Meridional French
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Meridional French (French: Français méridional) is a regional variant of the French language. It is strongly influenced by Occitan and so widely spoken in Occitania. It is also referred to as Francitan.
Speakers of Meridional French can be found in all generations, although the accent is more pronounced among the elderly, who often speak Occitan as their first language.
[edit] Characteristics of the dialect
- The vowels are denasalised, so pain (/pɛ̃/, bread) sounds like ([pɛn]). However, words like brun (brown) are pronounced as standard.
- There is a frequent switching between open vowels and close vowels, giving the dialect a "sing-song" sound. For instance, French grosse (fat) /gʀos/ is rendered as [gxɔs] and petite (small) /p(ə)tit/ is pronounced [pətitə] south of the Loire River.
[edit] Lexicon
The dialect has some vocabulary peculiar to it, such as péguer (Occitan pegar), "to be sticky" (standard French poisser), chocolatine, "pain au chocolat" or flute (a bigger baguette, called pain parisien (parisian bread) in Paris).
Dégun (nobody), from Occitan degun [de'gyn], is often used in southern France, instead of personne; as in "Il y a dégun ici" (there's nobody here) or "je crains dégun" (I fear no one).
Some phrases can mean something different from what they would usually mean in French. For example, s'il faut, literally meaning "if it is necessary", actually means "maybe" (which would be rendered in standard French as peut-être). This is a direct translation of Occitan se cal.
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