# Gingrich attack ad/Romney speaking French \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 13, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453 "2012-01-13T23:44:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/81 "2012-01-18T06:03:12Z")
I wouldn’t say his French is better than Harper’s, but it’s certainly better than that of your typical anglo Tory MP. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/82 "2012-01-18T15:42:45Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Your perception of the Louisiana “Frenglish” is interesting to me - I don’t associate it with “old” at all. There’s one place in particular where I felt this. It’s when Erin Stickney says “paroisse” for the first time (around 3:26). It sounds like “parwaisse”, which to me is how older or more rural people would talk. Also, at 1:12, this old lady in a teal coat (who looks like she could be a relative of mine, a great aunt or something) says “[…] j’ai v’nu icitte pour continuer […]” which reminds me somewhat of old-fashioned speech as well. For the most part, they do sound like anglophones speaking French. But unless I’m forgetting something, those who speak to the camera didn’t mix English into their French, so I wouldn’t call it “franglais”. (Well, okay, that same old lady says “la langage”, which is obviously influenced by English.) > [@](#): > > Listening to the Louisiana video, I was often reminded of Ontarian French. I often get the weird feeling that Frano-Ontarians speak French with an English accent and English with a French accent! I agree with you that Franco-Ontarians’ French often sounds like it’s being spoken with an English accent, or else sounds “rougher” (listen to Jacques Martin for example), but I didn’t really get this feeling here. I think it’s because some of them, Erin Stickney for example, really cross into second-language learner territory. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/83 "2012-01-18T17:03:02Z")
_parwaisse, v’nu icitte_… listening to those words again in the video I was reminded a bit of the Lac-St-Jean/Saguenay accent, là, là, là. _icitte_ is something I hear a lot from family in the rural Townships (Granby area). But that’s just focusing on those particular words, not really on the whole of their speech. I really don’t have a great ear for accents, though. I still think the Cajun French, even if these are FSL speakers (or mother-tongue speakers out of practice) sounds more fluid than the French of someone for whom it is clearly a second language, if that makes sense? The types of stresses and sounds an anglophone will use while learning the language seem different to me than the stresses and sounds of these speakers. Somehow I seem to be hearing a different quality to the language, but I can’t really define it. And my impression of Franco-Ontarian French is more from Bob Hartley than it is from Jacques Martin or Benoît Pouliot, though I still hear whateveritis in their voices that makes me think that whichever language they are speaking is their second one! ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/84 "2012-01-18T17:15:00Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Here’s the actual ad. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyFaWhygzjQ&feature=player\_embedded](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyFaWhygzjQ&feature=player_embedded) Damn, am I out of step with the American people. This could have easily passed for a Saturday Night Live parody for me. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/85 "2012-01-18T17:47:17Z")
When I think of a Cajun accent [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRXcpBIteEM&feature=related) is the kind of thing I imagine. How does that track in Quebecois? Of course I only speak french at a bad high school level and have only been to Louisiana once. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/86 "2012-01-18T17:53:52Z")
> [@justrob](#): > > When I think of a Cajun accent [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRXcpBIteEM&feature=related) is the kind of thing I imagine. How does that track in Quebecois? > > Of course I only speak french at a bad high school level and have only been to Louisiana once. It takes some getting used to (learning the cadence, mostly), but yes, it’s understandable. By the end of that clip I was having no trouble following him at all. There are some Québecois accents that I struggle with more! ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/87 "2012-01-18T18:36:43Z")
I struggled with part of that video. At some points I thought he was mumbling and missed part of his sentences. OTOH, he’s obviously a native French speaker, which isn’t something I can say for all the speakers in **mnemosyne** ’s video. As for his accent, I’m not sure I could place it as Cajun. I expected a Cajun accent to sound somewhat like an Acadian accent, but his didn’t peg my meter as especially Acadian. He sounded somewhat like an old, rural Quebecer. ETA: really, even on replay I can’t make out what he says before “si on en a besoin”. It sounds like “All right! Moi je suis \, je viens du \. \ si on en a besoin.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/88 "2012-01-18T20:30:15Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > It takes some getting used to (learning the cadence, mostly), but yes, it’s understandable. By the end of that clip I was having no trouble following him at all. There are some Québecois accents that I struggle with more! Ah, but which dialect of Cajun French? When we lived in Lafayette 30 years ago, my wife managed a group of local women. She had had a good bit of normal French in high school and college, and had a hard time understanding them. The ladies considered that people who lived in Abbeville, 20 miles down the road, spoke a totally different dialect. Cajun French was not a written language back then, and some USL professors were trying to put together the first dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/89 "2012-01-18T20:56:46Z")
