Language and communications

• With more than 100 million French speakers in over 50 countries throughout the world, it's not surprising that French accents and dialects vary considerably, even within France itself. Broadly speaking there is a north-south divide in the language, with pronunciation split along old provincial lines. In medieval times, Southern France was the home of the Langue d'Oc, while Northern and central France spoke the Langue d'Oil (pronounced 'doy' as in 'boy'). This dialect was adopted by the Paris region and gradually became the standard idiom, developing into modern French.



• Traces of both these ancient languages remain in French accents and vocabulary to this day. The word oil developed into the word oui, yes, while the Langue d'Oc developed into Occitan and included Provençal, a dialect still used in the South of France. Around 3% of the population also speak German dialects, predominantly in the eastern provinces of Alsace-Lorraine and Moselle. Flemish is spoken in the northeast, while Basque is spoken mainly along the French-Spanish border. Catalan is spoken in the French Pyrenees, while the Celtic language Breton is spoken in the north west of France. You'll also find speakers of Corsu on the island of Corsica, though like other dialects it does not have official status.



• Colloquial French, l'argot, is incredibly rich and inventive, and you'll hear many unusual words in everyday speech. For example, food is often referred to as la bouffe, and there are several colourful terms for money - for example les ronds, le fric and les balles, literally 'bullets'. Another feature of l'argot is verlan, a playful secret language which plays around with syllables in words. The word verlan itself comes from reversing the syllables of the word l'envers, 'backwards'. So fou, 'mad', becomes ouf, femme, 'woman', becomes meuf, and café, 'coffee', becomes feca. Many words in verlan have become so commonplace that they are used in everyday French, particularly among young people.



• Making phone contact while in France is relatively simple via the France Télécom network. Public telephones are numerous and the majority accept une télécarte, a phone card, available from la poste, the post office, or le tabac, the tobacconist's. Some booths still accept euros, particularly those in cafés and restaurants. France is very well covered by mobile phone operators. Find out from your own operator which French network to roam on when you use your mobile phone in France, otherwise your phone may select a default network which may not be the cheapest.



• France's ageing Minitel, home videotext databank service, has recently been given a new lease of life by being hooked up to the Internet. Launched in 1983, the no-frills system was originally used to electronically search France Télécom's database of names, addresses and numbers, as well as sending messages. Now France Télécom is trying to widen the appeal of Minitel to a younger audience and has made it available on the Internet. You can use Minitel for free at the post office, and in the many cafés internet that have sprung up in cities.



• You're spoilt for choice when it comes to radio stations in France. State-run Radio France runs a range of national and local services and its flagship speech-based station France Inter and news station France Info are worth a listen. Another good source of news and cultural information is RFI (Radio France Internationale) the equivalent of the BBC World Service, which covers all cultural subjects including music, literature and technology from around the francophone world.



• France has six main terrestrial TV channels. The main domestic channel is TF1. France 2 broadcasts films and light entertainment, while France 3 shows documentaries. Arte/France 5 (also known as La Cinquième) is a joint Franco-German cultural venture that transmits simultaneously in French and German. It specialises in highbrow programmes, daily documentaries and serious French and German movies. Trendy youth watch M6 for its showbiz and Canal+, Europe's first subscription channel, which provides films and sport. There are plans for an external satellite TV news channel, Canal France International 24.



• Even though there are over 100 daily newspapers in France, only around a third of the population actually reads a national paper. High-brow Le Monde is the favourite among business people, intellectuals and politicians, followed by the right-wing broadsheets such as Le Figaro, la Tribune, or les Echos. Easier to read is the more centre-left national daily Libération and if you're a fan of political satire, you can buy Le Canard Enchainé, literally 'the chained duck', or Charlie Hebdo, which are full of gossip, jokes and criticism of political personalities. The top-selling tabloid is Le Parisien, published outside Paris as Aujourd'hui, while L'Équipe is dedicated to sports coverage.



• There are also numerous weekly and monthly magazines you can browse on all aspects of French life. Many of the daily papers publish their own specialist weekly or monthly editions. There's also left-wing weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, published in Paris, as well as the more right-wing L'Express. Science fans can catch up on popular science debates in Ça m'intéresse, literally 'That interests me'. There's also Paris-Match for gossip about stars and the royal families and trendy Nova, which has excellent listings of cultural events.

Links

Languages across Europe - for more in-depth information on French dialects and languages from BBCi.

UNESCO guide - find out more about the disappearing dialects and endangered languages of France.

Minitel - the official site, with everything you need to know about using France's home videotext databank service. In French.

RFI - the official site of Radio France Internationale.

French media guide - a web guide to press, magazine and broadcast media, from Discover France.