French language: phrase with region-dependent alternate meaning

[willowmeg]

Hi all

Comments

[brigittebod]

The Lyon dialect is dying out, but there are plenty of words/turns of phrases still in use. An older man like your character's father could very well reminesce about the good times he had when he was a "gone" and the times spent sitting with his friends in a "bouchon". Here's a French wiki page with a list of common words and expressions:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler_lyonnais

If you need help translating something, drop me a line.

The one that jumps out at me as useful to you is 'allée', which is an alley in regular French but a building's hall in lyonnais. If the conversation is sprinkled with other regionalisms (that are more recogniseably regionalisms), the father can point out the difference in meaning. (Maybe the smugglers want to meet there, or leave a message there?)

[willowmeg]

Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction! This could definitely be what I need. I'm going to spend a few days sifting through the list, to see what I can work with...and I may take you up on a little bit of help, later, just to make sure I'm not entirely misunderstanding anything. ;)

One question - a presumption I'm making in my story is that my MC's father and grandparents taught him and his brother French as children...but by the time they were born, the grandparents were living in Toulouse. It wouldn't have been likely that Dad would've taught them any of the lyonnais expressions, would it? (Not that it makes too much difference, I suppose, because MC of course didn't retain everything, and used a dictionary to support his translation in this instance.)

Anyway - I've got my work cut out for me, it looks like. Thanks again! <3 <3

[spacealtie]

I don't know specifically about Lyon or Toulouse, but a classic misunderstanding between people living in the north of France and the south of France would be the "sac en plastique" (litterally, "plastic bag"), which is called a "poche" (lit. "pocket") in the south of France.

But all in all, there are not so many regionalisms in France.
But if by any chance you could make your character be from Quebec, you could have a lot of fun because plenty of words have a completely different meaning in Quebec and in France and can lead to complete misunderstandings.

[goose_entity]

agreeing with this commenter. Quebecois has some very...... odd... pronunciations and phrasings, so Quebec may suit your plot needs better than French from France.

(I once had to call the Canadian office of the company I worked for and got the phone announcement in Quebec French. It was very, very different from the France French I am used to.)

[willowmeg]

Thank you both - I do realize that involving Quebec would make things a lot easier, but unfortunately the character and his family have been set up in three previous stories already. If it were Quebec I'd have to spin some tale about Dad having a pen pal overseas or something...and then, there would be the issue of why Quebecois counterfeiters were in London delivering fabricated Euros... hm. :) It could get a little hairy.

I appreciate the input, though!
<3

[syntinen_laulu]

There's also the point that just about everybody who knows anything about French knows that québécois French is very different from the French of France, so your character would be alert for possible differences in meaning in a way he would not be when listening to a French person.

[inner_v0ice]

Looks like you've gotten some leads already from here, but you could also try asking this at linguaphiles, which is generally quite good for language-related questions. :D

[willowmeg]

Thank you - I'll keep that in my back pocket in case I get stuck!

<3