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How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time
- sesuximo 3y agoThis seems completely unsurprising? Subcultures have their own slang, and some of it is spreading? That’s true in French/English/anything
- dang 3y agoThe point of the article is not surprise that this is happening (obviously language changes in this way), but curiosity about how it is happening. "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- frosting1337 3y agoI don't think anyone is surprised half a continent speaking French has its own twist on the language. But it is interesting to read about, especially the impact that hip-hop and rap in these countries have had on the dialects, such as calling your boyfriend bread.
- chikitabanana 3y agoprobably petit copain -> pain, ouais?
- avarun 3y agoOkay. Did anybody say they're surprised? Or are you just strawmanning?
- lucb1e 3y ago(u/dang already said as much an hour before your comment, not sure there's a point making more accusations and adding fuel to the fire.)
- 2-718-281-828 3y agothis is a political phenomena. they are fed up with mainland france.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwup238 3y agohttps://archive.ph/nItnV https://archive.ph/nItnV I wonder what the Académie Française has to say about that...
- edwcross 3y agoThe 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, and people will ask: "why did people bother with them for so long?..." Or, as the young ones do nowadays, they'll just say "Cheh!" to the Académie.
- BrandoElFollito 3y agoWell, yes, except that this is the language (and its rules) that is taught as school.
- mr90210 3y agoDo 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.
- BrandoElFollito 3y agoThis is exactly what I wrote in my last sentence. Every country speaking a language influences its version.
- heywhatupboys 3y ago"read up on this wholly separate language and language culture, and you will see that I mean about French"
- grecy 3y agoLearning 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.
- dudul 3y agoFrench 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.
- yieldcrv 3y agosounds like people in west african countries have a superior understanding of the purpose of language, which is to convey shared concepts
- dudul 3y agoNo, 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 Russians when I was learning Russian in Russia, or from Swedish folks when learning Swedish in Stockholm. It's just hard for native speakers to deal with broken linguo, that's just how it is. Swedish people would even reply to me in English, some would call it rude, they were just trying to be helpful and efficient.
- taimurkazmi 3y agoYou'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, where Brazil and the Portuguese in Africa have developed delightful versions of Portuguese -and an enormous and diverse culture. France and the French should be proud that their language and culture are being spread and transformed by the French speaking nations in Africa; I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?).
- csdvrx 3y agoI 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!
- thierrydamiba 3y agoWoah, 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!
- csdvrx 3y agoIf you have some current hits you can recommend, I'd love to get recommendations from another Magic System fan! In return I can suggest artists like Slava Marlow, or places like zaycev.net to get a nice curated experience without involving youtube: just click on the play button at the bottom of the screen: currently I'm listening to Subbota (Дым бомбим)
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago> 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 language that crosses countries boundaries. There are major differences within France as well. In everyday discussions, I do not see any special influence from Africa on our language. The influence of instant messaging is orders of magnitude larger and I have to decipher phrases such as "vzy cr". Or monstrosities such as "sa va koi" which are shaping our language deep down because it is how many young people express themselves. French is complicated and mostly masochist (we are the champions of how to write something easy most difficultly, and crank weirdness of pronunciation to 100). It is not helping that we are rigid in how the language evolves (and sometimes straight ridiculous). But the changes to French French come from inside France, the ones from Mali French - from within Mali etc.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoWait until they learn about chocolatines.
- BrandoElFollito 3y agoPlease 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-abattre-de-46-balles-dans-le-corps-pour-avoir-demande-un-pain-au-chocolat/ https://www.legorafi.fr/2013/03/20/toulouse-il-se-fait-abatt...)
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoTo non french readers: le gorafi is the french equivalent of the onion :)
- 3y ago
- pyrale 3y ago> 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.
- switch007 3y agoI didn’t know that lol. That’s hilarious
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- h1fra 3y agoIt'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.
- marginallen 3y ago[dead]
- nequo 3y agoIn reverse? Do you mind sharing a couple examples? I’m not a French speaker and this sounds intriguing to me.