I really don’t know how to answer that; the only dialects of Cajun French I really have heard are what I’ve heard online in the context of this discussion. But here’s the thing: it’s still _French_. There are some idioms and different pronunciations and cadences to get over, _but it’s still French_. It’s very much like how you might deal with someone from Edinburgh, Sydney or Dublin - you take a bit of time to get used to their accents, you mentally correct for the differences and you come to have no trouble understanding them. Some people, it will take only a few sentences, others, it will take a day or two. Some people are impossible to understand because they just don’t really speak clearly at all regardless of the language! But it’s still the same language. So far, based on what I’ve heard, there is nothing “special” about Cajun French that makes it something that a non-Cajun French speaker can’t understand. I’ve acknowledged that it probably helps more if you are a French speaker that also knows English, because of the obvious influences, but it’s still understandable. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/90 "2012-01-18T22:10:39Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > I often get the weird feeling that Frano-Ontarians speak French with an English accent and English with a French accent! Used to listen to a French radio station out of Toronto. No, I don’t speak French, but it made listening to the cadence without any context relaxing. Anyway, one night they were broadcasting a hockey game and one of the sportscasters sounded like [Doug McKenzie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsgVspgy184), but in French, so I know what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/91 "2012-01-18T22:39:52Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > I really don’t know how to answer that; the only dialects of Cajun French I really have heard are what I’ve heard online in the context of this discussion. > > But here’s the thing: it’s still _French_. There are some idioms and different pronunciations and cadences to get over, _but it’s still French_. > > It’s very much like how you might deal with someone from Edinburgh, Sydney or Dublin - you take a bit of time to get used to their accents, you mentally correct for the differences and you come to have no trouble understanding them. Some people, it will take only a few sentences, others, it will take a day or two. Some people are impossible to understand because they just don’t really speak clearly at all regardless of the language! > > But it’s still the same language. So far, based on what I’ve heard, there is nothing “special” about Cajun French that makes it something that a non-Cajun French speaker can’t understand. I’ve acknowledged that it probably helps more if you are a French speaker that also knows English, because of the obvious influences, but it’s still understandable. I’m certainly not disputing that it is French. However the drift over 200+ years of isolation was rather significant. In fact the dialects came from the fact that before oil came in the various towns were fairly isolated from each other. This is vanishing rapidly with better roads and TV and such. Back then the ladies spoke French to each other, and even the African American workers at the university spoke French to each other. I doubt many young people are doing that these days. As for understandability, when we watch the British series Rebus about a detective in Edinburgh, we sometimes felt we needed to turn on captioning. It was a long time ago, but I think I remember hearing stories of communication difficulties between French speakers from France and Cajun French speakers. Not to the point of total lack of communication, but just difficulties. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/92 "2012-01-18T23:43:47Z")
For the record, I neither intended nor expected my little wisecrack to trigger a linguistic argument. (It has been interesting, though.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/93 "2012-01-19T00:12:10Z")
It’s still French enough that speakers of whatever the Cajun language is won’t take kindly to the implication that anyone who speaks French is unAmerican. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453/94 "2012-01-20T02:15:20Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > (It has been interesting, though.) I agree. It’s been an extremely interesting sidetrack. Thank heavens for Dopers! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gingrich-attack-ad-romney-speaking-french-edited-title/609453.md?page=4)