This paper is presented in four sections. The first section shares insights into some of the recent literature on youth linguistic variation features in France. A second section describes a neighbourhood of Strasbourg, background of the study. A third section considers variant features in this area, and a fourth section discusses how these features may be travelling between French locations.
1. LITERATURE ON IMMIGRANT AND REGIONAL LANGUAGES IN FRANCE
The emphasis of research on language variation in France has traditionally been on phonological features. Recent works include for instance Boughton (Reference Boughton2015), Fagyal (Reference Fagyal2010), Gadet and Paternostro (Reference Gadet and Paternostro2013), Lehka-Lemarchand (Reference Lehka-Lemarchand2015) and Trimaille et al. (Reference Trimaille, Candea and Lehka-Lemarchand2012). The orientation has either been related to regional languages (for example Armstrong and Boughton, Reference Armstrong, Boughton, Beeching, Armstrong and Gadet2009; Violin-Wigent, Reference Violin-Wigent, Beeching, Armstrong and Gadet2009) or to immigrant ones (Fagyal, Reference Fagyal, Evans and Nguyen2005, Reference Fagyal2010; Jamin et al., Reference Jamin, Trimaille and Gasquet-Cyrus2006; Jamin and Trimaille, Reference Jamin, Trimaille, Abecassis, Ayosso and Vialleton2007).
Immigrant languages are rarely considered in conjunction with regional ones, the themes of immigration and regional identity being fairly contentious in the French context (Eloy et al., Reference Eloy, Blot, Carcassonne and Landrecies2003). Associating both adds further controversy to the matter. In a few cases, however, research in France has considered settings of mixed regional and immigrant language contact. For instance, in the context of Marseille, in the 19th and early 20th century, the Provençal regional language acted as a language of integration for newly arrived immigrants from Italy and North Africa, at a time when it was still widely spoken (Gasquet-Cyrus, Reference Gasquet-Cyrus, Calvet and Moussirou-Mouyama2000). A similar phenomenon took place in Northern France with Picard (Eloy, Reference Eloy2003), as well as in Alsace in the 1970s (Akgönül et al., Reference Akgönül, Koç and Maffessoli2009), where the regional language was a prerequisite within the working class to integrate in daily life (particularly to work on building sites), to the extent that French was not necessarily spoken. However sociolinguists have rarely investigated the case of France's regional languages as legitimate languages for immigrants.
Gasquet-Cyrus (Reference Gasquet-Cyrus2013b) researched the case of palatalisation, regarded as a feature of Marseille working class accent, also associated with the Maghrebi population of Marseille's Quartiers Nord (a notorious working class neighbourhood). The Quartiers Nord accent is becoming an identity feature for Marseille as a whole, and its phonological features are travelling to other neighbourhoods, despite the fact that it is considered as inauthentic by some, because it originates in the local immigrant population (Gasquet-Cyrus, Reference Gasquet-Cyrus2013a).
In addition to Marseille, Lille is one of the rare French settings where both immigrant and regional linguistic features have been considered jointly. In that case, Maghrebi communities were shown to have little impact on the regional varieties of Picard, but were taking part in a levelling process that would have probably followed its course regardless (Pooley, Reference Pooley, Beeching, Armstrong and Gadet2009). In another study, the relationship that immigrant populations fostered with all the varieties around them (including the regional one) was explored (Eloy, Reference Eloy2003). The aim was to look at all language varieties (immigrant, regional and national) on the same level, independently of the usual hierarchy from prestigious to least prestigious. The study found that immigrant populations had a special affinity with the regional varieties, because they were associated with the working class, and because they were the languages of the new roots they were putting down in the region. Sometimes, this affinity with the regional language varieties was also related to the equally low status of their own dialect of origin. Occasionally, participants would conceal their proficiency in Picard, because they were aware of the negative perception associated with it. This work only looked at language attitudes, through a self-reported survey; this was problematic when participants concealed their knowledge of Picard (Eloy, Reference Eloy2003). The results might have been different had language practices been observed, as these can differ from what speakers report.
Using an anthropological perspective, Tetreault studied linguistic innovations in interaction and performance, to understand how new social identities emerge in a context of globalisation (Reference Tetreault2004, Reference Tetreault2008, Reference Tetreault2009a, Reference Tetreault2009b, Reference Tetreault2010, Reference Tetreault2013, Reference Tetreault2015). Tetreault's work on adolescents of Algerian origin living in a Paris cité challenges ideological assumptions about the straightforward relation between language and social groups. For instance, through language crossing (Tetreault, Reference Tetreault2009a), youngsters used the format of a French television show to carry out the widespread ritual amongst cité youth of afficher (a practice used to embarrass someone in public). Local regional languages were not part of this Parisian context. However, speakers skilfully used all the resources available to them, transforming family cultural norms and the contemporary French reality around them, to express and cement their identity as French youth of Algerian origin growing up in a cité-type neighbourhood.
In a similar context to Tetreault's work, this paper discusses three kinds of innovations (lexical, grammatical and discourse-pragmatic features), examining all the resources used by the Strasbourg youngsters: home languages and culture, regional Alsatian and national French language, in a context of intense exposure to new media. The label ‘Contemporary Urban Vernacular’ (Rampton, Reference Rampton2011), hereafter CUV, will be used to describe the linguistic practices of the participants. It was chosen over more restrictive labels such as ethnolects, and over less specific ones linking language variety to age (such as youth language) or geographical areas (such as parler des cités), (Hambye and Gadet, Reference Hambye, Gadet and Nicolaï2014). Naming a language is questionable, as it assumes homogeneity within a variety (Tabouret-Keller, Reference Tabouret-Keller1997). However the term CUV seems appropriate here because it embodies the complex local reality: it is used to describe a language variety distinct from a national standard that originates in urban settings, associated with fairly recent migration flows (Rampton, Reference Rampton, Nortier and Svendsen2015).
