Wesh everyone #linguistics #language #etymology #french #africa #france #languages #geography

[terragthegreat]

Very ironic given that we have records from Rome of people complaining about how the youth aren't speaking Latin properly. The language that was developing would become known as Vulgar Latin and later devlop into French.

[rico]

Creating new French as a middle finger to France. I honestly think that's the most French thing they could've done.

[limlimainoue]

As a french person, seeing the Académie Française melt down in a panic every time a new slang gains popularity is delightful

[Teramin]

Fun fact about the French academy, they call their council members “immortals” which has to be the most pretentious title for a bunch of language majors ever.

[alexjeffrey]

It's so interesting how decolonisation happens not just in the context of politics and economics but also linguistics and culture.

[jeancarotte]

hey there, French guy here.
The Académie Française is widely known to be a bunch ol old men completely disconnected from the evolution of our language and less and less credible in their "rulings". They are known to elevate only the parisian way of speaking french, smoothing out every regional accent (and there's a lot of them, mostly divided north to south).
Also, i day to day use a lot more words derived from english than from any african dialect.
And finally, the argument that french is being overtaken by african influence is strongly repeated by the far-right (great replacement theory) without enough basis in fact. it's important to keep that in mind when researching this.

[therealelement]

so they just decided "fuck the french language we're making a new one"

[giovannirafael]

Academies can never really control the language. The speakers just do what they want.

[texenna]

The fact that people use “wesh” is funny as an Algerian

[vschmerz]

I’d say another way of looking at it is that African French is gradually splitting off from European French and turning into its own language. It’s really fascinating to see it happen in real time.

[Habib-ovnv]

The Académie never could control the French language in its whole history (and that's a good thing). I don't know why they exist

[namesbinge]

I mean, that's how languages evolve. English doesn't sound like what we speak of today. No hard feelings tbh.

[kohpyPasta]

hi québécois here!

common french slang from france is well known for using just straight up english words instead of inventing or reusing french ones

like they'll use the english word "nugget" to describe chicken nuggets while in québec we use "croquette" which is an actual french word, so the french don’t actually speak académie french in day to day life

[harbingerofsarcasm]

Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own atrocities

[BENKYism]

Saying that "French is no longer the language of France" because of African influence on French rap and TikTok is like saying that Ebonics and rap slang have replaced the English language. French slang from France is used by other French-speaking countries and vise versa, that doesn't mean that French spoken in France isn't its own thing.

[Pete--]

Interesting thing about this, it's also happening in some universities. Most of the grad students and young professors in the French department where I went to school were African. For my French minor I had more African (from Benin, Senegal, Côte D'Ivoire) professors than French nationals.

[jameslegrand]

Hi everybody. French guy here who grew up in one of the worst areas of paris and has spent time multiple Christmas's with some of the richest families in Paris. So yeah, I know proper french and street french.

France has far more english words in it than anything African. At the very most, the second place would go to North African Arabic but most of those words stay in North African or African communities. Most french people don't much care about the Immortals (I shit you not, that's the actual name given to the french academy members.)

[joaovictorpessoaqueiroz]

This short is very cathartic as a Brazilian, because we are doing the same thing to Portugal 😅.

[Stien_the_Troller]

Loving how even the french speakers dislike the french lmao

[nathanfustec]

Heya,

So first, I hate the Académie as much as the next guy and I love the different versions of French that are evolving out of different African countries.

What is inaccurate in this video is thinking that the entirety of Metropolitan French Slang comes from Africanisms. One cannot dismiss the influence of English (which is everywhere), other neighbouring and so called "regional" languages and specific subcultures, that is just too simple.

Also, the Académie has no hold on anything apart from TV Hosts and right-wing newspapers like Le Figaro. Even the vast majority of respected dictionaries don't care.

Finally, the opening statement is a bit misleading too. It never was solely the language of France. It was also the language of Wallonia and parts of Switzerland and through other bits of colonising it is also the language of Quebec and other places . No serious linguist would deny that. It's kind of like saying: English is no longer the language of England. It is still, it just so happens that it is also the language of a myriad of other places.