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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

#121

Post by qwytw »

Koshkin wrote: post #72
lm28469 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that "franca" here has nothing to do with French or France ? Neither today nor originally

That's not exactly true. To quote Wikipedia, Lingua franca meant literally "Frankish language" in Late Latin, and it originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce.

> to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce.

Which was a language that was barely related to modern French (besides belonging to the same Romance language sub-branch which includes Catalan, Occitan and most Northern Italian dialects, coincidentally places where most of those merchants who introduced that language came from).

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

#122

Post by sergiotapia »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #66
scrollaway wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up verlan. It’s a type of French slang where you reverse syllables or sounds of words. “Verlan” itself comes from the reverse of “l’envers” which means “reverse”.

Who has time for that?

spanish has the same thing where you call your friend "chupa nepe" instead of "chupa pene".

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

#123

Post by qwytw »

hardlianotion wrote: post #119
Koshkin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly true. To quote Wikipedia, Lingua franca meant literally "Frankish language" in Late Latin, and it originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce.

To be fair to parent, France is on the western side of the Mediterranean sea.

It wasn't even on the Mediterranean at the time (or rather French was spoken in the North of modern France back then). People on Mediterranean coast of France were speaking Occitan and other dialects which were more closely related to Catalan and Northern Italian (all of those were mostly eradicated during and during the century or so after the French revolution).

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

#125

Post by bsaul »

paganel wrote: post #97
prospector1065 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have something else you want to say? Because it sounds like you're just trying to allude to racism

[flagged]

no sure why people downvoted you. Maybe people are unaware of how stupid the french state has become when dealing with immigration.

Yes, they did write a text saying that races officially don't exist, as there's just one human race ( as if this decision would solve any issue, whether that's racism or immigrant integration)

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

#126

Post by pavlov »

sergiotapia wrote: post #120
thefounder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just been in France recently. The radio really plays only French-African music. At least 90% of the time. I don't think it's anything racist about that. It just that France changed and I think most of Europe will change as well due immigration. We will see more African, Asian and maybe middle-eastern culture.

[flagged]

Like London, Paris is really quite big. While the city is constantly changing, all the old neighborhoods haven’t suddenly lost their identity. This fear of losing “Paris proper” is completely overblown.

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

#128

Post by bsaul »

cassepipe wrote: post #82
h1fra wrote: post #31

It's always fun to see foreigners coming to paris discovering that the french they learned at school is basically useless. Not only we use africans or arabic words, but we also speak in reverse, with noises, everything is shortened, etc.

I'd say that's one of the worst thing in French : The gap between written and spoken is so much bigger than say spanish which I think makes it hard for foreigners.

i'd say the problem is mainly the inability of young generation to be able to write and speak proper french.

Speaking slang is fun and everybody's been doing it forever. However being only able to speak slang is a problem.

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

#129

Post by csdvrx »

severine wrote: post #114
csdvrx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're gonna love La Cliqua! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cliqua Check the 1999 eponymous album, full of bangers. edit, just in case: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mmKENGKgnhXwE7...

Thanks!

I just checked a few of the songs on https://www.supraphonline.cz/album/50244-entre-deux-mondes (the 1999 album isn't on suprphon) there's some good beat but it's not very complex music-wise. I'll try to find the 1999 album and check it too.

In terms of unique French music, I've recently found La Petite Culotte - La Goffa Lolita https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmjCLbFkT5w

Given the musical composition (stanza, vocals, etc.) I hesitate to call that rap.

It's different from say Baby or Djadja by Nakamura, she's often categorized in Afrobeat but I would absolutely group them together in their style: I don't know how to name it (French Fusion?), but I love it!

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

#130

Post by TheAlchemist »

h1fra wrote: post #31

It's always fun to see foreigners coming to paris discovering that the french they learned at school is basically useless. Not only we use africans or arabic words, but we also speak in reverse, with noises, everything is shortened, etc.

OUI !

I've immigrated to France in high school - my French was pretty good by academic standards, and I was able to understand what teachers were saying in class, from day 1.

Conversations with my peers were a different story - like they were speaking another language. First time I've heard (on the first day there) 'chais pas' and somebody explained that to me, I realized I'm in for another 3-6 months of learning the language. One thing that was apparent though, is that the best way to learn is just to immerse yourself into a group - even if you don't understand anything in the beginning. The progress will be much quicker than any sort of academic training.

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