2. BACKGROUND: THE CITY OF STRASBOURG
2.1 Languages in Alsace
The regional Alsatian language, although declining in use, is still spoken in Alsace by just under half the local population (Gardner-Chloros, Reference Gardner-Chloros2013a), in addition to French. In 2012, 43% of the Alsatian population spoke the regional language, against 91% after the Second World War (OLCA, 2014). Research on Alsatian mainly focuses on language contact with French and German (Bothorel-Witz, Reference Bothorel-Witz2008; Harrison, Reference Harrison2016; Pipe, Reference Pipe2014), as well as the relatively recent language shift from Alsatian to French, which started after the Second World War, when Alsace was returned to France after being annexed to the 3rd Reich. This shift continued at least until the 1980s (Huck, Reference Huck2015), when the language was often not passed on to the next generation (Gardner-Chloros, Reference Gardner-Chloros2013a, Reference Gasquet-Cyrus2013b).
The region's linguistic profile was altered through the arrival of immigrant populations (Huck, Reference Huck2015). Alsace has proportionally the largest immigrant population in France after Paris, with 10% (in 2004) of its population being of migrant origin (Morel-Chevillet, Reference Morel-Chevillet2006). Between 1990 and 1999, half the immigrant population came to Alsace from four main countries: Turkey, Germany, Morocco and Algeria. The Turkish group is the largest, a notable characteristic of Alsace relative to the rest of France (Morel-Chevillet, Reference Morel-Chevillet2006). The German group comes second and is not really comparable to the other groups, because many workers choose to live on the French side of the border where properties are more affordable, while working in Germany (Frey, Reference Frey2009). The Maghrebi group continues to make up a large proportion of local immigration (Morel-Chevillet, Reference Morel-Chevillet2006), mainly from, in order of importance, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
2.2 Languages in Strasbourg
This ethnographic research focuses on a CUV embedded in the Alsatian context. Data were collected in a neighbourhood of Strasbourg, from young people (between the ages of 16 and 21) of immigrant origin, whose grandparents or parents had moved to the neighbourhood from their native country. The participants are therefore potentially multilingual in French, Alsatian and a variety of immigrant languages, with the majority of participants in this study being of Algerian and Moroccan heritage.
The area has had a strong Alsatian identity in the past, manifested through the use of the Alsatian language (Derrouich, Reference Derrouich2016). From the 1950s, a vast program of social housing was implemented in the area, initially to rehouse working-class inner city Strasbourg residents (Faure, Reference Faure2016; Strasbourg.eu, 2017), at a time when, according to the 1946 census, 85.79% of the population in Alsace spoke the regional language (Huck, Reference Huck2015:211). From the 1960s, the neighbourhood underwent a renewal of its population through labour immigration, particularly from North Africa and Turkey. More recently, in the 1970s, European Nomadic populations of Yenish and Tsigane origins (Roma, Manush/Sinti and GypsiesFootnote 1/Gitans) also permanently settled in the vicinity (Faure, Reference Faure2016). Official statistics on ethnicity are not available in France, but according to census figures, 21% of the neighbourhood's population is classified as ‘foreign’ (INSEE, 2011), which provides an indication of the proportion of recent immigrants in the area. The intricate linguistic and cultural layers, combined with the relative isolation of the area resulting from national urbanisation policy, have promoted, over the years, a sense of common identity, resulting in an extremely rich, elaborate and unique language contact situation.
Vocabulary from the many communities which have settled in the area has entered the local French lexicon. These borrowings are predominantly from dialectal Arabic and Berber from Algeria and Morocco, as well as European Nomadic languages (the Manush/Sinti language Romnepen, Romani and Yenish). Alsatian has also contributed to the local lexicon, given the traditional Alsatian heritage of the area. No loanwords from Kaló (the language of the Kale group or Spanish Gypsies/Gitans) were found. No Turkish seems to have made its way into the CUV eitherFootnote 2, which is surprising given that the Turkish population has grown to become the largest foreign community in Alsace today (Muller, Reference Muller2009), a community that is well represented in this particular neighbourhood. Such limited spread of the Turkish language beyond its community was also observed in Paris, in Belgium and in the Netherlands (Hambye and Gadet, Reference Hambye, Gadet and Nicolaï2014).
2.3 Research in the margins of society
The area is socially deprived. In 2009, 60% of the youths (18-24 years old) were unemployed (Jacot, Reference Jacot2014), against 23% nationally in 2010Footnote 3, 91% of the population lived in social housing, 85% had no educational qualification (Ministère de la ville, de la jeunesse et des sports, 2015) and 38% were on the minimum social welfare income (Conseil technique des clubs et équipes de prévention specialisée, 2010). In 1996 the area became a quartier prioritaire (‘priority neighbourhood’), due to its critical socio-economic state. The dark years of the area in the 1980s and 90s were captured by the writer, rapper and film maker Abd Al Malik in his 2004 autobiographical book Qu'Allah bénisse la France! (‘May Allah bless France!’), which was made into a film in 2014.
