But, by the late 14th century, standards of French in Britain were slipping – at least in some quarters. Perhaps not such a problem at home, where English had already assumed some of the roles previously performed by French. But if British merchants wanted to export wool, or import bottles of Bordeaux, knowledge of French was still a must.
It’s around this time that the “Manieres de langage” – or “Manners of Speaking” – began to appear. These model conversations, the earliest used to teach French to English speakers, were used by business teachers who taught all the necessary skills for performing basic clerical work.
Archives For November 30, 1999
Pigouiller: Fouiller avec un bâton ou une perche. M. Carbonneau, des Îles-Madeleine, me donne cette définition du mot pigouiller: On pigouille la vase avec une perche ou un bâton: Les enfants pigouillent dans les ruisseaux pour y découvrir des grenouilles ou en déloger les poissons. Au figuré pigouiller un homme, c’est le sonder, lui tirer les vers du nez.
-Le Glossaire acadien
Abat: Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et de la Nouvelle-Écosse disent: une pluie d’abat pour une grosse averse.
L’expression: une pluie d’abat nous vient de la vieille France. Decartes épelle le mot abas. Nous disons également et dans le meme sens: un abat d’eau.
Reich: I think so. I know there are extremists who are interested in genealogy and genetics. But I think those are very marginal people, and there’s, of course, a concern they may impinge on the mainstream.
But if you actually take any serious look at this data, it just confounds every stereotype. It’s revealing that the differences among populations we see today are actually only a few thousand years old at most and that everybody is mixed. I think that if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world. You have to be more open to immigration. You have to be more open to the mixing of different peoples. That’s your own history.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/?utm_source=twb
Newer findings complicate the story, however. In a study published last June in the Journal of Human Genetics, researchers sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 12 Yamnaya individuals, along with their immediate predecessors and descendants. The remains were found in burial mounds, or kurgans (from which the theory takes its name), in modern-day Ukraine. They had been buried in layers atop one another from the end of the Stone Age through the Bronze Age, between about 4500 and 1500 B.C.—the same time as the genetic replacement event in Europe. The earliest and midrange specimens’ mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited from the mother) was almost entirely local. But the mitochondrial DNA of the most recent specimens included DNA from central Europe, including present-day Poland, Germany and Sweden. This discovery indicates that “there were pendulum migrations back and forth,” says lead author Alexey Nikitin
But museums and dictionaries are feeble defence against globalisation and urbanisation. The best way of keeping the dialects alive would be to use them as a medium of instruction in public schools. But the national government sets the curriculum, so that is unlikely to happen. Parents are a poor substitute for teachers. “The more you make kids speak a language the more they rebel,” says Mr Altenhofen. His 16-year-old daughter is learning Japanese. She wants to study Korean next.
Thanks to the thousands of Internet users who took part in our latest surveys , we are now able to offer you a new selection of maps showing divisions within the French-speaking world of Europe. Good discovery!
Grâce aux milliers d’internautes qui ont pris part à nos dernières enquêtes, l’on est aujourd’hui en mesure de vous proposer une nouvelle sélection de cartes donnant à voir des divisions à l’intérieur de la francophonie d’Europe. Bonne découverte!
Aeneid.co is a production of LatinTutorial, a site and YouTube channel designed to help Latin students all around the world learn and practice Classical Latin. Most of the videos produced by LatinTutorial involve Latin grammar, but learning Latin is more than just the language. Embedded in the study of Latin is all of ancient Roman and Greek culture. So when you visit LatinTutorial or watch videos on YouTube, you’ll see a wide range of topics on the ancient world.
Pretty cool website that displays with audio recording and transcripts over a hundred different regional dialects of french.
Acerbity [əˈsɜːbɪtɪ] 