Re: Old french Was: cases

En réponse à Florian Rivoal <florian@...>:

> No no no. I was not talking about french for paris. But from the one
> from "evil" places near paris. The one "racailles" speaks in the
> "cites", the one from "93". This one where "verlant" is almost
> compulsory, and where loans from algerian/marocan are many. This one,
> having never entered schools, is probably not so close. And its speakers
> are quite unlikely to be able to read descartes. I don't know how
> different is the grammar, but i guess it is. As for vocabulary, I think
> it is so different that it gets impossible to understand for someone not
> accustomed.
>
About this one you are quite right, although the change in grammar is not that
important as you think. Once you rip off all the changes in pronunciation and
replace the loans and verlan words with pure French ones, you realise that the
grammar has not changed that much. The most important thing to be noted about
it, the topic-comment structure of such a language, is in fact identical to
what we have in Spoken French today (and this structure, despite what texts may
make you think, was already in place just after the Revolution. It was just not
yet the spoken standard).

Christophe.

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