Regional variant of the French language, influenced by Occitan
Meridional French
(
French
:
francais meridional
), also referred to as
Francitan
, is a regional variant of the
French language
. It is widely spoken in
Marseille
,
Avignon
and
Toulouse
and is influenced by the
Occitan language
.
There are speakers of Meridional French in all generations, but the accent is most marked among the elderly, who often speak Occitan as their
first language
.
Characteristics
[
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]
The phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of
Occitan
have all influenced Meridional French, but the phonological effects are perhaps the most salient by producing the characteristic accent, which is used by speakers of Meridional French. Those effects include the following:
- The loss of phonemic
nasal vowels
, which are replaced by an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant
- the frequent realisation of the final atonal vowels of
Latin
, which are lost by speakers of other varieties of French, as
schwa
- the presence of lexical stress on the penultimate syllable of many words, in contrast to the phrase-final stress of Standard French
Meridional French is also subject to a phonological law known as the Law of Position in which mid-vowels are subject to allophonic variation based on the shape of their syllables; they are realised as mid-open in closed syllables (those ending in a consonant) and as mid-close in open syllables (those ending in a vowel). The phenomenon has been shown to be somewhat more complex, however, by Durand (1995), Eychenne (2006), and Chabot (2008). The principle is strictly adhered to by speakers of Meridional French, in contrast to those of other varieties of French.
Phonology
[
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]
- Lexical (or word-based)
stress
is used, unlike the prosodic stress of Standard French.
- Nasal vowels have not changed but are still pronounced as in traditional Parisian French or with a nasal consonant after the vowel:
enfant
[??(ŋ)?f??(ŋ)]
,
pain
[p??(ŋ)]
,
timbre
[?t??(m)b?(?)]
,
bon
[b??(ŋ)]
and
brun
[b?œ?(ŋ)]
.
- The "
e
caduc
" is always pronounced by older speakers, even at the end of words. For example,
cerise
(cherry) is pronounced
[s???iːz?]
,
tete
(head) is pronounced
[?t?t?]
, and it is sometimes pronounced even if there is no
e
;
ciel
(sky)
[?sj?l?]
.
- /o/,
/ø/,
/e/
merge with
/?/,
/œ/,
/?/
, the resulting phonemes being pronounced open-mid in stressed syllables (unless word-final, where they are close-mid) and close-mid in unstressed syllables (except before /?C/ clusters, where they are open-mid).
[2]
As a result, both
notre
and
notre
are pronounced as
[?n?t??]
and both
jeune
and
jeune
are as
[??œn?]
.
Vocabulary
[
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]
A number of words are peculiar to Meridional French. For example,
peguer
(Occitan
pegar
), "to be sticky" (Standard French
poisser
),
chocolatine
(Southwest), "
pain au chocolat
",
cagade
(Occitan
cagat
) or
flute
(a larger baguette), known as a
pain parisien
(Parisian loaf) in
Paris
.
Some phrases are used with meanings that differ from those of Standard French. For example,
s'il faut
, literally meaning "if necessary", is used to mean "perhaps", which would be rendered in Standard French as
peut-etre
. That is a
calque
of the Occitan
se cal
.
Internal variation
[
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]
Many sub-varieties of Meridional French exist, with distinctive features.
Diatopic variation
accounts for the differences between the French varieties spoken in the various areas of Southern France. Phonetics and vocabulary often change from one region to another. For instance, the lexis used in the variety of French spoken in Toulouse, described by
Seguy (1950)
, differs substantially from the variety spoken in Bayonne, described by
Lambert (1928)
.
Diastratic variation
is also extant in Meridional French. The
sociolects
spoken by the Jews of
Gascony
, whose large set of special vocabulary used only within the group has been linguistically described by
Nahon (2018)
, is one of the most distinctive sub-dialects of Meridional French.
References
[
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]
- Chabot, Alex (2004).
"Suprasegmental Structure in Meridional French and its Provencal Substrate"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2011-05-11
. Retrieved
2010-12-19
.
- Durand, Jacques (1995). "Alternances vocaliques en francais du midi et phonologie du gouvernement".
Lingua
.
95
(1?3): 27?50.
doi
:
10.1016/0024-3841(95)90100-0
.
- Eychenne, Julien (2006).
"
Aspects de la phonologie du schwa dans le francais contemporain. Optimalite, visibilite prosodique, gradience.
"
(PDF)
(in French).
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 2015-07-22
. Retrieved
2015-07-22
.
- Lambert, Jacques (1928), "Sur quelques particularites du parler bayonnais",
Bulletin trimestriel de la Societe des sciences, lettres & arts de Bayonne
: 275?306
.
- Seguy, Jean (1950),
Le Francais parle a Toulouse
(in French), Toulouse: Privat
.
- Nahon, Peter (2018),
Gascon et francais chez les Israelites d'Aquitaine. Documents et inventaire lexical
(in French), Paris: Classiques Garnier,
ISBN
978-2-406-07296-6
.