Regional French of Touraine

The regional French of Touraine more usually known as tourangeau is the alternative of the French in this area. Indeed, if the Touraine were, and is still, famous for " its beautiful parler" , one meets there like everywhere in France of the particular uses of the language of the words.

This reputation of French practiced in Touraine is extremely old and certainly related to the frequent stays that there made the kings. Thus as of the 16th century, Rabelais is made the echo of this reputation as these exchanges between Pantagruel and Panurge testify some:

“- Dea, my amy, dist Pantagruel, don't you sçavez to speak François? - If faictz very well, lord, respondit the compaignon; God mercy. It is my natural and maternal language, because I was born and ay esté nourry young person with the garden of France, it is Touraine.” (Pantagruel, IX).

The guides or routes bound for the foreigners remaining in France were made the echo of this opinion. At the beginning of the 17th century, a young German student Johan Zinzerling publishes in 1616 the Latin account in of his voyage in France, Itinerarium Galliae , under the name of Jodocus Sincerus. Here what he says of the speech of the Loire Valley, of Blois with Tours:

“French whom one speaks in this country is extremely pure, not only downtown but in the countryside and the boroughs close. Maupas the sign the abroads and everyone grants the palm in this field to him.” (quoted by Gelly 1984, p. 1013-1014).

The folklorist tourangeau Jacques-Marie Rougé studied the local speech at the beginning of the XXe century, and published a glossary in his " Folklore of Touraine" in 1931.

Random links: