Discover The Weirdest Accents Of France

To the north, it was the Celtic invasions that greatly influenced our language. It is because of – or thanks to – these various invasions that one finds in France several regional languages ​​of which the most known are Breton, Basque, Corsica and Alsatian. However, these regional languages ​​are not widely spoken or even taught. Only Corsica and Basque seem to persist, especially in small villages. Although these languages ​​are no longer spoken, each region retains a distinct accent, often with its own words.

Among the more famous accents are:

The occitanismes

The Southern accent or accent ” of noon”
The inhabitants of the Southwest, marked by the influence of occitan, have a strong accent, especially in the region of Toulouse. For example, they pronounce the “s” at the end of the word “moins”. To recognize the accent and train yourself to imitate the Southern accent, watch the the movie “the glory of my father” Marcel pagnol.

The Corsican accent

The French spoken in Corsica approaches, by this point, standard French and differs from other regional uses of French spoken in the South. It sounds a lot like Sicilian.

The Savoyard accent

Fortunately, the Savoyards invented the raclette because their accent is painful. The secret of the Savoyard accent? Everything comes from the nose with a slight hint of Swiss accent. It is lucky that the Savoyards are not very talkative.

The accents of the Great East

Geographically, the region of the Great East is border with territories where we speak a variety of Germanic languages. It is therefore not surprising that these languages ​​have left their mark on the French spoken in the East.

The Northern accent

In the North, accents are very strong and some people speak Ch’timi. These merge several dialects of the north: Norman, Picardy, Walloon, Champagne, Lorraine Roman, Burgundy … All the Nordists do not necessarily have this accent and this one varies according to the regions and the generations.

The Lorraine accent

It is similar to German but with different intonations. We say “wi” instead of “Oui” (yes) and the “t” of vingt (20) is pronounced …

The Burgundian accent

The Burgundians have a way of saying the R they roll in a funny way, when they do not say them squarely when they are placed in front of another consonant (eg Alors being pronounced as Alo). As for the T’s, they tend to sound like a poorly controlled sneeze, especially when they are followed by an I that obviously annoys everyone.

Any other accents?

The Parisian accent

The Parisian accent has long been chosen as a model. But the French of the South find that Parisians have a sharp accent! It is also called the “Parisian Titi”.

The Picard accent

If you have never heard this accent, know that it is quite original in the pronunciation of “che”. To put it simply, the “che” is pronounced “ke”. Conversely, where we should not say “che”, we do it anyway. For the rest, imagine yourself talking as if you wanted to keep the words deep in your throat. It may seem strange the first time, but in reality, it is done quickly enough, especially after a few drinks.

The Berrichon accent

As for the berry accent (of Berry), it does not rely on any language or patois. It is rather a “talk” that some humorists have interpreted to evoke the deep France of the peasants with their plentiful “r” ‘s!

The Sartois accent

Made famous in the 90s by the comedy show Les Deschiens, the Sarthois accent has been designated the least sexy accent of France by a dating site. We really do not understand why.

The word “accent” means etymologically “for singing”, but most often, behind this word, there is the idea that one can recognize the origin in the broad sense of an individual thanks to his pronunciation: from what region, from which social class …

Thus, from one end to the other of France, even if all the French-speaking people understand each other, one sometimes has the impression that they do not speak the same language.