The area is a typical 1960s French, working class, urban, multiethnic, multicultural neighbourhood, with a large proportion of high rise council housing or ‘low-income housing projects’ (Tetreault, Reference Tetreault2010:72). Most major French cities followed a similar urban plan, by housing the most socially deprived populations (often migrants) on the periphery of the city. Hence the young populations of these neighbourhoods have undergone a similar historical process of marginalisation within French society. These areas are often referred to as banlieues, a label which after the Second World War became associated with unattractive architecture and overcrowding (Rey, Reference Rey1994). The etymological root of banlieue (from ban as in mettre au ban) is sometimes used to describe the historical segregatory aspect of such neighbourhoods (Jobard, Reference Jobard2005). This compartmentalising of speakers according to the space where they live is problematic, because it may give a false impression of homogeneity in the linguistic practices of the relevant groups, when in fact empirical work shows heterogeneity within such groups (Hambye, Reference Hambye2008). Space becomes the focus rather than the speaker, leading to a ‘territorialisation of linguistic practicesFootnote 4’ (Hambye, Reference Hambye2008:37). Furthermore, discourses using the word banlieue lead to negative representations cemented by the media that concentrate mainly on poverty, unemployment and violence, thus reinforcing social segregation. This categorisation may also shape the way speakers are perceived, as well as their own practices (Hambye, Reference Hambye2008). Hence using the term banlieue contributes to the reproduction of these stereotypes, and traps its population into such a vision. Given these negative connotations of the label banlieue, which is not used by the local residents, the more neutral term of neighbourhood, or cité (as in Tetreault's work) will be used instead in this paper.
2.4 Data collection
An ethnographic framework was adopted to fully immerse into a local youth centre over a year in 2015–2016. The centre is an essential part of the community and serves as an informal meeting point for young people. As part of this ethnographic undertaking, semi-structured interviews were recorded between them and the researcher, as well as informal discussions and spontaneous speech between the participants without the researcher's presence, providing a comprehensive picture of language practices between peers. Observation also took place during volunteering work by the researcher at the youth centre, which involved playing board games in the communal room and participating in some of the activities. This methodology gave insight into what participants actually do, rather than what they report as doing (Schilling, Reference Schilling2013).
The interviews started with a discussion around the local vernacular, using as an ice-breaker a lexicon of youth vernacular with humorous illustrations published in Paris by a group of young people (Collectif Permis de vivre la ville, 2007). It gave the opportunity for participants to compare their vernacular with the Paris one, and to establish a rapport with the interviewer, despite possible wariness of outsiders in a context where illegal activities take place (the cité is a well known drug dealing and radicalisation platform). In this setting the researcher could potentially be considered as suspicious by participants because she did not belong to their community. Seeing expressions from a spoken vernacular in a written form also gave the participants some legitimacy in discussing their ‘non-standard’ language variety. The discussion then moved on to their daily life, with participants guiding the talk. In total 40 hours of interaction were recorded (16 hours of interviews and 24 hours of spontaneous speech amongst peers). A total of 24 participants took part (12 males and 12 females).
2.5 Communities of practice and gender considerations
Despite the apparent social homogeneity of the twelve male subjects (Maghrebi working class young males), the ethnographic investigation revealed two ‘communities of practice’ (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, Reference Eckert, McConnell-Ginet, Hall, Bucholtz and Moonwomon1998) amongst the male speakers, with participants embracing separate sets of values. The two communities of practice (hereafter CoP) in this neighbourhood of Strasbourg resemble the ones described in detail by the sociologist Mohammed (Reference Mohammed2011) in the context of Villiers-sur-Marne on the outskirts of Paris. Mohammed looked at affiliations to bandes (gangs), defining bandes as ‘an informal and enduring gathering of youths with a transgressive dynamic and a conflictual relationship with their immediate environment’Footnote 5 (Mohammed, Reference Mohammed2011:6). According to Mohammed, the mechanisms that lead to the creation of a bande should not be oversimplified; they are complex, multiple, context-reliant and far from consistent, as youngsters do not systematically follow the same path into bande membership. However, what was observed in Strasbourg resonates with Mohammed's description of bande affiliation in Villiers-sur-Marne, where he describes two groups:
– The Oufs, (Mohammed, Reference Mohammed2011:358) i.e. the crazy ones (from the verlan Footnote 6 of fou), who enjoy some status within the neighbourhood and are characterised by strong bande affiliation. Mohammed also calls them galériens Footnote 7 (Reference Mohammed2011:49) and précaires Footnote 8 (Reference Mohammed2011:238).
– The Bouffons (‘fools’), who are not so integrated into bandes and also socialise outside the neighbourhood. In addition to Bouffon (Reference Mohammed2011:81), Mohammed uses bolos Footnote 9 (Reference Mohammed2011:81), taffeur Footnote 10 (Reference Mohammed2011:241) or simply scolaire Footnote 11 (Reference Mohammed2011:238) as opposed to précaire (Reference Mohammed2011:238) to describe males belonging to this category.
