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Corsican

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16 messages over 2 pages: 1
ewomahony
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 Message 9 of 16
09 June 2011 at 10:23am | IP Logged 
Doesn't Corsican spread slightly into Sardinia too?
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patuco
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 Message 10 of 16
09 June 2011 at 5:42pm | IP Logged 
This year's French entry to the Eurovision Song Contest* was sang in Corsican. You can check the lyrics here. Quite easy to understand if you are reasonably capable in Italian and French.


* Yes, the Eurovision Song Contest...I know, it's a bit sad, but what can I say, my wife made me watch it! In any case, it's good for language practice :)
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caracao
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 Message 11 of 16
16 June 2011 at 5:15am | IP Logged 
Yes corsican is spoken in northern Sardinia too.

French would be more useful, corsican people are very nice. The only tourists they don't like are Italians, they always complain about them when they arrive there.

Anyways, French is spoken everywhere, Corsican language exist and is alive, but not everybody learn or speak the language.

In France, the official language is French, even in Corsica it's gonna be hard to find corsican speakers, you have to look for them. The language is spoken mostly by nationalists, corsican lovers, old people, or kids that can learn it at school. Although the new language policy of France is more tolerant towards regional languages, they're dying, especially corsican. And the demographics is against them, the corsicans people are a minority now. French people rarely see the use of learning a language that is never used in the everyday life.

Do not forget that France is a unitary Republic that sees Corsica as a region, no more. A country that did everything it could to get rid of regional languages, and it did well alas. Only Basque or Catalan are much alive, thanks to Spain.

As for Corsican language, the language has been heavily toscanized "italianized", so you may be able to read simple words, but speak Corsican, good luck, it is not that close. The pronunciation is rather difficult.

So use French.

Edited by caracao on 16 June 2011 at 5:18am

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tractor
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 Message 12 of 16
17 June 2011 at 8:13pm | IP Logged 
caracao wrote:
Only Basque or Catalan are much alive, thanks to Spain.

Are they much alive on the French side of the border?
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Saim
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 Message 13 of 16
19 June 2011 at 11:50am | IP Logged 
Considering barely half of the population can understand Corsican, and you're already
learning French, I would use it as an opportunity to practice your French.

tractor wrote:
caracao wrote:
Only Basque or Catalan are much alive, thanks to
Spain.

Are they much alive on the French side of the border?

Yes, most people in the Spanish portion of the Catalan Countries can understand
Catalan,
and Basque and Catalan are both co-official with Spanish in their respective
territories.
The languages are in decline in France partly because due to some strange
interpretation
of the constitution (which says "the official language of the republic is French")
public
education can not be used to teach kids the regional language, and so most of the money
for private Catalan and Basque medium education in France comes from Spain.

See here:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/info-ngos/eb lul.pdf

Edited by Saim on 19 June 2011 at 12:01pm

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caracao
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 Message 14 of 16
22 June 2011 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
It has nothing with the interpretation of the constitution, regional languages were not decimated for that.

The French monarchy was very tolerant with regional languages or dialects, or whatever people call them.

The French republic got rid of them, they were forbidden in schools, children were punished.

Anyway, France is a unitary state, not a federal one, therefore it make sense, whether you like it or not. The men at the time wanted a single unified country, and not this mess of laws, counties, pronvinces, local parliament the old monarchy was.

Spain on the the other hand is a federal state, it has another history, local languages remained stronger.

Anyway, for more information, read some books.

Good day.

Edited by caracao on 22 June 2011 at 7:56pm

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Cainntear
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 Message 15 of 16
22 June 2011 at 8:49pm | IP Logged 
It makes sense. To punish children for speaking their own language.
Uh... right.
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vilas
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 Message 16 of 16
23 June 2011 at 11:52pm | IP Logged 
caracao wrote:
The only tourists they don't like are Italians, they always complain about them when they arrive there.

This sounds very strange to me ! I have been many times in Corsica . Many Italians go to Corsica because they don't know foreign languages and in Corsica they don't need to speak french. We speak with them in Italian and they answer us in Corsican that is a kind of funny central/southern Italian dialect . We understand each other perfectly . They donn't like to be called frenchmen , they are proud to be corsicans. They prefer that we speak Italian with them. In the other side Corsica is full of walls with anti-France graffiti like"A Francia fora" " Francesi Fora" ( French go home !) and they also use a disparaging word for the frenchmen that is "pinzuti" . I don't want to go in a political controversy but I use to chat with many corsicans in italo-corsican forums and I never found any hostility towards Italians. I try to explain them that now we are in the United Europe and blablabla but thay are keeping start facebook pages like "Corsica is not France" etc etc.



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