You could say the same about Americans and our accents. There's only ever cockney and 'posh'. Oh, and Scottish. And Russell Crowe's bellowing instead of singing I'd have gotten by with the French accents. Cantona - working class, Ginola - posh
In which case you've been totally fooled by their personae. They were born and lived about 70 miles from each other and have very similar accents. In fact Ginola has a more hillbilly accent if you know French, he was from Gassin 'out in the sticks' and brought up on a farm by immigrants from North Africa ... ... you can tell if you're French or have spent time living down there, I lived in St Tropez, near Gassin, so can pick it up easily. Cantona has a more 'city accent' although he doesn't try to hide his background like Ginola. You'd have probably allowed Arnie to use his normal voice in the Terminator https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bE0dcpBA6YI?feature=share
I always find these things interesting. I used to work with a French lad and he would ask questions about different parts of the UK and what they're like, what are the stereotypes about them, as he had only ever lived in the south (I was down there at the time). Due to conversation I ended up enquiring the same about France. From what I could gather, he drew parallels between the North East of England, the North of France (he was from Amiens) and East Germany.
This kind of thing intrigues me tbh. I went to work in the south of France with very limited French so had to learn quick. As I was near Nice I learned there and unknowingly picked up a few Italian phrases and words that they use ... ... Nice was Italian until around 1860 iirc. What I hadn't realised is that I'd also picked up the local accent and was mocked the first time I went to Paris. The locals would repeat things I'd said, to each other, and laugh so I'd do the same with them. Mind you I still find it funny when I hear 'foreigners' here speaking with the local accent. We used to use the chippy, on the way from the Blue Bell to Roker, where there was a big Chinese fella ... ...'Alreet bonny lad, what yer haven?'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niçard_dialect Just looked that up as I'd never heard of it, though Nice is close to the border so seemed plausible. Saw this: Niçard is a subdialect of Provençal, itself a dialect of Occitan. Some Italian irredentists have claimed it as a Ligurian dialect, on false grounds. Anyway, north-south divide reminds me of this: please log in to view this image Team Butter all the way.
You're just trying to butter me up! If you're interested take a quick look at 'French languages' up until the 1900's, there were loads of dialects and quite a few totally different languages. During the Revolution less than half the population spoke French I think. I used to visit an old farmer, in the back country of Nice, who spoke Provençal, and would lapse into it when we were chatting ... I'd just nod. I don't think he needed me to respond tbh, just listen
Yeah I'm aware, Europeans languages were part of a dialectal continuum for the most part, other than the separate language families that would clash against each other (Romance, Germanic, Slavic etc), and even then you could sometimes find areas on borders which had a sort of contact language, especially for trade and business. Wasn't there a chunk of the French atlantic coast that belonged to England as well? Apparently some form of English persisted there for A good while afterwards due to the transplanting of Englishmen to work the land.
There was and, of course, Calais was English for quite a long time ... ... even before the booze cruises started I like anomalies whereby a little oasis is left behind from history such as Cajun French in Louisiana, sounds beautiful to me. When we were on our grand tour of the Med we spent some time in Syracuse, Sicily, and some of the locals have Greek as their first language, there are even shop signs in Greek. It was like being lost in time, fabulous.
Another thread going off on a very interesting, as usual, tangent . . . . why can't we just be bored stiff with election rubbish
Unbelievable Jeff if this happens... I posted the other day, Penny Mourdaunt, Grant Shapps and Robert Jenrick are all set to lose their seats, in what is being described as a huge relief for them all
The supposed 'senior Tories' have all but vanished to the point whereby Sunak has been reduced to asking Johnson to help. They're distancing themselves from the failures of those two, Truss, May, Cameron, etc. It's amazing how quickly they fight against each other then kiss and make up when there's a juicy position to be grabbed. What a shambles.
