2 Origins and dialectic variations

Picard, like French, is one of the langues d'oïl and belongs to the Gallo- Roman family of languages. It consists of all the varieties used for writing ( Latin: scriptae) in the north of France from before the year 1000 (in the south of France at that time the langues d'oc or occitan languages were used). Often the langues d'oïl are referred to simply as Old French.

Picard is phonetically quite different to the central langues d'oïl, which evolved into the modern French language. Among the most notable traits, the evolution in Picard towards palatalization is less marked than in the langues d'oïl, in which languages it is particularly striking; /k/ or /g/ before /j/, tonic /i/ and /e/, as well as in front of tonic /a/ and /ɔ/ (the open /o/ of the French porte) in central Old French, but not in Picard:

• Picard keval ~ Old French cheval (horse; pronounced tcheval rather than the modern sheval), from *kábal ( vulgar Latin cáballus): retaining the original /k/ in Picard before tonic /a/ and /ɔ/ (the open /o/ of porte)
• Picard gambe ~ Old French jambe (leg; pronounced dzhambe rather than the modern zhambe – "zh" represents the ge sound in beige), from *gámbe (vulgar Latin gámba): absence of palatalization of /g/ in Picard before tonic /a/ and /ɔ/ (the open /o/ of porte)
• Picard kief ~ Old French chef (leader), from *káf ( Latin cáput): less palatalization of /k/ in Picard
• Picard cherf ~ Old French cerf (stag; pronounced tcherf and tserf respectively), from *kárf (Latin cérvus): simple palatalization in Picard, palatalization then sibilation (hissing) in Old French

The effects of palatalization can be summarised as:

• /k/ and (tonic) /y/, /i/ or /e/: Picard /ʧ/ (pronounced tch and written ch) ~ Old French /ts/ (written c)
• /k/ and /g/ + tonic /a/ or /ɔ/ (the open /o/ of porte): Picard /k/ and /g/ ~ Old French /ʧ/ (written ch) and /ʤ/ (pronounced dzh like in the French djebel and written j).

This leads to striking differences, such as Picard cachier (pronounced catchier) ~ Old French chacier (pronounced tchatsier, which later took the modern French form of chasser, pronounced shasser, which means "to hunt").

Because of how near Paris is to the northernmost regions of France, French (that is, the languages that were spoken in and around Paris) greatly influenced Picard. This closeness between Picard and French is the reason why Picard is not always recognised as a language in its own right, as opposed to a "distortion of French" as it is often thought of.

The Picard language is really made up of variety of different languages, which are however all extremely closely related. It is difficult to list them all accurately in the absence of specific studies on the dialectical variations, but we can probably provisionally distinguish between the following principle varieties: Amiénois, Vimeu-Ponthieu, Vermandois, Thiérache, Beauvaisis, "chtimi" (Bassin Minier, Lille), circum-lilloises varieties (Roubaix, Tourcoing, Mouscron, Comines), "rouchi" ( Valenciennois) and Tournaisis, Borain, Artésien rural, Boulonnais. These varieties are defined by specific phonetic, morphological or lexical traits, and sometimes by a distinctive literary tradition.

3 Some words and phrases

Many patois words are very similar to French, but a large number of words are totally specific to Picard, principally terms relating to mining.

Here are several typical northern phrases (Picard, French, "English"):

Mi à quatre heures, j'archine eune bonne tartine.

Moi à quatre heures, je mange une bonne tartine.

"At four o'clock, I eat a good slice of buttered bread."

Quind un Ch'ti mi i'est'à l'agonie, savez vous bin che qui li rind la vie ? I bot un d'mi. (Les Capenoules (a music group))

Quand un Nordiste est à l'agonie, savez-vous ce qui lui rend la vie ? Il boit une bière.

"When a northerner is in his death-throes, do you know what revives him? He drinks a beer."

Chuque; sucre, bonbon; "sugar, a sweet/candy"

Pindant l'briquet un galibot composot, assis sur un bos,

L'air d'eune musique qu'i sifflotot

Ch'étot tellemint bin fabriqué, qu'les mineurs lâchant leurs briquets

Comminssotent à's'mette à'l'danser (Edmond Tanière - La polka du mineur)

Pendant le casse-croûte un jeune mineur composa, assis sur un bout de bois

L'air d'une musique qu'il sifflota

C'était tellement bien fait que les mineurs lâchant leurs casse-croûte

Commencèrent à le danser.

