Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 502 posts

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

#481

Post by gobip »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #320
gobip wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mesdames et Messieurs" is inclusive. You've heard that for as long as you can remember. "Statut : marié(e)" is also inclusive. Check your tax return. The median "." for example "marié.e" is also inclusive and is probably what you're against. Please hate it right, we all use inclusive, even in English (ladies and gentlemen for example). Being inclusive is good, you're doing it too.

> "Mesdames et Messieurs" is inclusive. You've heard that for as long as you can remember. Oh so french was already "inclusive" then? LOL. > The median "." for example "marié.e" is also inclusive I don't care about "inclusivity", it's weasel word for intersectionalists. The "median ." isn't french language, it's unreadable when literred everywhere. "l'écriture inclusive" is a canonical exemple of cultural vandalisme…

It was already inclusive, through these means, yes. This is the real "écriture inclusive".

I've seen your other contributions on this post and I think I'm done exchanging with you. You nitpicked just the right thing and forgot all about the rest of my comment. Have a nice day, you need some love.

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

#482

Post by CTDOCodebases »

strken wrote: post #430
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have more trouble understanding Indian, Australian than Americans, but it may be due that I watch a lot of American made content and am more used to their accent. As an Australian who has lived in Europe you are not alone. I had to change the way I talked in order for non native english speakers to understand what I was saying. Australians tend to cut the end of the words off and mix vowel sounds e.g "dinner" get…

I have a friend who grew up in Australia, who's from a state capital while I'm from the country, and he once said that I sounded "more Australian" on the phone to my family than I do while taking to cosmopolitan Australians. I think a lot of us subconsciously suppress our accents and vocabulary when we're not around the exact dialect we grew up with.

I do this too but I think it works a little differently. I would say that we unconsciously tailor the way we talk to align ourselves socially with others.

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

#483

Post by hnbad »

przmk wrote: post #317
hnbad wrote: post #309

I guess it's time the French gave up on the colonialist idea of the "Francophonie" and accepted that French is evolving independently in other countries just like English, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch. I wonder how much of this being perceived as "changing French" rather than just other countries having their own variants of similar languages goes back to France holding onto its colonies and trying to keep them close…

Flemish is definitely not a separate language and nobody considers it so, even in Belgium.

I see you are not a linguist. As the saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army.

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

#484

Post by pezezin »

alternative_a wrote: post #265
sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have been piled on a lot already in this thread but let me add my 2 cents: - you don’t have to be particularly careful about pickpockets anywhere in Europe, at least not more than anywhere else in the world. - you always get free tapwater in restaurants if you ask for it anywhere in Europe, also most waiters are also generally pleasant (of course there can be unpleasant people anywhere) - not sure about the tax t…

This is all true. You also can ask for ice with your coke. This will endear you with the wait staff as they can not resist snickering and muttering “American ..”

That depends on the country. In Spain ice with your soft drinks is the default, even in winter.

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

#485

Post by samus »

yawboakye wrote: post #460
samus wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French is indeed a notable exception in that regard. However, the rest of the grammar structure is still overwhelmingly of Romance origin. This and some other odd things can indeed be explained because of the ancient Franks picking up the language of the people they ruled over, but incompletely so.

so i’m fairly familiar with latin’s grammar because i speak it, proficiently. first, there’s material difference between latin and modern french grammars. for example, the genetive, dative, ablative, accusative noun cases have been largely replaced with the nominative case + prepositions, which makes them no different from the (ultra-)modern german or english language. both german and english have conjugations too. *…

This has happened in quite similar ways to most other Romance languages as well though. Almost all of them (with Romanian being a notable exception) have gotten rid of their case system and only the pronouns contain traces of it. Nowadays, they express the "cases" with prepositions too.