- playingalong 3y agoThey likely meant non-standard word order in a sentence. Not reading the words backwards.
- seszett 3y agoNo, it's speaking the word backwards, syllable-wise. L'envers becomes verlan, femme becomes meuf, fête teuf, louche is chelou and merci is cimer, for the most common, everyday words. It can even go further, with Arabe becoming Beur which itself gets verlanised into Rebeu. Or meuf, femeu.
- neonate 3y agohttps://archive.ph/nItnV https://archive.ph/nItnV
- franz68 3y ago[flagged]
- prospector1065 3y agoDo you have something else you want to say? Because it sounds like you're just trying to allude to racism
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paganel 3y ago[flagged]
- bsaul 3y agono 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)
- yodsanklai 3y ago> they did write a text saying that races officially don't exist Not correct, they updated the constitution to remove the word race. https://www.france24.com/en/20180628-race-out-gender-equality-france-updates-constitution https://www.france24.com/en/20180628-race-out-gender-equalit...
- asylteltine 3y agoPeople probably don’t understand this is a joke
- OptionX 3y agoI think any negative connotation there is subjective.
- spoonjim 3y ago[flagged]
- greatgib 3y ago[flagged]
- Daishiman 3y agoI 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.
- arcticbull 3y agoFrench 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 collectivity. But I digress.
- Daishiman 3y agoThe political impacts of the European powers' creation of borders and their intervention in places like Haiti remain to this day, lest you think people should just "let it go".
- arcticbull 3y agoNobody'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.
- Daishiman 3y agoAnd 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.
- mhkane 3y ago[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-langue-dictionnaire-larousse-fierte-ivoiriens-boucantier-enjailler https://www.france24.com/fr/20190601cote-ivoire-nouchi-argot...
- fauxreb 3y agoExactly, I learned French working in Cote d'Ivoire/Mali and from listening to west African music like Magic System etc. The Parisians cannot stand my (now terrible) French and it's great fun to tease them with it.
- baby 3y agoYou can’t write that without dropping some youtube links
- mhkane 3y agoFair enough, here are a few links: - Les Parents Du Campus: Gboglo Koffi (1993): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOOo7GmMT0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOOo7GmMT0U - Espoir 2000: Abidjan Farot (2006) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVpabquZFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVpabquZFA - Molare: le boucan (2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4bDNll6L0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4bDNll6L0g Boucantier is one of the words that was introduced in the Larousse dictionary in 2019 One of the key artists of the movement passed away in 2019 and I also wrote about the significance of these songs from an "urban youth" perspective: https://medium.com/mitafricans/farewell-to-dj-arafat-reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-chinese-9b47e9e8ae0b https://medium.com/mitafricans/farewell-to-dj-arafat-reflect...
- foooobaba 3y agoRIP DJ Arafat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Arafat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Arafat
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- logtempo 3y agoit's certainly interesting. Imo music, and especially the rap by its generally large young audience and creativity is and have been a huge "influencer" of French. I think the article fail a little bit to put in perspective other influences, and even more when the title say "Africans" when it focus on west and central Africa only. Africa is a continent that don't talk only French, North Africa is part of Africa too, and arabic countries do have an influence too. So, no more bad title please. Also, it's interesting to think that initially, "True" French was imposed by the state, and by law, in France, that led to the end of local dialects. I just hope that it will not happen in reverse in some africans countries, as pointed out by the article...People should remain free of speech, in whatever languages they want to use.
- ic_fly2 3y agoFrance has strong support for French (language) music. The end result is that a lot of it is pretty decent. (Sure there is complete trash, they don’t have better tastes than others) Some rappers write books that win literature prizes. Plenty of French language hip hop and rap has deep lyrics that go way beyond what most English language stuff achieves.
