguistic variants from Marseille, Toulouse, Toulon, Nice, etc. They are traces of the Occitan languages.

One of the oral characteristics of this accent is to pronounce the silent "e" of French. For example, in the word "voyage", in standard French, we do not pronounce the final "e". It becomes "voyag". People with a southern accent will pronounce "voyageuh".