The labels Ouf and Bouffon are best suited to the neighbourhood's context as they are used by the youngsters themselves to describe their peers. These categories are fluid, and there are many youngsters who display characteristics of both CoPs, or who fit between them, just like the In-Betweeners in Eckert's (Reference Eckert2000) seminal work. The Oufs occupy a position of symbolic power within the area, whereas the Bouffons are on the periphery, embracing school values which are often rejected by the Oufs. Bouffons tend to pursue mainstream education through private schooling outside the cité, where they can socialise in a context of greater social diversity. The Oufs are more inclined towards street culture, and are therefore more visible in the neighbourhood. The street socialisation context has specific transgressive rules and norms which play an important role in the identity of the youngsters. ‘The street or territory (terter in the CUV) is a place for socialising and learning for the bande members, in the same way as school is for pupils’Footnote 12 (Mohammed, Reference Mohammed2011:408). Delinquency benefits from a certain level of prestige and is positively perceived in the context of bandes. This is also valid for this neighbourhood of Strasbourg, where the prison world is very much present in the Ouf participants’ narratives, and having been an inmate or having a sibling in jail adds credentials to one's local reputation. For instance, when a youngster returns to the cité after a stay in prison, an informal celebration takes place which was described to the researcher in reverent terms: ‘it is as if they came back from Mecca’ (AsmaFootnote 13). The Oufs occupy a local central position of prestige, whereas the Bouffons are on the margins viewed from the neighbourhood's perspective. However, from a mainstream society ‘outside-in’ perspective, the converse is true, with Oufs belonging to the margins of French society, and Bouffons being more integrated with mainstream French society (Figure 2). Abdel's (an In-Betweener) comment (Figure 1) illustrates this outside-in attitude towards the local vernacular, expressed to a peer during an interview with the researcher. ‘When you think about it’ (Figure 1) refers to an outsider's perspective, and ‘we speak’ relates to the insider's language practices (his own and his peers’). Abdel describes their own language practices as ‘déréglés’ (Figure 1), which suggests lack of control and being at odds with prescriptive language standards.
Figure 1. Abdel's considerations about the CUV
Figure 2. Insider/outsider perception of local categories
Female speakers do not fit into the same CoPs as males, and the notion of personal prestige is fundamentally different. Mohammed (Reference Mohammed2011) explains that females rarely affiliate to bandes, possibly due to the different set of expectations from their family as well as from the school context. The male and female participants in this study categorised females in two mutually exclusive categories: first, females who comply with the patriarchal tradition and avoid using the vernacular, which they consider masculine and deprecating to their gender. Youngsters (boys in particular) call them ‘les filles Halal’, in reference to their virtuous nature, because their lifestyle fits within traditional Islamic law. Second, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the transgressive females are categorised in somewhat extreme terms as prostitutes by both their male and female peers, because they do not meet certain moral expectations. This could be for wearing certain types of dress, or putting make-up on, or for being seen in shisha bars, a space typically associated with males. Another term used by the youngsters to describe this category is Beurette (the feminine diminutive form of the verlan for Arabe). The participants in this study considered the use of the vernacular acceptable for Beurettes. Finally, there are the In-Betweeners, the females who rebel against the binary categorisation of Halal and Beurette, who want to be on an equal footing with their male counter-parts and lead their life as they wish. Their aspirations are attuned to the mission of ‘Ni Putes Ni Soumises’ - Neither Whores nor Doormats (translation used by Boisvert and Daniel-Hughes, Reference Boisvert and Daniel-Hughes2017:235), a not-for-profit organisation which supports cité women against the sexism they encounter in their neighbourhoods, in a patriarchal context (although cités clearly do not hold the monopoly on sexism). The very name of this organisation evokes the contrast between Beurettes (putes) versus Halal (soumises); so the distinction already has a history (the organisation was created in 2002) and an evolving lexicon to describe it. What are the implications for language? In Figure 3, Aïcha and Leila, who fit into the Halal group, summarise how they perceive the categories. They explain that using vernacular features (‘speaking badly’) is ugly for girls, but desirable for boys. In their opinion, using the vernacular is a constitutive element of a boy's masculinity, as his gender will not be ‘credible’ if he uses conventional French (oui tout à fait is used as an example of the ‘posher’ register). The binary division of male and female roles is expressed here through the prestige associated with each French variety according to gender: females are expected to use ‘good’ French whereas males have to prove their masculinity through the use of vernacular features.
Figure 3. Gender differences according to Aïcha and Leila
An analysis of the speech of female In-Betweeners, speaking amongst themselves as well as with boys, showed a more nuanced usage of vernacular features by females. Female speakers were often faced with situations in which they were violently challenged verbally by several males in public, and they showed a great deal of creativity in strategically and successfully using the vernacular in order to retaliate. These tactics will however not be discussed further in this article, and we will focus only on the male speakers from now on. The gender differences warrant a more in-depth analysis than is possible here, so this topic will instead be the subject of a future article.
3. THE STRASBOURG ‘CUV’
Next we will discuss some linguistic features, considering whether they are found in other comparable settings, and conversely which features are specific to this neighbourhood. Four types of feature will be examined in relation to the Strasbourg data, namely: (i) lexical items; (ii) in-situ question-words in indirect questions; (iii) new forms of quotative expression and (iv) discourse markers. The frequency of these features in 12 hours of recordings (approximately one hour per male participant) will be considered across twelve male participants (4 Oufs, 4 Bouffons and 4 In-Betweeners) from this Strasbourg cité, all of similar age (16-21), ethnicity (Maghrebi) and social group (growing up in a working class environment).
3.1 The Strasbourg lexicon
3.1.1 Lexicon and CoPs
The lexical items are a very striking feature in the male speakers’ speech, used very frequently. They are comparable to those heard in Paris, with similar borrowings from European Nomadic languages, for instance budo (‘mate’), bicraver (‘to steal’), natchaver (‘to leave in a hurry’), poucaver (‘to denounce/expose’). There are many borrowings from dialectal Arabic, such as belek/hindek (‘watch out’), bsahtek (‘congratulations’), hachem (‘to embarrass oneself’), hebs (‘prison’), hess (‘misery’), hnouche (‘the police’); some expressions from Berber, for example kahel (‘to look/watch’); some verlan, such as cevi (‘vice’), garba (‘fight’), queba (‘BACFootnote 14 police force’), relou (‘heavy’), renoi (‘black’), remps (‘parents’), rèpe (‘father’), rème (‘mother’), reuss (‘sister’), vilsi (‘police in civil dress’), yencli (‘client’); and a handful of borrowings from more widely used French slang, for instance grailler (‘to eat’), bouffon (‘fool’). Overall the Strasbourg lexicon reflects the local youths’ recurrent centres of interest: country (and village) of origin, gender relations, school failure, unemployment, police/prison, music and social media. The features are used in various combinations by the speakers. In (1) below zinda comes from Manush's Romnepen language and miskine from dialectal Arabic; in (2), kahel is from Berber and tchaille from Manush.