"During lunch a young miner composed, sat on a piece of wood

"The melody of a tune that he whistled

"It was so well done that the miners, leaving their lunches,

"Started to dance to it" (Edmond Tanière - La polka du mineur, "The Miner's Polka")

Brayou; pleurnichard; "crybaby"

I'n'faut pas qu'ches glaines is cantent pus fort que'ch'co.

Il ne faut pas que les poules chantent plus fort que le coq.

"Hens must not sing louder than the rooster" (n.b. this saying really refers to men and women rather than poultry)

Moqueu d'gins : railleur, persifleur; "someone who mocks or jeers at people" (compare gens, which is French for "people")

Ramaseu d'sous; personne âpre au gain; "a greedy person"

4 Picard in use

Picard is not taught in French schools (apart from a few one-off and isolated schemes) and is only spoken between friends or in the home. It has nevertheless been the object of research and studies in Lille and Amiens universities. Since people are nowadays able to move around France more easily than in past centuries, the different varieties of Picard are converging and becoming more similar. In its daily use, Picard is tending to lose its identity and to be confused with regional French. At the same time, even though most Northerners can understand Picard today, fewer and fewer are able to speak it, and people who speak Picard as their first language are increasingly rare.

However, Picard is far from dead and constitutes a lively and large part of the daily life and folklore of the region.

5 Written Picard

Today Picard is primarily a spoken language. This was not the case originally, indeed both the medieval period and that which corresponds to Middle French have provided a wealth of literary texts in Picard. However Picard was not able to compete with the inter-regional literary language, which French became, and was slowly reduced to the status of a "regional language."

A more recent body of Picard literature, written during the last two centuries, also exists. The birth of a republican and centralised France after the French Revolution sparked an interest in keeping the old regional identities alive all over the country. Therefore written Picard is simply a transcription of the spoken language. For that reason, words are often spelled in a variety of different way (in the same way that English and French were before they were standardised). One way of spelling Picard words looks very similar to French. This is undoubtedly the easiest for French speakers to understand, but it is also the root of the belief that Picard is only a corruption of French rather than a language in its own right. Various spelling methods have been proposed since the 1960s to offset this disadvantage, and to give Picard a visual identity that is distinct from French. At the present time, there is a consensus, at least between universities, in favor of the written form known as Feller-Carton (based on the Walloon spelling system – which was developed by Jules Feller – and adapted for Picard by Prof. Fernand Carton ).

6 Learning Picard

Picard, although it is primarily a spoken language, does also have a body of written literature: poetry, songs (" P'tit quinquin" for example), etc.

A certain number of dictionaries and patois guides also exist (for French speakers):

• René Debrie, Le cours de picard pour tous - Eche pikar, bèl é rade (le Picard vite et bien). Parlers de l'Amiénois. Paris, Omnivox, 1983 (+ 2 cassettes), 208p.
• Alain Dawson, Le picard de poche. Paris : Assimil, 2003, 192p.
• Alain Dawson, Le "chtimi" de poche, parler du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais. Paris : Assimil, 2002, 194p.
• Armel Depoilly (A.D. d'Dérgny), Contes éd no forni, et pi Ramintuvries (avec lexique picard-français). Abbeville : Ch'Lanchron, 1998, 150p.
• Jacques Dulphy, Ches diseux d'achteure : diries 1989. Amiens : Picardies d'Achteure, 1992, 71p. + cassette
• Gaston Vasseur, Dictionnaire des parlers picards du Vimeu (Somme), avec index français-picard (par l'équipe de Ch'Lanchron d'Abbeville). Fontenay-sous-Bois : SIDES, 1998 (rééd. augmentée), 816p. (11.800 termes)
• Gaston Vasseur, Grammaire des parlers picards du Vimeu (Somme) - morphologie, syntaxe, anthropologie et toponymie. 1996, 144p.

7 Related articles

• Romance languages
• European languages
• Languages of France
• P'tit quinquin (a song in Picard)

8 External links

• The Princess & Picard - an essay about Picard from Indiana University, USA
• Language Museum - a short sample of Picard translated into English
• Qu'est-ce que le Picard? (in French) - history of Picard

Romance languages Languages of France Languages of Belgium

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