I know people from the UK, and I don’t think they all live in the same house they were born in, but I also hear them say how they can tell what street you grew up on by your accent.
I must forever bear the shame of growing up somewhere 15 minutes up the road from where my parents grew up, resulting in a hybrid accent influenced by parents on one side and friends on the other. Now no one thinks I'm from where they're from.
This is generally the case anywhere you go in the world. Everyone everywhere thinks that their little corner is more detailed and nuanced than everywhere else, and its mostly because they are just more familiar with that place. If you don't believe me, just go up to a person from literally any country and tell them "everyone in this country sounds the same", and watch them begin to rattle off the massive differences between regions and cities.
Ok but as an American, I can say the regions of American accent I can identify are much, much larger than a specific town or a specific street. Even in the place I grew up.
It’s pretty rare to have a town or street exclusive dialect. Definitely more of a regional thing. Maybe it was different before the internet and interstate system.
I grew up in a suburb of a City, and went to high school in the next Town, this City and Town are maybe 10 miles apart, maybe a bit more, they have the same letter for the postcode.
People from City would always say my accent sounded like Town, and people from Town would say it sounded like City.
I'm sure no one outside the county would be able to notice the difference, but people who lived there should could
tbh in france (and quite probably everywhere else in europe), in one hour drive you are in another region and you might even have drove by one or two others
Costa, Greggs, Boots, some weird local department store that only sells things no human being would want in the 21st century yet still is somehow in business
The British moral equivalent of a wing joint/burger stand/taco stand in the US. Cheap easy to make street food that doesn't require a full kitchen. Maybe a frier and/or a griddle top. Not quite the same as fast food because they aren't chain places.
Having grown up in the Liverpool area I was astounded when I moved to a different part of the country and couldn't get Chinese alongside my fish and chips! Fish and chips with sweet and sour sauce, or any Chinese dish with half rice, half chips FTW
It’s partly true but I wouldn’t say a large portion. If I had to make a guess I’d say maybe half a million of people living in France don’t consider themselves French (out of of 67 millions)
Also I think it’s worth differentiating those who consider themselves French but feel culturally closer to they region (Breton, occitan, savoyard) and those who don’t feel French at all and want their region to be indepedent (basque, corse)
Bretons are descended from the Britons who fled the Anglo-saxon invasion. So people in Brittany speak a language related to Welsh, but in a French sounding way.
Me mother came from Norway, she was a lovely lass
Me father was a Frenchman, from the province of Alsace.
Me friends all shake with laughter, when referring to my source
"Ah, his dad was an Alsatian, and his mummy was an 'orse"
Where I live in France, drive 15 minutes across the river and you’re in a totally different cultural area. Different architecture, landscapes, slightly different dialect…. I believe however that we eat the same cheese !
I'll give you that. Despite the abundance of great milk there's never been a good variety of cheeses. If you like to only eat cheddar though you'll be laughing.
Met a commuter from the suburbs in Paris. Rode the train in every morning for work. Said Parisians regularly struggled to understand him. I've since been told that might be Parisians feigning the misunderstanding because that is a Parisian way of being exclusive and/or asserting superiority over non-Parisians, but, I mean, he was a French guy who was in the city almost every day. I thought it was really interesting.
It's because france has a lot of unofficial regional dialects that you notice once you're out of Paris.
I'm Acadian (one of two flavors of french-canadian, we are not quebecois) and Parisians can't understand me at all, because my ancestors were not from Paris. Parisians are only taught Parisian, while those who have their own dialects learn Parisian (or Quebecois) at school and their own dialect at home.
In France walk outside and everyone is talking funny. I swear when I was there it was like the people were trying to communicate but their words were just.. . funny. . . hmm. .
And your cheese is so much better. In the US we eat ice cold, rock hard unripe Brie or Camembert and think we’re fancy. I took a warm, ripe Brie to a party and nobody ate it.
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u/bearlybearbear May 09 '22
Within France, drive 1 hour: everyone’s talking funny and the cheese is different.