(1) Zinda, il fait miskine !
(Karim, Ouf)
(Le pauvre, il fait pitié ! Poor him, I feel sorry!)
(2) Je vais kahel une tchaille.
(Abdel, In-Betweener)
(Je vais chercher une fille. I am going to look for a girl.)
A pool of 1276 lexical features was extracted from 12 hours of recording with approximately 1 hour per participant. Figure 4 displays the percentage of the vernacular lexical items for each participant, organised according to their CoP. The Oufs use the majority of these lexical features (63% of the total number of vernacular lexical tokens in the dataset are used by Oufs participants), the In-Betweeners much less (27%) and the Bouffons the least (10%). Jamel (Bouffon), for example, consciously avoids lexical vernacular features and explained during his interview that he was particularly keen not to be associated with the CUV, stating “je ne parle pas comme ça moi” (‘I do not speak this way’). On the other hand, Tarik is an exception amongst the Bouffons: despite having a social life outside the cité through his university education, he enjoys keeping up with the local lexicon and as a result uses 7% of the overall pool of lexical features, more than some of the In-Betweeners. On the Ouf side, Karim and Jawad are both frequent users of the lexical features characteristic of the CUV, and use, between the two of them, 42% of all the lexical features. Karim and Jawad are emblematic gang leaders, both benefitting from a high level of prestige within the cité. This high proportion of lexical features in their speech therefore consolidates further the relevance of the notion of CoP in predicting language behaviour.
Figure 4. CUV - Lexicon
There was a statistically significant frequency distribution of lexical features per CoP (one-sample chi-square test: χ2 (2, N=1276) = 569.710, p < .05). This confirms that there is a relationship between CoP and the use of these features, with the Oufs CoP using most of the features, and the more conservative Bouffons the least.
3.1.2 Words specific to the neighbourhood: lexis derived from Alsatian, Manush and Yenish
Some terms specific to the area may originate in Yenish, given the large local population from this European Nomadic group which settled there since the 1970s. The Yenish language is based on Alsatian with many borrowings from Yiddish and Hebrew (Welschinger, Reference Welschinger2013). Yiddish and Alsatian have also influenced each other through contact over several centuries. Matras (Reference Matras and Matras1998; Reference Matras1999) discusses similarities between Yenish, Germanic dialects and Hebrew. In this neighbourhood of Strasbourg, Alsatian and Manush have also been in contact with Yenish. These languages have a long oral tradition and were never standardised or written, and some were scarcely documented (particularly in the case of Yenish and Manush), as a result of their peripheral status. It is therefore often difficult to find the correct etymology for some of the lexical items used by the participants in this study, particularly when they originate in one of these languages. However, these features are very much alive in the contemporary local lexicon, and were defined by the speakers themselves. This is the case for instance of schlague (‘woman who talks too much’), the verb schlagader (‘talk too much’), schlimmer Footnote 15 (‘shit-stirrer’), schlutzer (‘someone who is crazy’). Skyzo (from schizophrène) was transformed by the local youth into skyzess (‘psycho’), giving it an Alsatian twist with the ending -ess. Le pek or pekeles is one of the numerous local synonyms for money, and may come from the Yiddish pekel (‘little bundle’Footnote 16).
The participants also reported chtiber (verb) / un chtib Footnote 17 (noun), a versatile expression typical of the area, as not being understood outside the neighbourhood. Initially the verb meant to be scared, but it is now used to mean having a good time.
(3) j'ai chtibé le match hier (Djawad, Ouf)
(I really enjoyed watching the match yesterday)
(4) j'ai bien chtibé ce week-end (Adil, Ouf)
(I had a great time at the weekend)
(5) ils sont dans leur chtib (Ismail, Ouf)
(they are having a wild time)
(6) tu chtibes mal (Walid, In-Betweener)
(you are taking it the wrong way)
Another expression is gemi / nix gemi. All participants recognised having used this expression, at least as children. Saying gemi to a friend who has a snack or a drink in their hands, meant that they had to give it to that person. But if the owner of the coveted item had been the first to say nix gemi, it is for her/him to keep.
Insults from Alsatian are also commonly used by the youngsters, such as schisser which means chieur Footnote 18 (‘pain in the arse’), or schneck (‘snail’), a derogative term to designate a woman, which has spread to the rest of France (Collectif Permis de vivre la ville, 2007).
The following features found in the neighbourhood originate in European Nomadic languages (Manush's Romnepen, Romani and Yenish). They were also considered by the participants to be specific to the area:
– Folof is a term characteristic of the area, which, according to the participants, is not understood even in other parts of Strasbourg. Its origins are thought to be YenishFootnote 19 and it is used as an insult, to describe someone who is insane.
– Michto (from Romani) may have spread from Eastern France to the rest of the country with the song ‘Michto’ (2011) by the rapper Seth Gueko, whose video clip starts off with a dictionary entry for the term. It is an adjective used as an interjection meaning ‘great/fantastic’!