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

#486

Post by throw_m239339 »

gobip wrote: post #481
throw_m239339 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Mesdames et Messieurs" is inclusive. You've heard that for as long as you can remember. Oh so french was already "inclusive" then? LOL. > The median "." for example "marié.e" is also inclusive I don't care about "inclusivity", it's weasel word for intersectionalists. The "median ." isn't french language, it's unreadable when literred everywhere. "l'écriture inclusive" is a canonical exemple of cultural vandalisme…

It was already inclusive, through these means, yes. This is the real "écriture inclusive". I've seen your other contributions on this post and I think I'm done exchanging with you. You nitpicked just the right thing and forgot all about the rest of my comment. Have a nice day, you need some love.

> I've seen your other contributions on this post and I think I'm done exchanging with you. You nitpicked just the right thing and forgot all about the rest of my comment. Have a nice day, you need some love.

"La réforme oui, la chienlit, non".

The french language was never "inclusive" and doesn't need to be, it's called "courtoisie". The default is the masculine gender, that's a grammatical rule, and listing feminine gender next to it is purely a matter of courtoisie.

There is no "inclusivity" problem with the french language because there is no "inclusivity" problem to begin with, only in the head of the people specialized in making grievances a business.

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

#487

Post by marcus_holmes »

kergonath wrote: post #253
junofan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence are you looking for? No despot on Earth has managed to stamp it out, unlike countless other languages. You can say things like lingua franca and everyone knows what you’re talking about. There aren’t any pronouns that depend on social status. It’s got a phonetic alphabet. It’s just a natural choice for commerce and knowledge-sharing.

> No despot on Earth has managed to stamp it out, unlike countless other languages. Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot? > You can say things like lingua franca and everyone knows what you’re talking about. Considering that the phrase is Latin, I am not sure what your point is. > There aren’t any pronouns that depend on social status. And many other quirks that are as alien to a native Japanese s…

> Any evidence of a language being stamped out by a despot?

Oh the irony!

The English tried to wipe out Gaelic use in Cornwall, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland for centuries. Schools were told to punish children for speaking Gaelic, and to only speak English to their students. We succeeded in wiping out Cornish as a living language (sorry!). Manx and Irish Gaelic survived, though you can argue about Manx Gaelic (there was a revival around the time the last native speaker died).

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

#488

Post by yawboakye »

samus wrote: post #485
yawboakye wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so i’m fairly familiar with latin’s grammar because i speak it, proficiently. first, there’s material difference between latin and modern french grammars. for example, the genetive, dative, ablative, accusative noun cases have been largely replaced with the nominative case + prepositions, which makes them no different from the (ultra-)modern german or english language. both german and english have conjugations too. *…

This has happened in quite similar ways to most other Romance languages as well though. Almost all of them (with Romanian being a notable exception) have gotten rid of their case system and only the pronouns contain traces of it. Nowadays, they express the "cases" with prepositions too.

agreed. so given that french grammar bears striking resemblance to german/english, and given that they’re all info-european languages, why are we quick to reject the germanic roots of the french language and classify it as romance? here i don’t know much history but i won’t be surprised if we learn that the association was deliberate, in order to elevate french to the status of latin? i.e. language fit for intellectual work?

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

#489

Post by BSDobelix »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #382
BSDobelix wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages Not a different language but a dialect-group within high german called Alemanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German Also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

I don't think you have that quite right. Alemannic does not include Standard High German. Alemannic is a group of High German dialects in the southwestern German-speaking areas.

>Alemannic does not include Standard High German.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

>>The High German languages (German: hochdeutsche Mundarten, i.e. High German dialects), or simply High German (Hochdeutsch) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German"

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

#490

Post by iRomain »

nequo wrote: post #37
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.

In reverse? Do you mind sharing a couple examples? I’m not a French speaker and this sounds intriguing to me.

Here's a classic example :

Je suis allé à une teuf de ouf => je suis allé à une fête de fou

Literally :

I went to an zeecray teepar => I went to a crazy party

C'est pas oim => c'est pas moi (It's not me)

Fais pas ièch => fais pas chier (stop bothering /(f*cking with) me)

Je l'ai ken => je l'ai niqué(e) (I screwed him/her)

Found that with a quick Google search: https://www.francaisavecpierre.com/le-verlan/

Post reply on HN