- deputy 3y ago[deleted]
- DeathArrow 3y agoI thought France has a law against using foreign words.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hnbad 3y agoI 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 even after some of them formally gained independence. Nobody would write an article about how Mexicans are "changing Spanish" or Brazilians are "changing Portuguese" let alone about how South Africans are "changing Dutch" (it's called Afrikaans and considered a distinct language just like Belgian Flemish). Some "spillback" via migration from the former colonies is hardly worth writing about.
- przmk 3y agoFlemish is definitely not a separate language and nobody considers it so, even in Belgium.
- hnbad 3y agoI see you are not a linguist. As the saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army.
- ekabod 3y agoEvery time France wants to organize something with african countries, the world colonialism is thrown somewhere in the discussion. French colonialism died 50 years ago. Time to move on. All countries in the world can participate in "Francophonie" initiatives or meetings. There are 88 countries who participate in it. It is just a club to promote french language.
- n0n0n4t0r 3y agoHello, I'm a french (non Parisian) reader, and was very surprised by the comments I read. More precisely, the near 100% percent agreement on "french are despising non native speakers, especially the Parisians". I really don't feel it this way and am so surprised. I don't have more to add since I really never thought about this. Speaking of English: I work in an international company since one year and am I the process of becoming fluent: native speakers are the hardest to understand for me. The easiest being the french, but surprisingly, a strong Italian or Moroccan accent isn't stopping me at all. I think because they pronounce more of the words while native speakers use more contracted form where they don't even pronounce part of some words. The pace isn't a problem, it's really the absence of part of the phrase that is hard for me. 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.
- nicbou 3y agoI'm not surprised. I'm from Quebec. I am more comfortable speaking English with anyone than I am speaking French around French people. They just can't get over the accent, like I'm some sort of curiosity at the zoo. There are so many YouTube videos of French people mocking us. It's not curiosity but a distinctly French superiority complex. My friends who learned French had similar struggles in France versus elsewhere.
- carlmr 3y agoQuebec French is very different though. It's like Swiss German and German, the Swiss understand the Germans, but not the other way around. It's not just the accent, it's the choice of words, the enunciation, everything.
- Bayart 3y agoHardly. Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages, despite what the name would lead you to think. Quebec French is at most a dialect of French. There's as much different as there is between say RP English and Scottish English.
- smallpipe 3y agoWhere did they get that map from? Burundi is French speaking, and member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie [1], and, just like DRC, used to be a colony of Belgium [1] https://www.francophonie.org/88-etats-et-gouvernements-125 https://www.francophonie.org/88-etats-et-gouvernements-125
- tarkin2 3y agoIncluding the non-French speaking Africans? Can we be more specific when talking about various peoples from the largest land mass on earth?
- aldousd666 3y agoI'm surprised that we got the whole way through all these comments and nobody mentioned "L'Acadamie Francais" and the French laws enforcing proper use of the language, requiring a certain percentage of broadcast media to be in acadamie-sanctioned French. In my opinion, this is the cause of the international friction with other speakers. On the other hand, I've been to Paris and as long as I open with French and ask questions to the best of my ability, parisians have been very nice about adapting to my lack of ability.
- aaptel 3y agoSo much misinformation on the article and in the comments... 1) The academy doesn't make laws, they just make recommendations that anyone is free to follow or ignore. 2) there are laws regarding the amount of french-spoken media being broadcasted but nothing is said about which word is accepted or not you can use as much foreign slang as you want. 3) the academy does not make an official dictionary. There is no official dictionary. There are multiple private entities editing dictionaries. These companies have their own authority on what makes it in the dictionary. 3) the academy suggest new words when none exist in French to avoid using too many English ones. Again it's perfectly fine to ignore them if you don't like them. Some works (eg logiciel for software) some don't (eg courriel for email). Other french speaking nations have their own academy and that's also fine. There are no academy wars lol. I'm also surprised at the reactions regarding Quebecers. Most french people are delighted to hear that accent. It's very rare to hear it in France. We are mostly used to accents from north and sub-saharian African regions, or bordering neighbors. When I fist heard it I couldn't help but say I loved their accent. In a genuine, wholesome way... It is sad that it's often taken the wrong way.