– Tchaille (2) means ‘girl’, from the Manush tchava (‘girl’).
– Zinda (1) is another expression from Manush, meaning ‘poor him/her’ (more on zinda later).
Despite their idiosyncratic character, and their relative lack of traceability, these expressions are used by a community of speakers and mark the exclusiveness of this community.
3.2 Grammatical forms
The most widespread grammatical variant found in the neighbourhood is the use of post-verb question words in indirect questions following the verb savoir (7). This is common to both ParisFootnote 20 and Strasbourg. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no mention of it in studies linked to earlier corpora such as the Corpus de Français Parlé Parisien des années 2000 (Branca-Rosoff et al., Reference Branca-Rosoff, Fleury, Lefeuvre and Pires2012).
(7) Tu sais c'est qui ma tchaille ? (Karim, Ouf)
Literally: You know it's who my girlfriend?
The following remarks are tentative, given that the figures for each speaker are low (Table 1): the in-situ (je savais pas c’était qui) and traditional forms (tu ne savais pas qui c’était) of indirect questions following the verb savoir were compared, and the proportion of variant forms for each participant calculatedFootnote 21. Oufs and In-Betweeners (who use the variant form in nearly 60% of cases) use the feature more frequently than Bouffons (in-situ used in 30% of cases) overall. In the Bouffons, Tarik and Yasser never use the feature, as would be expected in this more conservative group. However, when looking at participants individually, there are discrepancies between CoPs: unexpectedly, one of the Ouf (Ismail) never uses the in-situ form but uses the traditional form four times. Equally surprising is Idriss (Bouffons) who uses the feature in most cases (three tokens of variant form versus one case of traditional form). In fact, Idriss (21 years old) used to be a typical Ouf. As a rebellious youth, he dropped out of school, and spent a year hanging out with the local gangs, with no plan for the future. Thanks to the support of the youth centre staff, Idriss was successfully reintegrated in school, and passed his secondary school diploma with distinction, securing a permanent position in afterschool care with primary school age children. His experience illustrates the fluidity between CoPs, as he moved from the Ouf category to the Bouffon one. More generally in terms of linguistic variation, Idriss does not use many of the relevant lexical variants, which, like Yasser, could be a deliberate decision, given that the lexicon is the most conscious feature in one's speech (Gadet, Reference Gadet2003) and consequently the easiest to control. Grammatical features are not so perceptible to the speaker, which may explain Idriss’ apparent preference for in-situ forms in indirect questions.
Table 1. Tokens of in-situ and traditional grammatical form per speaker
Jamel (Bouffon) is also an interesting case. He uses the feature just once (8) versus three traditional forms (for example (9)). In the interview Jamel explained that he did not fully embrace the local codes and identified more with his school mates from outside than with the neighbourhood boys, although he had great memories of his early childhood playing with the local crowd. Jamel's fluctuations may be due to his transitioning from the in-situ form, which is widespread in the area, to a more formal register (used in educational settings).
(8) je sais même plus c'est quoi le nom (Jamel, Bouffon)
(I can't even remember what it's called)
(9) il est au collège à euh je sais même plus comment ça s'appelle (Jamel, Bouffon)
(he is in secondary school at erm I can't even remember what it is called)
To conclude, the results (tentative ones given the small number of tokens) are as expected when looking at all the speakers together for each CoP, although there are some divergent behaviours within each CoP. The CoPs are none the less relevant for predicting variant use of the grammatical feature for each individual if we consider the two Bouffons Idriss and Jamel to be exceptions to the rule because they use the variant grammatical form. The participants were surveyed informally during interviews to find out how they felt about the in-situ form. Most (ten out of twelve subjects) did not have any comment to make as the form was unremarkable for them, while two In-Betweeners (Abdel and Rachid) were disapproving of its use, being aware that another more traditional form existed, although they tended to use the in-situ one themselves (Abdel used it four times in the dataset and Rachid twice). Metalinguistic comments on this feature are also discussed in Gardner-Chloros, Secova and Atangana, this volume.
3.3 Innovative quotatives
The quotative system in Strasbourg has some similarities with Paris, where Cheshire and Secova (this issue) found a great diversity of forms. The Strasbourg data is also characterised by a multiplicity of quotatives with an additional one from Arabic: zarma (sometimes transcribed from Arabic zaâma/zaama/zerma/zhema). In Arabic zarma means c'est-à-dire (‘that is to say’), soit disant (‘supposedly’) or par exemple (‘for example’) (Tengour, Reference Tengour2013), and, like genre, occurs both as a discourse marker and a quotative. In Strasbourg zarma was used 41 times, mainly as a discourse marker (see later) (38 tokens) but also three times as a quotative (for example (10)).
Zarma used as a quotative:
(10) moi je suis allé [à la chicha] au-moins dix fois frère (.) mais c'était sur des coups de tête frère (.) c'était pas zarma “j'ai prévu” (Abdel, In-Betweener) (I have been to shisha bars at least ten times brother (.) but it was on a whim brother (.) it was not like “I was planning on going”)
The In-Betweener Abdel commented in his interview on the fact that together with his peers he preferred zarma (“nous on dit zarma”) to the more widespread equivalent genre. This could be a way of expressing allegiance to his Arabic heritage. However in reality Abdel uses genre twice as often as zarma (18 vs. 9 tokens). As in Paris, genre, used as a quotative ((11) and (12)) or as a discourse marker ((13)) appears popular in Strasbourg (87 tokens), particularly within the Bouffon category, although this is mainly due to one speaker, Tarik, who uses the feature frequently.
