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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

#161

Post by TacticalCoder »

thriftwy wrote: post #124
greatgib wrote: post #103

[flagged]

[flagged]

> Then we have at least half a century of Russia being abused that way...

Ah yup... Because Stalin who wanted to execute 30 000 Nazis officer to "give an example" was a saint? (for the record it's Churchill who opposed to that)

And the attitude of the USSR during the cold war was a respectable one?

As in: people in eastern germany were happy to live on that side of the Berlin wall and not in western germany instead?

Seriously: russians weren't villain-worthy enough to you during the cold war?

Ask ukrainians what they think about your point of view...

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

#162

Post by galvin »

arcticbull wrote: post #118
Daishiman wrote: post #116

Earlier 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…

The CFA franc is used by 14 countries. Until 2020, those countries were required to deposit half of their foreign exchange reserves with the French Treasury. France also maintains a military presence in several of its former colonies.

Colonialism may have ended, but France continues to exert influence in Africa.

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

#163

Post by pooper »

greatgib wrote: post #103

[flagged]

This video from real life lore just came out yesterday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpWb3MTV9bg

This is not about Africa but rather Haiti but I think the point stands.

Why can't France give Haiti USD 21B? Or even USD 100B. It doesn't have to be in one lump sum. Would that bankrupt France? When I look up France GDP, I see 2.958 trillion USD (2021).

Actually do some good in the world for once. (And make some money for French companies doing so). Build some physical infrastructure in Haiti. Clean drinking water, reforestation, etc...

a hundred billion dollars will go a long way in a country like Haiti...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_Debt#Aristi...

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

#164

Post by thriftwy »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #161
thriftwy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Then we have at least half a century of Russia being abused that way... Ah yup... Because Stalin who wanted to execute 30 000 Nazis officer to "give an example" was a saint? (for the record it's Churchill who opposed to that) And the attitude of the USSR during the cold war was a respectable one? As in: people in eastern germany were happy to live on that side of the Berlin wall and not in western germany instead?…

[flagged]

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

#165

Post by dudul »

freeney wrote: post #70
dudul wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just that they were themselves learning French, so used to speaking broken French. You would get the same experience by gathering a German, an Australian and a Venezuelan all learning French as 2nd or 3rd language. Additionally they most likely already knew English and were able to decipher "French broken by an English speaker". Edit: and since we're sharing anecdotes. I got the same "rude" treatment from Ru…

I don’t think this issue is about the French spoken in West Africa being 'broken.' Or that 'they were themselves learning French'… Rather, it reflects the tolerance and adaptability inherent in multilingual societies like those in West Africa. People are simply more accustomed to communicating across different languages and more accepting of non-native speakers and various accents, even if they are native speakers th…

> . In France however there is often less tolerance for varying pronunciations and accents,

Yes this was covered in my original message. Miss pronouncing a word in French can make it extremely hard to understand for a native speaker. And yes people from Quebec are an excellent example. They will often struggle when their accent is too strong when visiting France. And people are not ill meaning, Quebecois are very popular in France, it's just genuinely hard.

People often don't know that the French language was literally a political weapon to create France. France is political construct, not cultural like most countries. It is an aggregation of different cultures, including different languages. It was vital for France to succeed as a construct to force the idea of "correct French". A French language that would be the same everywhere, without local variations. So yeah, the French ear is not used to dealing with mistakes or strong accents.

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

#166

Post by samus »

yawboakye wrote: post #149
felipelemos wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French, as a romance language did not import from Latin as English did not import from proto germanic.

and french as a germanic language? because french is a germanic language too.

French has a few Germanic loan words, but is most certainly not a Germanic language.

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

#167

Post by yodsanklai »

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.

As for any other language, textbook French isn't exactly what French people speak, and different social classes have their own slang, but the language isn't changing that much.

I'd argue that it's becoming simpler as younger generations have a more limited vocabulary. They also tend to integrate more and more English words (pronounced as French words), as it's something perceived as cool. Interestingly, this is true in all layers of society, including business and politics.

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

#168

Post by featuregag »

dudul wrote: post #17
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…

Broken anything is hard to understand without practice, and easy (or, easier) to understand with practice. My experience in urban US is you hear a lot of broken English, so you get pretty good at understanding it.

My experience living in Paris is that a lot of the older folks have very little practice or desire to practice speaking with broken French speakers.

Japan I found to be similar. Fuck up the pronunciation the slightest bit and you’re just stared at blankly.

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

#169

Post by fknorangesite »

qwytw wrote: post #110
manmal wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Europe and have never been stolen from, and I‘ve been on plenty vacations abroad. And in many places you do get free tap water (eg London or Vienna) with food. IDK why you would care about the price of tap water though since that’s probably 0,1% of your traveling budget for a city trip. Taxes are country specific, you‘ll find some EU countries with lower taxation than your average US state, eg Bulgaria. Bei…

> why you would care about the price of tap water Because I have to ask and unless I'm explicit they'll bring a 330 mL glass bottle which is extremely annoying. That forces me to drink beer all the time just to avoid that which is not exactly ideal. > eg Bulgaria The VAT there is 20% which is much higher than any place in the US.

> That forces me to drink beer all the time

My opinion of American tourists is such that I can't tell if this is a joke, and I'm Canadian, ffs.

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

#170

Post by ekabod »

passwordoops wrote: post #96
OnlyMortal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met French speaking Quebecois in Paris. They were complaining the Parisians didn’t understand them. They weren’t enamoured to France.

Also that Parisians treat them like a backwater colony. That really doesn't sit well with the narrative that Quebec was always an independent people who were only ever under colonial rule after the evil English came along. Oh, and there were never any issues with the natives until the Brits. Source: my grade school kids' history texts

Nobody in France is treating Quebec as a backwater colony, not even as a colony. It is all in your head.

Quebec has a very good image in France.

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