# Non-English-native speakers, tell me about the accents of your native tongue **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 1, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422 "2016-08-01T00:00:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/21 "2016-08-06T10:02:36Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Since there are several Francophone folks in this thread from different places … > > How easy is it to make out the Cajun French sung in [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDcYDqxCx4w)? Is this song intelligible to French speakers from around Paris, from other parts of France, from Belgium, from Quebec? > > [Here’s a lyrics cheatsheet](http://www.cajunlyrics.com/?lyrics=8) featuring several non-standard Cajun French spellings (e.g. “Sa” for “Ça”). First observation: it’s much closer to “European” French to my ears than Québecois in terms of sounds and prosody. Yet, I can’t say that I understood more than, say, 50% of what he was singing on first listening without your cheatsheet. It’s funny because it definitely sounds like French but one line out of two had me going: “What was that?”. To be fair, I must point out that I sometimes have a similar reaction with singers from Marseille. I’ve found this other example of Cajun French which I find pretty intelligible: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRWPxRUUi4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRWPxRUUi4) This, however, (Canadian French) is _mostly_ intelligible but very heavily accented and it sometimes veers into complete gibberish to me: [http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4g2q7rkmI](https://boards.straightdope.com/ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4g2q7rkmI) ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/22 "2016-08-06T10:37:39Z")
Your last (Canadian) link doesn’t work. ETA: OK. Here it is. [TAG: ACCENT QUÉBÉCOIS - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4g2q7rkmI) ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/23 "2016-08-06T10:45:08Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Your last (Canadian) link doesn’t work. > > ETA: OK. Here it is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4g2q7rkmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4g2q7rkmI) And by golly, she’s adorable! ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/24 "2016-08-07T01:47:40Z")
I speak Spanish with a South Texas dialect. To my ear the main differences are between Mexican / South Texas Spanish and South American Spanish. I haven’t spoken with people from Spain, so I can’t comment on those accents. One difference is the ll sound. In South Texas Spanish it sounds like the English consonant y, but in South American Spanish it sounds more like the English j. Another difference is that the letter t in South American Spanish has more of a th sound than in South Texas Spanish (at least as I hear them). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/25 "2016-08-07T03:02:37Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Belgian, Swiss and Quebecois accents are quite distinctive, but the latter is the most obvious. Not all the Belgians or Swiss have a clear Belgian/Swiss accent. All Quebecois I have heard do, but there are large variations in how heavy this accent is. In some cases, it borders the unintelligible for me There’s a couple of reasons why the French-Canadian accent is an outlier. One reason is that much of the emigration from France to New France came from Normandy and Bretagne, in the 17th century. So you have a linguistic sample that was already a regionalism, rather than from a major centre like Paris. Second, contact with France largely stopped with the Conquest in 1760. There wasn’t the cross-pollination and modernisation that occurred between francophones in France, Belgium and Switzerland. So a language group that was already an outlier had time to develop in isolation from other francophones. There’s also more than one French-Canadian accent and vocabulary. The two major groups are Québécois and Acadien, but there are also smaller groups in Ontario and the west. • I’ve heard francophones in the West griping about the central Canadians in Quebec trying to impose the wrong French word for “gopher” on the West. • Québécois think the Acadiens are archaic (with some justification; my Acadien French teacher mentioned that older Acadiens still said “Je ne suis point” instead of “pas”). • Acadiens think that the Québécois are snooty. • Residents of Ville de Québec look down on the joual of Montréal. I agree about the comment about nasality. The Quebec accent is very nasal, particularly Ville de Québec. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had in asking for some “timbres” in a freaking Post Office once in Ville de Québec. I kept asking, getting blank looks, making it more and more nasal each time, until I was asking for “taaambres”. Light suddenly dawned on the posties who said “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” What did you think I was asking for in a post office?!? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422/26 "2016-08-07T03:15:43Z")
And then of course there’s the Shawinigan accent, which both Ville de Québec and Montréal look down on. Prime Minister Chrétien was from Shawinigan and spoke perfectly fluent but heavily accented English. That, combined with his Shawinigan accent in French, led to the unfair slur that he spoke neither of Canada’s two official languages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-english-native-speakers-tell-me-about-the-accents-of-your-native-tongue/761422.md?page=1)