Comments on: The next Sailor Moon musical, Amour Eternal, has a terrible name

By: williukea

williukea — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 09:12:14 +0000

It’s Chat/Cat Noir all over again…

By: Aurelia

Aurelia — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 11:57:43 +0000

Interesting fact ! But silly concept indeed !

Yes, everyone has an accent, and the “purest” accent, to me, is just a myth. The accents are what make a language rich and fascinating. This is really important to preserve that variety !

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 19:48:26 +0000

Everyone has an accent people just don’t see their own! I’ve seen people who were taught French as a second language in Canada by people with European accents thinking French Canadians have an accent. The concept blows my mind! This is how people talk here! But it’s just the reality of the culture. If you don’t learn French natively in Canada you will have a more European accent and not learn the slang terms which are part of the every day language here. It doesn’t really prepare a person for conversing with their peers. It prepares them to converse with people an ocean away. Not terribly useful all things considered!

By: Aurelia

Aurelia — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:22:08 +0000

Don’t worry, I have trouble understanding not a few, but a lot of those French dialect accents >_< . Of course the easiest for me to understand in this video is the berrichon accent, since the region called Berry is my homeland. Besides, it seems those recordings are very old, because all those accents were very strong ; I'd say they were made during the 20th century, surely before the 80's, and I find that this scale is even too large.

I saw some comments here and there on the Internet from Quebecers, writing that the berrichon accent is indeed close to the Quebec French "accent" (because of course, for us Frenchmen, the Québécois have an accent).

As for the medieval song, the singer, René Zosso, a Swiss man, is amazing ! His pronunciation of Old French is fantastic. I try to sing it myself, and while some sounds are very hard to reproduce, some others are easy for me, because those sounds were kept in the berrichon dialect (though I don't have a berrichon accent myself, I have a "standard" French accent. But I often noticed, though, that when I get angry and bitch about something or someone, I speak with some slight berrichon intonations !). And finally, I'd say that the fact that the "standard" French had us completely stop rolling the "r" letter is very recent…

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:42:41 +0000

Oh wow what a variety. There are a few I have trouble understanding. I can figure out almost any Quebec accent but when it’s really European it’s not always easy. There is some of Berrichon that sounds very Quebecois! That song is like hearing some guy from Quebec singing.

By: Aurelia

Aurelia — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:30:29 +0000

I have no doubt that you have some efforts to preserve French from anglicisms, and in fact, I think you do better than us French people. For example, the Québécois have created the word “courriel” to translate the word “e-mail”, and this is a very clever and pretty invention.

As for the fact that the Quebec French is closer to the Old French (les langue d’oïl) that the French spoken in France nowadays, it seems to be a proven fact. The link I posted in my previous comment leads to a video where a Québécois explains why. The “standard” French spoken in France nowadays comes mostly from the French Revolution (that’s why we call it the “Parisian accent”, but this name is a bit fallacious…), with its dominant ideology called jacobinism, that still determines the political entity of France nowadays… But among the standard French, we have kept many regional dialects and accents born from these dialects (en langues d’oïl et langues d’oc) that can still be heard throughout the country, though they are disappearing, because they are mostly spoken by old people. If you ever hear some French regional dialects/accents which are remains of the langues d’oil, I’m sure you will find some resemblances with Quebec French for some of them. I grew up among peasants speaking the berrichon (sometimes I could not even understand what they said). Here are some examples : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egrfsn2CU8E, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MpQ0DZvpXQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-gTUUgZCQo.

Of course the reality of the creation and evolution of French language through the world is more complex than that (it’s the same for every language), but we can only sum up.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:20:38 +0000

We have efforts to preserve the language here too! I’ve heard that the French in Quebec is closer to what it was in France hundreds of years ago. The idea is that the language stagnated here more in isolation. I can’t really confirm this since I wasn’t around 300 or so years ago! It’s probably a little more nuanced than this as both have evolved a bit, but the languages seem to have sort of split when Novelle France was settled centuries ago.

By: Aurelia

Aurelia — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:22:57 +0000

You know, in France, we incorporate English words not only because this is trendy, but also because we are lazy too. All these words could easily be translated in French, because they already exist, but everything is made to brainwash the French people with “Globish” words. In Québec or in Acadie, I can understand that it happens, but in France, I think we should try to make some efforts not to corrupt the language. But it’s hard, because the Internet spreads the Globish fashion really easily and really fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFBHBYD6bU

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 12:43:44 +0000

Yeah that is my understanding. I’ve only ever passed through New Brunswick on my way to the Maritimes. The French I heard there seemed fine but I hardly got to encounter much more than hotel workers, gas station attendants and restaurant servers. Not a great sample of the entire population. There are a lot of Acadians over there though as I’ve inferred from all of the stars on the houses I saw passing by. There is something similar to the “Franglais” slang that I hear around these parts sometimes but most of it is very alien to me. I’m sure it’s really funny to people who live around there though! How much is excessive parody and how much is how some people really talk I couldn’t say.
My assumption, based on what I’ve observed, is that in France there are English words that are incorporated because they’re kind of trendy. In Quebec and French Ontario there are English words that are incorporated because people are bilingual and a bit lazy! I’m thinking “chiac” is a bit more along that trend.

By: Aurelia

Aurelia — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 10:04:18 +0000

No, of course not .