Genre used as a quotative:
(11) . . .la nems ouais la nemo si ça se dit mais genre “t'as de la nems”. . . (Djawad, Ouf) (mulla yeah mulla actually you can say that like “have you got mulla”)
(12) . . . y'avait eu beaucoup d'accrochages pas genre “je suis insolent et tout j'ai plus 15 ans”. . .(Tarik, Bouffon)
(there had been a lot of hitches not like “I'm arrogant and stuff I'm not 15 anymore”)
3.4 Innovative discourse markers
Genre and zarma are used as discourse markers (13)(14), as reported in other French contexts such as Paris (Gadet, Reference Gadet2017).
(13) c'est comme ça (.) genre en haut il y a un restaurant et en bas il y a la chicha (Abdel, In-Betweener)
(that's how it is (.) like upstairs there's a restaurant and downstairs the shisha bar)
(14) faut mettre zarma deux trucs pour la plage (Karim, Ouf)
(you need to take like two things to go to the beach)
Another discourse marker which, to the best of our knowledge has not been reported in the literature is kaou [kau]. It was initially used to mean au cas où when texting: the expression was traced back to 2007 on an on-line public forumFootnote 22. It has now made its way into spoken language with a semantic shift, as it now commonly means en fait (‘actually’) or écoute (‘listen’). Kaou is widespread in Strasbourg youth interaction (81 tokens were produced by male speakers, in over approximately 12 hours of recording). Here are some examples from the Strasbourg data, spread over four functions.
Kaou used to give instructions or clarify a task:
(15) oh les gars il faut faire une valise kaou pour tout le monde hein (Ismail, Ouf) (hey guys we are actually making one suitcase for everyone OK)
(16) (taking a group photo) faut pas prendre Zara kaou (Abdel, In-Betweener) (do not take Zara actually)
Kaou used to put the record straight, to state a fact:
(17) mais c'est bleu kaou bleu foncé c'est pas noir (Rachid, In-Betweener) (but it is blue actually dark blue not black)
(18) elle était dans ma classe kaou (Karim, Ouf) (she was in my class actually)
Kaou used to express surprise:
(19) ça se nique vite kaou frère je sais pas si j'ai 20 giga ou pas wesh (Rachid, In-Betweener) (it goes fast actually brother I'm not sure whether I do have 20 gigabytes or not really)
(20) le mot graille ça veut dire manger kaou (Rachid, In-Betweener) (the word graille actually means to eat)
Kaou used for emphasis:
(21) prête-moi leFootnote 23 kaou (Abdel, In-Betweener) (come on lend it to me)
(22) elle est où kaou (Walid, In-Betweener) (where the hell is she)
Kaou is thus a versatile expression, which blends into the fast pace of youth interaction, and can easily go unnoticed to listeners who are unaware of it. This became clear when the researcher observed a newly recruited youth worker from Paris interacting with the youngsters.
A small survey across five teenagers in other parts of Alsace (rural and urban)Footnote 24 showed that they also used kaou when speaking and when messaging, amongst peers. However kaou did not appear in the Paris MPF corpus (Gardner-Chloros et al., Reference Gardner-Chloros, Cheshire and Secova2014), and Strasbourg participants commented on their relatives in other parts of France not understanding it. It therefore seems likely to be a regional feature originating in social media. So far, no other research has focused on this innovative feature. In order to gauge the spread of kaou across the French speaking world, a snapshot of its use on Twitter over a week was taken using the TweetchupFootnote 25 application, selecting French tweets worldwide. The result (Figure 5) shows a concentrated use of the feature in Eastern France, and some use in Paris (the same snapshot over a month indicated the same result). Kaou is also occasionally used as a first name and as a surname, which could explain the small dots in other locations. Over the one week period, 94 tokens were reported, and an analysis of every tweet determined that each author was from Eastern France (mainly from Strasbourg) or related to it. This was determined either through self-declared location (when available) or by looking at the context of their tweets, which always referred to Alsace. This snapshot does not tell us how the feature is travelling, but it confirms what research in this neighbourhood of Strasbourg suggested (i.e. a concentrated use of the feature in Eastern France). The metalinguistic comment dated 13th April (2017) on Figure 6 which translates as ‘good luck if you want to explain the word kaou to someone who is not from Strasbourg’ strengthens further the hypothesis that kaou is a regional feature. The second comment in Figure 6 (dated 10th January 2017) translates as ‘did you learn how to use kaou – no still haven't actually (using kaou to say actually) teach me how’, is an example of how the feature is being passed on through social media. There is a humorous twist in this sentence, because the author is pretending not to have learnt yet how to use kaou, while using it to say so.
Figure 5. Use of kaou on Twitter 27/02/2017 to 08/03/2017 using tweetchup.com
Figure 6. Metalinguistic comment related to kaou on Twitter
Given the regional character of kaou, which was sourced in new media and adapted to verbal communication, social media can be considered in this instance as a source of innovative language use, rather than a potential globalising drive which reduces local diversity (Moise, Reference Moise2007).
4 HOW ARE FEATURES TRAVELLING BETWEEN PARIS, STRASBOURG AND OTHER LOCATIONS?
When discussing forms specific to the European Nomadic languages in the CUV, reference was made to the adjective michto which may have travelled between cités with Seth Gueko's song. The innovative use of zarma also originates in music, in the song Zaâma Zaâma by the Algerian Kabyle singer Takfarinas (1999), who immigrated to France in 1994. Rap/hip-hop is particularly popular amongst the youth, and may have shaped some of the innovation by either spreading linguistic features across the country or by introducing new features. For instance the song #Askip by the Paris French-Guinean rapper Black M released late 2016 shows a construction similar to kaou. Askip comes from à ce qu'il parait (‘apparently’) and like kaou originated in texting/messaging. The singer uses Askip phonetically, sticking to the original meaning of the expression, unlike kaou which has gone through a semantic shift.
