"We speak loudly and it can be heard", why the "Marseille speak" is exported

• Linguists are currently observing a strong diffusion of the “Marseille dialect”.

• Useful, linked to culture in the broad sense, to the current attractiveness of the city, the dissemination of these words contributes to the influence of the region.

• Joint interview with two linguists, Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus from the University of Aix-Marseille, and Mathieu Avanzi, specialist in regional French at the University of Neuchâtel, in Switzerland.

Often imitated, never equaled.

The French spoken in Marseille has never been so popular in France it seems.

The city, described as currently highly attractive, also radiates through its vocabulary and its words spread.

Mathieu Avanzi is a linguist and specialist in regional French at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Rather focused on the quantitative method, he runs the blog françaisdenosregions.com and conducts studies by questionnaires on the distribution and use of regional words.

Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus is a linguist, lecturer at the University of Aix-Marseille, specialist in the Marseilles dialect, rather focused on the qualitative method.

He has just published

, with Michel Denisot.

Cross interview.

How do you explain that Marseille words are currently being distributed outside Marseille and Provence?

Mathieu Avanzi:

The French spoken in Marseille is French with a very strong identity, with a lot of words and expressions that are very characteristic of Marseille and very salient.

They have an identity function in Marseille.

It is also very visible from the outside – a bit like the French of Pas-de-Calais – but if I tell you the French spoken in Burgundy or in Cher, you don't really have any representation.

The situation with French, and like all languages, is that it is changing.

For that he needs new elements.

And this goes through young people and often through slang.

Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus:

It's the cultural powerhouse of the city, where a lot of things happen.

Marseille is eye-catching, for both good and bad reasons.

The spotlight is regularly trained on Marseille.

There is a cultural dynamism in the broad sense that makes Marseille talk a lot and you can hear it in France.

Here it is: Marseille speaks loudly and you can hear it.

Why do some words “come out” while others don't?

I'm thinking of cagole, which you can hear a lot compared to dégun, no less emblematic, but much less diffused.

MG-C:

It's often media noise that makes this or that word persist.

For cagole, it's a word that can name something that is universal.

Admittedly, the cagole is Marseille but it is international.

That is to say that this profile also exists elsewhere, so the word responds to a need that is not expressed elsewhere.

The balaclava fills a big void but it takes up space.

Conversely, there are words that enter the dictionary by changing the meaning.

Cacou, for example, in the dictionaries it designates a Marseille thug when it's not that at all, but rather the male equivalent of the cagole, a show-off.

MA:

Yes, there are words that render services.

The balaclava is ultimately more the character that was exported with the feminist revolution, and we had no word to name the colorful women.

While originally the balaclava is very pejorative, it is a woman of little virtue.

But since Canal+ made a documentary on it, the word has really been exported.

What are the distribution channels of these words?

MA:

Often there is business behind it.

Take Cagole, Balenciaga has made a collection of it.

Then there are the politicians.

Macron in 2017 arrived in Marseille saying "we fear dégun".

But this famous dégun, it has made it possible to popularize it a little – Macron is very good at manipulating crowds – but it is difficult to use and remains little used.

Likewise Adidas, then sponsor of OM, which in 2004 launched an advertising campaign with its slogan “we fear dégun”, without it really spreading.

So it's never just one thing that makes a word export.

There is also a context today that encourages regionalism, the diversity of accents, at the time everyone had to speak like a standard, à la Charles Pasqua.

MG-C:

Songs and rap are a formidable sounding board, Marseille rap has a monstrous distribution.

When Léa Salamé asks the question of the meaning of the word "my spoiled" to SCH, we see that he has trouble explaining because it's quite obvious but she doesn't quite understand the meaning.

So there, we can clearly see that it's Marseille rap that works and broadcasts.

Marseille rap takes everything behind it and OM follows.

OM attracts and generates speeches, digital communication, with OM the Marseillais are omnipresent on the networks and you can hear it.

That, plus reality TV which has spread expressions linked only to it, in particular with

, but which take less.

Fraté, it takes less because I think

do not convey Marseille culture for the people of Marseille, while rap does more.

There is no local identity connection to

or

.

Can we say that after the end of the 19th century which saw the crushing of regional languages, we are now witnessing a comeback?

MG-C:

It's different.

We have languages ​​that have almost disappeared from the social space.

Pagnol he wrote at the beginning of the 20th century in French from Marseilles, not in Provençal.

Where the Corsicans, the Basques and the Bretons claim their language, we do not claim Provençal or Occitan but above all this French from Marseille.

In fact, this language has been valued for a century.

Some might say: “Ah, we don't speak Marseille anymore.

“But on the contrary, more than ever there are Marseille words used on a daily basis.

There are films, music, series, but also brands, derivative products with Marseilles words, and it is sold in shops.

The Marseilles is selling.

There is Motchus who participates in that.

It is a whole appropriation of this speech that is assumed.

MA:

People have always been told: "That's not good French, you shouldn't say that, it's patois, dialect..." And that's in the process of to change.

There is a different look on the outskirts, a return to the countryside, to something less centralized.

There is a resurgence of regionalism, a search for authenticity and you can also see it in gastronomy.

Today everyone knows what a bouillabaisse is, panisses, but it also works in other regions, take aligot.

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