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How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

nytimes.com

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Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#11

Post by grecy »

Learning French while exploring West Africa was enormously good fun.

For most people it's their 3rd or 4th or 5th language, and they were always so full of joy and happiness than I was trying my best. Nobody ever corrected my pronunciation or criticized me for my bad grammar and lack of vocabulary. (Cough, France, Cough). Thanks to all the encouragement and positivity I picked it up pretty quickly, and thoroughly enjoyed conversations with random locals all over the continent.

Actually, it was just as much fun as learning Spanish on the road in Central and South America.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#12

Post by pyrale »

> But some in France are slow to embrace change. Members of the French Academy, the 17th-century institution that publishes an official dictionary of the French language, have been working on the same edition for the past 40 years.

Lmao, no, they don't. They actually pay other people to do that work.

People abroad don't seem to realize that the academys, most notably the french academy are mostly a retirement scheme for elder conservative members of the establishment. When you're no longer relevant, you go there to earn a fat paycheck doing nothing, and occasionally rant about how it was better before.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#13

Post by BrandoElFollito »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #6

> Members of the French Academy, the 17th-century institution that publishes an official dictionary of the French language, have been working on the same edition for the past 40 years. This is nonsense. The French Academy is adding new words to the dictionary every year. The whole article is weak to say the least. Of course, the French spoken abroad is changed by the local influences. This is the sam case as with any…

Wait until they learn about chocolatines.

Please do not use vulgar words here.

We are already way too lax on the usage of these words and this only propagates blind violence (in French: https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt...)

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#14

Post by csdvrx »

taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap.

These 2 scenes are extremely innovative!

> I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?).

Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai?

In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura

EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for political reasons:

> French should be proud that their language and culture are being spread and transformed by the French speaking nations in Africa

Apparently, they're angry about that!

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#15

Post by BrandoElFollito »

mr90210 wrote: post #10
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, except that this is the language (and its rules) that is taught as school.

Do your research on European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese, and you’ll realize that the latter owns its own version and defines its own standard without needing the consent from any other country. So, there is nothing France or any institution can do about it.

This is exactly what I wrote in my last sentence. Every country speaking a language influences its version.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#16

Post by pyrale »

edwcross wrote: post #4
throwup238 wrote: post #3

https://archive.ph/nItnV I wonder what the Académie Française has to say about that...

The Académie nowadays is (mostly) a bunch of old politically influent people with zero or little linguistic knowledge. They stopped reforming the language almost two hundred years ago and now they can only hope that people will keep paying them attention. But the language will keep evolving and drifting, and they will keep resisting, until the divergence will be so large that they will just disappear into nothingness…

> until the divergence will be so large that they will just disappear into nothingness, and people will ask: "why did people bother with them for so long?..."

They won't disappear as long as there is money.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#17

Post by dudul »

grecy wrote: post #11

Learning French while exploring West Africa was enormously good fun. For most people it's their 3rd or 4th or 5th language, and they were always so full of joy and happiness than I was trying my best. Nobody ever corrected my pronunciation or criticized me for my bad grammar and lack of vocabulary. (Cough, France, Cough). Thanks to all the encouragement and positivity I picked it up pretty quickly, and thoroughly enj…

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French.

A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence.

And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what I did there!). While we get a ton of daily practice reading/hearing broken English, it is not the same with French for people living in France.

People weren't correcting you to mock you. They wanted to understand and probably help you.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#18

Post by thierrydamiba »

csdvrx wrote: post #14
taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap. These 2 scenes are extremely innovative! > I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?). Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai? In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for politica…

Woah, did not expect to see a Magic System fan when I opened up HN today. I was living in the Ivory Coast when Premier Gauo came out. I love their music and it brought back some good memories. Thank you!

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#19

Post by BiteCode_dev »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #13
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until they learn about chocolatines.

Please do not use vulgar words here. We are already way too lax on the usage of these words and this only propagates blind violence (in French: https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt... )

To non french readers: le gorafi is the french equivalent of the onion :)

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#20

Post by BrandoElFollito »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #19
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not use vulgar words here. We are already way too lax on the usage of these words and this only propagates blind violence (in French: https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt... )

To non french readers: le gorafi is the french equivalent of the onion :)

To be frank, their articles can be easily misinterpreted as the reality.
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