kerouac

Nobody in Belgium or Lorraine would ever say Bruk-sell.

Pvoyageuse

" he is from Orelans which along with the Tourraine i believe is held often as having the purest French".

This is another legend which goes back to the time when the French kings spent a lot of time in the Loire Valley. I doubt their spoke much to the folks toiling their fields...
There is no "purest" or "purer" French, there is proper French and bad French - grammatically wise.
I was amazed in the Loire Valley at the complete disappearance of the subjunctive form. People would say "il faut que je vais" instead of "il faut que j'aille". So much for pure French..

As a very general rule the further South you go, the more the final letters are pronounced.
In Savoie it is Chamoni and not ChamoniX, Avoria and not AvoriaZ.

AnthonyGA

In most languages, including French, there are no hard and fast rules for proper names. Many influences can change the pronunciation of names over time, greatly deforming them with respect to the usual rules of pronunciation. The only sure way to know how to pronounce a place name is to look it up.

There are even people who pronounce the names of their own cities incorrectly. Bruxelles ("bru-sehl," not "bruk-sehl") and Auxerre ("oh-sehr," not "oaks-air") are often mispronounced by their inhabitants.

Michael

<i>In the 14-18 war the majority of French soldiers didn't know which country they were fighting for, identifying with their region above France, which many didn't know they were part of.</i>

I doubt it since there was a conscious effort to nationalize the population. See <u>From Peasants into Frenchmen</u> by Eugen Weber.

Michael

I forgot to add, "since 1871."

Michael

Pronunciation changes even in recent times. I grew up hearing and believing that the final "s" of Samoens was pronounced, and knew that as far as I can remember. I have been told that the local residents no longer pronounce the "s" because it is a sign of provinciality.

PalenQ

he is from Orelans which along with the Tourraine i believe is held often as having the purest French".

This is another legend>

Well i do not know - just parroting what not only they say there but what i have read in scholarly sources - that the Tourraine is held up as the 'best' French - now i agree that monniker is a bunch of BS

but the rationale was that for quite a while the King of France only controlled a tiny area between Tours and Orleans - thus this was a bastion of the French language - like J R said
<In 1800 less than 2% of the population of France spoke French>

and much of this 2% must have been in the Loire Valley - the only part of France i understand that has always been 'French' and not dominated for foreigners - the English not withstanding since they were sent packing by John of Arc.

There is a nursery rhyme popular in the Loire and perhaps all of France that goes something like this:

Orleans
Beaugency
et
Notre-Dame de Clery

the rhyme saying this was all the King of France had control over once.

So i agree it is foolish to say 'proper' French but perhaps most 'classical French'?

anyone i cannot defend anything just saying what i have heard from locals - and yes this could be an urban (or rural) legend but also from seemingly scholarly sources (a French prof in college was one).

PalenQ

Le Carillon de Vendôme est une comptine française dont le texte est le suivant :

Mes amis,
Que reste-t-il
À ce Dauphin si gentil ?
Orléans, Beaugency,
Notre-Dame de Cléry,
Vendôme, Vendôme !

Dauphin of course being the King of France at the time

kerouac

<b>Auxerre ("oh-sehr," not "oaks-air")</b>

I was desperately trying to think of a 3rd common example, of which I knew that several existed, but this is one of the ones that slipped my mind.

Michael

<i>but the rationale was that for quite a while the King of France only controlled a tiny area between Tours and Orleans - thus this was a bastion of the French language</i>

The French kingdom's limitation to a tiny area was only between 1415 (Battle of Azincourt) and 1429 (crowning of the French king in Reims); hardly quite a while. That's a weak rationale, considering that late Medieval French pronunciation was probably far removed from current French pronunciation.

Pvoyageuse

"Dauphin of course being the King of France at the time"

Not quite. The Dauphin (in this case the future Charles VII who was Duke of Touraine) was the heir to the throne. The King was his father Charles VI (who was mad and had just disowned him). He had left Paris for Bourges among rumors of illegitimacy and proclaimed himself Regent of the Kingdom.

PalenQ

Tours - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The inhabitants of Tours (Les Tourangeaux) are renowned for speaking the "purest" form of French in the entire country. The pronunciation of Touraine is ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tours

Pvoy - response - is Wike just plain wrong and buying into some myth?

Michael

There is a difference between Tours and Touraine. One is an urban area, and thus may have a purer French than what may have been a rural accent, if not patois, in the countryside. The next question is: what is meant by purer? more correct grammatically, or a clearer pronunciation, or both?

kerouac

Here is a site to feed the debate: http://accentsdefrance.free.fr/

PalenQ

The next question is: what is meant by purer? more correct grammatically, or a clearer pronunciation, or both>

purer i think means, in this context, unadulterated - uncontaminated since this is about the only region in France that was always 'French'

kerouac

I always think of 'pure' as being the accentless speech of television journalists. Some of the journalists are from places like Réunion or New Caledonia, so you don't really have to look for a historical region to find people without weird accents.