Re: Taggart. No, sadly they're not.

The French equivalent of Glasgow is probably Marseille: far away, bit of a bad reputation, 'incomprehensible' and somewhat comic accent. Not the same climate, though.

There are probably fewer regional accents on French tv than there are French accents on British tv. Accents are remnants of dialects, which are anathema to the centralising, nationalising mission of the republic. There are a couple of comedians from Marseille who have made a career out of their comedy accent and observations of regional stereotypes.

Huggy Bear was dubbed by a white man. I've never got over that.

The lack of regional accents is surely because most French TV is written in Français soutenu - the semi-official form of the language, which is supposed to be accessible to all, because of the imperative to make French the national language. Which when you listen to the Français familier of most fo France, or the langue d'Oc regions is very different - different vocab, different grammar, different accent.
I think the Marseillais sound a bit Devon-like. But Norman patois, Breton, the Italian-influenced stuff in the south - all can be a shock.
And don't even think about Canadian French.

I need subtitles for Québecois. It's lovely to listen to, though.

There's not supposed to be such thing in France as a middle-class regional accent or dialect — the equivalent of Huw Edwards' Welsh or Richard Madeley's Mancunian. The middle classes are supposed to be able to speak proper 'RP' French if they expect to advance. Ditto for second-generation immigrants. However, provincial bourgeoisies often retain a mild regional accent, and it's actually an advantage to do so in local politics, where voters are hostile to anything Parisian.

Working-class accents are not valorised in the media. Where Jamie Oliver's or Ant and Dec's accent is treated as a likeable (or, to some, annoying) part of their 'personality', in France they would struggle to be taken seriously. Whereas Eric Cantona was portrayed in Britain as an intense, hyper-Gallic footballer-philosopher, in France he's ridiculed because he uses long words with the accent of a Marseillais.

Possibly the equivalent of the way Schwarzenegger sounds like a hard and scary man to Anglophones, but like some breed of culchie bumpkin to Germans, then?

Same with Hitler.
Harsh nationalistic rhetoric delivered by Adge Cutler.

I saw a D-Day documentary where a Québecois soldier recalled that he was looking forward to going to France as he wasn't very good at chatting up girls in English. Upon landing in Normandy he found French girls couldn't understand him either.

_________________
That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

I'd heard that about Cantona (from a Britisher) often wondered if it was true. Nice.


Yep, with his thick Austrian accent he sounds like the equivalent of a Wurzel to most Germans. He's even had to be told in no uncertain terms that he couldn't personally dub his Terminator fillums for the German market.

"I be luckin' fer Connah, Zarah Connah!"

_________________
Si vas a plagiar noticias, no uses un sitio de noticias falsas como fuente.


Last edited by Carlos The Badger on Thu Feb 31, 2021 18:60 am, edited 666 times in total.

Like Dave Prowse wanting to voice Darth Vader.

Oy foynd yer lack'er'faith distuurbin.

Darth Gummidge? It should have been so.

_________________
Si vas a plagiar noticias, no uses un sitio de noticias falsas como fuente.


Last edited by Carlos The Badger on Thu Feb 31, 2021 18:60 am, edited 666 times in total.

Hey! Leave us culchie's alone you white tracksuit wearing Buckfast drinking bum fluff moustache spidey gobshite!



I'm told that one of the easiest accents to hear speaking French are those in the Romande of French speaking Switzerland, supposedly because they speak slower than most other native French speakers but at the same time get ridiculed in France because of it?

_________________
"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

Is a Parisien accent really loathed in other areas of France? My dad spent his school days in Paris and when he returns to France to visit his school friend, who now lives near Marseille, he says they still get some hostility in restuarants and the like (although my dad's accent must have a British twang by now). I find that strange these days.

_________________
MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

(is actually a culchie, doing missionary work in Belfast)

*** sheepish ***

_________________
"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

I listened to an interesting piece on R4 the other week, about the nascent culture in the Lille/Nord region, and how a number of creative types are flexing their metaphorical muscles. Apparently, the region's culture has always been intermingled with that of Belgium (particularly Flanders), lading to a distinctive accent (one person interviewed compared it to Geordie in its use of unique words and its own grammatical structures) and cultural output - apparently proximity to the border means a lot of younger people go hardcore clubbing in Belgium and the Netherlands of a weekend and bring back ideas. One guy said that the people of the Nord had had to deal with stereotypes that may seem familiar to us in the UK - mining towns, unsophisticated, probably keep coal in the bath etc.

Back to 'Allo 'Allo, seem to remember reading (years ago) that it was in fact quite popular across Europe, because it took the piss out of everyone equally (down to the stereotype Americans that turned up in the last episode). May be mistaken though. Then again, it's odd how humour travels. I also recall reading that Yes, Minister was a massive hit in India and Pakistan, because the quite dense and wordy scripts translated very easily into Urdu/Hindi, and they instantly recognised the humour inherent in labyrinthine bureaucracies that were resistant to change.

There was an American version of Dad's Army called 'Rear Guard'. It wasn't a hit. Perhaps one of the reasons was that while the DA characters very rarely met the enemy, they were a constant presence in the background, as much a factor as was the hardship of wartime life (which again was used mainly as a joke generator). Yes, old men doing strenuous exercise is funny, but it's contextualised by the sobering reality that if there had been an invasion, these guys would have been on the front line. They were doing their best, when everything, including their ages and health, was against them. Thankfully there never was an invasion. On the other hand in the US version, invasion was never even the remotest of possibilities.

For me the interesting thing about DA was the class war aspect - in particular the gentleman ranker vs the self-made middle class officer. It also touched on other, more serious matters (Godfrey's CO status, Mainwaring's role in the 1919 army of occupation vs the men who had actually been in the trenches, Fraser's past as a sailor - seen as an easy billet compared to those who were ex-army and so on) and helped make it absolutely fascinating. On the other hand, all I remember of IAHHM was a series of ropey poofter and paki jokes, to put it bluntly.

_________________
Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.