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How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
151–160 of 502 posts
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean the Russians trying to exert soft power of Europe is a thing, but over a century if French colonialism _really_ doesn't help your argument one bit.
French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years. [edit] The French even regularly hold referendums in COMs like New Caledonia offering to cut them loose. But the last one they had 97% voted to remain part of France. Sometimes it’s good to be a dependency of a world power. I should correct myself, New Caledonia isn’t a COM (collectivité d'outre-mer) anymore but a sui generis collecti…
What a malicious lie. Former colonies were still paying debts for 50 years plus, and many of them are still paying them. France has first rights to the natural resources of many of its former colonies. Colonialism never ended, it has simply changed hands. Now corrupt African politicians trade the futures of their countries and constituents as servants of empire instead of the colonial powers having direct rule. And even China is getting a piece of the pie now.
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#153[flagged]
France is the number 1 reason for political instability in Africa. They have supported, armed and financed african dictators for generations.
France put itself in the 'opposition of african prosperity' position. Random examples: - Destroyed Lybia and refused to be held responsible. The US had the decency (?) to at least spend a 100 billions trying to repair Irak and Afghanistan. [1]
- Supporting Paul Biya [2], Ali Bongo and his father before him[3] , Idriss Deby [4] and his father before him, Faure Gnassingbe [5] and his father before him, Sassou Nguesso [6] is still terrorizing Congo... I can go on and on from 1949 to 2023.
- The currency of African countries is still printed and controlled by France [7]. France forces this countries to deposit half their money in French Treasurery. France industries hugely benefits from buying raw materials with a currency they control. African currencies are forced to be converted to Euro first, then to another one for exchanges.
- France routinely validates and congratulates Dictators after `winning` sham elections [8].
I fairly do not have a single good thing to say about the presence of France in Africa. France routinely lies about 'investing' in Africa. Where is the last power plant, hospital, or school built or invested in by France? In 10 years, we've seen roads, power plants, ports, airports, schools, universities from China, Turkey, Lebanon and even Russia (!) .
Now the french wants to whine about some russian 'fake news' being the reason why they are hated across a whole continent, which is not the case.
The french have been in Africa for the last 250 years. They have their neighbourhoods, their schools, their restaurants. They rarely mix with the local population for reasons other than sex.
Their priests and military personnel raped so many of our grand-mothers, and when caught were just sent to another african countries.
If somebody that has known you, learned your language and gastronomy, consumed your music and movies for 250 years does not want to be with you, it's not because of gossip.
France lost the plot, with the EU as with Africa, and they can only blame themselves for it.
[1] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/france...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jul/26/f...
[3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/31/gabon-coup-military-afr...
[4] https://www.cadtm.org/Tchad-quand-la-France-avalise-le-coup-...
[5] https://www.france24.com/en/20200220-faure-gnassingbe-togo-l...
[6] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-france-idUSKCN0T02...
[7] https://hir.harvard.edu/true-sovereignty-the-cfa-franc-and-f...
[8] https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20210408-rfi-stands-behind-jour...
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean the Russians trying to exert soft power of Europe is a thing, but over a century if French colonialism _really_ doesn't help your argument one bit.
French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years. [edit] The French even regularly hold referendums in COMs like New Caledonia offering to cut them loose. But the last one they had 97% voted to remain part of France. Sometimes it’s good to be a dependency of a world power. I should correct myself, New Caledonia isn’t a COM (collectivité d'outre-mer) anymore but a sui generis collecti…
>French colonialism ended a long time ago, like in the 60s. It’s been over 60 years.
On paper yes, unofficially it never stopped. It just went underground and got better PR, as now it's no longer enslavement under the barrel of a gun, but under the pressure of money.
Check out the CFA Franc[1] and Guinea, which was pressured by France to accept the CFA Franc currency, which brought financial instability and disadvantageous economic relationships between African countries and France.
Or how most of Africa's resources are exploited by French (and British) companies by bribing whatever corrupt despot rules each country with the blessing of French/UK leadership, to be allowed to extract valuable resources for pennies on the dollar way below market rate while the country and the people get nothing out of it. Sure, it's technically not colonialism, as the British/French flags are no longer planted there, but come one, it's basically outsourced colonialism with extra steps through middle men.
[1] https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/cfa-franc-the-colonial-curr...
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#155[Commenting as an HN member born and raised in Côte d'Ivoire] Quite cool to see this topic trending! Some additional context:
Two popular music genres that popularized nouchi in Côte d'Ivoire and then France are "Zouglou" (1990s) and "Coupé-Décalé" (2000-2010s). Both are past their primes but it's interesting to watch now the diffusion process into the French culture. In 2019, a few nouchi words were added to the Larousse dictionary: https://www.france24.com/fr/20190601cote-ivoire-nouchi-argot...
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#156[flagged]
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
while 1/2 of french is imported and mangled latin. so where did english borrow from really? given that it’s easier to figure out the latin roots of the anglicized?
The normand invasion of England and political control for 400 years changed the English language for sure. The medieval English and the modern English are completely different. Medieval French and modern French, not so much.
I'm not sure what 400 years of Norman political control really means. There was an invasion of England in 1066 by William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, which ended up with King William I of England. Subsequent monarchs of England/bits of France were no longer Normans per se. At least one variety of a French language at the time was introduced, wholesale, and became the court language of England. Latin of course remained the really "important" language of the Church and increasingly the law.
There are roughly three named "ages" of English (in England): old, middle and modern. I can just about understand written middle English and have severe problems with old English.
Modern English can be very flexible, which is probably why it has become popular as a lingua franca. There are no real noun genders. Word order can be fiddled with mercilessly too. Officially, English sentences are subject - verb - object (SVO) for example: "I sat on the bed". You can say "I the bed sat on" or "On the bed sat I" or "sat I on the bed" and it still works fine. Most of those variants are regionally correct, somewhere.
English spelling is an absolute nightmare! Linking pronunciation to spelling is absolutely awful. I can completely understand English as a second language speakers throwing their hands up in the air and declaring the whole thing as complete bollocks! However, that means that we are extraordinarily tolerent of speling mistaks. field or feild? sealed or ceiled? Who nose!
Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#158[flagged]
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Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody's going to deny that the impacts of past actions continue into the present and the reasonably anticipated future. That's not the claim I'm making. I claimed that France hasn't had colonialist ambitions or policies in 60+ years. You mentioned a 'century of colonialism' - I'm pointing out that it ended more than half a century ago.
And I'm what I'm telling you is that nobody in Africa cares that it finished 50 years ago when the impacts are still felt today and the economic influence of the developed world continues on that tradition.
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Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> People weren't correcting you to mock you. They wanted to understand and probably help you No. In France they openly showed their disgust at my French and refused even to speak to me.
During my first trip to Paris, I was at a patisserie in an admittedly tourist-y part of town and the gentleman behind the counter yelled at me and insist I speak English when ordering. So in Paris stopped attempting to speak to them in French. However, people in Beaune and Chamonix humored me.