(23) ‘Askip, si je n'vais pas voter / Ils vont renvoyer ma communauté’
(Apparently if I don't go to vote /They are going to send my community away)
(Black M, Reference Black2016)
Askip did not come up in the Strasbourg data, but it would be interesting to follow up on whether the lyrics of this song impact on the youngsters’ repertoire over the next few years.
In the same song, Black M also uses zarma, but in a different way to the Strasbourg speakers.
(24) ‘Ils font zarma, mais ils m'écoutent en douce’ (They pretend [not to listen to my music] but they are listening to me on the sly)
(Black M, Reference Black2016)
Here zarma is a synonym of genre, sometimes used with faire (see Secova, Reference Secova2015, for a discussion on the expression faire genre). Faire zarma implies here that they (Black M's critics) pretend that they do not listen to his music, when in fact they do so secretly. A highly elliptical expression here (ils font zarma) conveys a lot of information resourcefully.
In addition to rap music, movies may also foreground CUV features. For instance Caubet (Reference Caubet and Ledegen2007) refers to the film ‘Wesh wesh, qu'est-ce qui se passe ?’ (Ameur-Zaïmeche, Reference Ameur-Zaïmeche2002) in relation to the expression wesh, an expression used 258 times in the entire Strasbourg dataset (40 hours of recording).
The Strasbourg speakers frequently alluded to films or music when discussing the CUV, and various instances of metalinguistic awareness were evidenced during interviews: one participant described how in Clermont-Ferrand his cousins did not understand the meaning of kaou, which corresponds to the findings from the Twitter snapshot (Figure 5). Some participants were also aware of expressions specific to other parts of Strasbourg. Metalinguistic awareness can also be found in on-line public forums, where youngsters post queries about certain vernacular expressions to their peers, with some users posting very precise answers. Such comments can be found on the video game website jeuxvideo.fr which has a public forum in which youngsters occasionally discuss language publicly. Dico des mots (Figure 7) gives the opportunity to Internet users to post a term for the public to comment upon. For example, the European Nomadic expression zinda was posted by a user (Blogger 1, Figure 7) suggesting a definition back in 2006. This gave rise to a debate over 10 years (Figure 7), which demonstrates how language can be travelling around France: Blogger 2 and 5 give an indication about their location in Eastern France (Metz and Strasbourg), Blogger 6 compares the Eastern France meaning with Paris and Blogger 8 adds insight from Marseille. Blogger 7 uses the insult lossbo (the verlan for bolosse, an equivalent to English ‘jerk’) to disagree with the contribution from Strasbourg. Blogger 9 clarifies further the meaning of zinda and alludes to its European Nomadic origin with gens du voyage (‘travellers’) and Gitans (‘Gypsies’). Metalinguistic awareness is particularly salient in the final comment (Blogger 10) where a participant of European Nomadic origins explains how she/he learnt the expression from her/his mother. Nomadic languages are mostly spoken and illiteracy is the norm amongst older generations, because constant travelling made schooling difficultFootnote 27. This is consistent with the query related to the spelling of zinda by Blogger 10 and the observation on her/his mother's pronunciation (25). Information is also shared about the elaborate emotions linked to the term zinda, described as belonging to the heart of Manush identity.
(25) Translation (Blogger 10, Figure 7)
Blogger 10. . . ‘I have been searching the correct spelling for this word for a long time. It is a word that my mum taught me. She says zindé because she pronounces a as é. This word means a lot to me. It expresses compassion, when one feels empathy towards someone's suffering. I believe it is at the core of Manush solidarity and the learning of altruism that binds us together. According to my mother this word makes us what we are: tie-forgers without borders. My mum always says that whereas non-Nomadic people may have a heart made of stone, and are unable to see or feel the pain, the Manush people will be touched and compassionate, feeling zinda’. . .
Figure 7. On-line forum (extracts) about the interjection Zinda! Footnote 26
In a few on-line comments, information is shared about language use in several French locations (Marseille, Metz, Paris, Strasbourg), and extremely precise metalinguistic comments are made in relation to the symbolic meaning of the expression zinda.
CONCLUSION
A number of linguistic innovations are shared by the French youth in Paris and in Strasbourg. New media (rap/hip-hop, social media [on the Internet]) as well as more traditional media (movies, television and radio) all appear to participate in the dissemination of linguistic features. These media do not seem to diminish regional distinctiveness in the case of Strasbourg, where regional features and forms specific to the locality are found. Social media can also become a source of innovative localised language use, adding features to the regional pool, as was described with the innovative feature kaou, sourced in new media and adapted to verbal communication. It will be interesting to monitor how kaou progresses over the next few years, particularly whether it spreads beyond Eastern France.
As in Tetreault's studies, youngsters in Strasbourg use all the available resources around them: traditional home heritage features (including crossing into the varieties of other local communities), French ones, Alsatian regional ones as well as using social media to express themselves. The rich local lexicon has borrowed from many of the linguistic communities present in the neighbourhood, and has embraced some traditional Alsatian regional features. This embodies the heterogeneity of the roots of the Strasbourg youth who participated in this study: they are Maghrebi through their ancestors, as well as Alsatian through their lived experience on the cité territory (terter in the CUV), growing up in linguistically centralised France and speaking a distinct variety of French.
