When I bought a house in France I thought learning the language would be a breeze. I didn’t actually need to learn much, just brush up a bit. I’d studied French at school, gone to school in France to practice, spent almost every holiday in France and in my job worked in Geneva and with Swiss teams who spoke French. So it should have been a doddle.
However… this is not how it has turned out. They don’t speak French here in my part of Pas-de-Calais.
I know, you’re looking at this and saying what on earth if she rattling on about today? Well I tell you they speak a sort of French but it is not the sort of French that I know and love … and speak.
They speak ch’ti here.
It’s a patois, a local dialect and it is really really hard to understand if you’re a foreigner. In fact it’s really hard to understand if you’re French. The OH’s osteopath comes from Lille and he says he can’t understand a word they say round here where we live. He likens it to a very strong Scottish accent – incomprehensible.
I watched the Dany Boon film a while back “Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis” which translates as “welcome to the sticks”. It is France’s most popular film and it tells the story of southerners forced to move to the north of France as punishment. Southerners in France think that Nord Pas-de-Calais – the Ch’tis – is the North pole of Europe, that it rains all the time, the food is dire and the people are peasants who guzzle beer like it’s going out of fashion. The Southerners are portrayed as narrow minded and snobbish, reluctant to face the truth – that the people of the north are actually kindly souls who live in fabulous countryside! The film gently pokes fun at both southerners and northerners and is a really charming portrait of life in the north and for me it went a long way to explaining the language.
Basically they add a “ch” – pronounced “sh” – to words with a c pronounced with an “s” sound– or at least that is what I understand! So, as an example instead of ca va, they say cha va and you hear sha va, c’est is ch’est. pincer is pincher. Words with ch in them have a t added to the front so chien becomes thcien. The “ch” can be added to the front of certain words that don’t even begin with an “c” and it doesn’t end there. It is in actual fact a whole new language with altogether different words for everyday objects even – chaise (chair) is cayelle in ch’ti, the French word for you – tu is ti, for me – moi, is mi!
My neighbours seem to find my bewilderment highly entertaining. Remy told me that I should ask Pierre if I could have a sit on his bidet. I laughed nervously – what new nonsense was this? None said Remy innocently, bidet is ch’ti for cheval (horse), he merely thought I might like to go horse-riding – ha, these Chtimi people have a sense of humour that’s for sure.
The saying here goes “Les gens du nord ont le soleil dans le Coeur” (The people in the north have the sun in their hearts) – they need to as it actually does rain a lot here, but it’s true, they are a very friendly lot, in fact in all the places I’ve been in France I have never met a more welcoming or affable bunch of people.
I have been given a Ch’ti dictionary by one of my neighbours and am learning words from it in order to chuck a few practiced mots into my conversations with my neighbours, here’s a sample:
Science = schïinche in Ch’ti (fr: science)
Ch’ti word Roufrouf (faire du) – travallier tres vite sand prendre aucune précaution contre les accidents, notmamment en négligent le boisage… basically means mediocre work style…
Picher is ch’ti for to urinate (fr: uriner)
Piche-vinaigre means moany woman!
Wish me luck, I think I might need it!
A bientôt Janine
