I wasn't quite sure where to put La Page de La Lange Wallonne this comment - I didn't really think it merited its own thread.  While looking for stuff to offer to the French group I revisited .  Wallon is a language in its own right but some of its sounds reminded me of the northern French sounds referenced when MM mentioned the film Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis a while back.

An extract from L----- P------ W---- website about t sound in Wallon:-

"

• Le latin [k+a] ou [g+e,i,u a] a donné des phonèmes affriqués notés tch (comme dans tchèque) et dj (comme dans jazz): vatche (vache), djambe (jambe)."
  

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I wasn't quite sure where to maLa Page de La Lange Wallonne this comment - I didn't really think it merited its own thread.  While looking for stuff to offer to the French group I revisited .  Wallon is a language in its own right but some of its sounds reminded me of the northern French sounds referenced when MM mentioned the film Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis a while back.

An extract from L----- P------ W---- website about t sound in Wallon:-

"

• Le latin [k+a] ou [g+e,i,u a] a donné des phonèmes affriqués notés tch (comme dans tchèque) et dj (comme dans jazz): vatche (vache), djambe (jambe)."
  

LiR, just had some minutes ago a chat with a lady, who studied in childhood Dutch near Brussels and then excellent (in my opinion ) French in Brussels. And we came coincidentally to the prononciation of the "j" from Jean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijCSnG-NSrc 
and I asked her about the "g" from "Gerard"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijCSnG-NSrc
In our East and West Flemish dialects we pronounce it the French way
and she agreed that in French too there was a difference between the pronunciation of the "j" and the "g" and as I hear it she pronounced it as I, with the "j" a bit as the "z", but the "j" a bit more as "z-ch?" (ch as in chez) and the "g" a bit as in "z-z-u" (with the "u" as in the English: dutch)

But in the French links I hear nearly no difference and I hear now for the first time in my life that they in French pronounce the end "d" in "Gerard". We both, the lady and I, pronounce it "Z-u-rar" as in "Édouard"
https://fr.forvo.com/word/%C3%A9douard/
And see now is it "ar" as we both, the lady and I, pronounce it...

All to say, LiR how difficult it is to pronounce dialects...

PS: Which Walloon dialect, LiR?



Kind regards, Paul.

Deleted - duplicate comment.

Looking at my comment of yesterday it reads clumsily.  The cursor jumped but I should have noticed at the preview stage.  This is the webpage I was referring to (which has an English and Dutch version and even a Wallon version).  I think the author of the page was talking about Wallon in general terms and not any specific dialect.  http://users.skynet.be/lorint/wallang/wal-fra.html.

I’ve been reading MM’s thorough comment on the Jean Bart thread.   I remembered the name Franche-Comté from reading M Druon’s The Accursed Kings.  The author mentioned that at that time there were two Burgundies the duchy and the county.  A French person informed me that the county of Burgundy was the Franche-Comté. I wonder how independent the Franche-Comté was at the time when The Accursed Kings was set (during the end of Philippe le Bel’s reign and the reigns of his three sons). From reading M Druon’s novels I thought that Franche-Comté was at least under the suzerainty of France – of course feudalism and vassal states were complicated. I do recall that when we “did” the French Revolution at school, my fellow pupils and I learned  that serfdom still existed in some parts of eastern France until 1789 and that Franche-Comté was an area where it survived until then.

Edit: must be my 2nd Covid-jab making me sleepy/forgetful.  I honestly didn't make the connection that Franche-Comté is where the famous cheese is from though it's pretty obvious............

Too late to reply LiR, see you tomorrow. Kind regards, Paul.

No worries, Paul. The French gentleman who sometimes joins the U3A French conversation group I belong to is from Belfort (that town is twinned with my hometown) so next time he is in the Zoom meeting I could ask him about the linguistic history of the area and how independent the area is, as Belfort territoire came under the Franche-Comté de la Bourgogne. I could get information 'from the horse's mouth' as it were.

LiR, as many times one get a lot of information from wiki...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Burgundy
And the county seems to have been sometimes in personal union with the Duchy of Burgundy.
But the duchy of Burgundy was still  a vassal of the king of France, while sometimes the County of Burgund was under the Habsburgs, if i understand it well.

A fascinating story is the one of the last duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold, who wanted to unite the Ducal Low Countries with his possesions in the South and failed in that at his death in Nancy.
What if he had succeeded? Perhaps not possible while France never would have allowed that encirclement, as indeed Louis XI in reality conspirated in the background...



Kind regards, Paul.