Julien Barret has a knack for words and has made a career out of this: a former journalist writing articles on culture, mainly rap music, he ventured into poetry and writing and even tried being a slammeur [spoken word poet who performs to a live audience and panel of judges].
He is also the author of several books about the French language.
Mr Barret is not an academic, nor does he consider himself a linguist in the traditional sense.
Instead, his focus is very much on recognising the influence rap music has had on the French language.
The Connexion contacted him after reports the argot (or slang) has even spread across the Channel. One word in particular, ‘wesh’ [an informal greeting or interjection used in a similar way to ‘yo’ or ‘right’], is now being widely used by young people in London.
This typically French slang migrated to the UK after British rapper Central Cee used it on a track called Bolide Noir.
We spoke about the wesh ‘epidemic’, the relationship between the French language and the US/UK, and whether Connexion readers could borrow from his personal experience to learn French through rap and stand-up comedy.
We also provide untranslated examples of lyrics or sketches by several French figures mentioned in the interview for further interest (see below).
As Mr Barret said: “[Readers] need to master the argot. It is the hardest but funniest form of language.”
On the wesh epidemic in London, you claimed it was the first time a French word had been exported to an anglophone country through rap. Do you still maintain this?
It has, traditionally, almost always been US rap that has influenced French lyrics. [French rapper] Booba said as much in a track back in 1997: “Paris is just like the States, 10 years late.” For a long time, French rap simply followed American rap.
Now, American rappers use a lot of fancy French words such as rendez-vous or ménage à trois...
…enfant terrible or femme fatale. In the US, it seems French words are borrowed to show off someone’s culture, education and social background, whereas French people using English words do it out of practicality or to be cool. Do you share that observation as well?
I agree about the snobbishness. [French linguist] Bernard Cerquiglini explained in La langue anglaise n’existe pas that half of all English words come from French.
He quotes Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, who wrote in 1697 that: “I cannot but think that the using and introducing of foreign terms of art or foreign words into speech while our language barriers under no penury or scarcity of words is an intolerable grievance.” In the book, he put the words introducing, foreign, terms, art, language, neighbours, penury, scarcity, intolerable and grievance in italics to signal that they all come from French. Let’s just take one here: ‘foreign’. It comes from the French forrain, which means étranger.
So the wesh epidemic is a return to how things were?
There are countless words crossing the Channel in both directions. Redingote (frock coat) for instance, comes from ‘riding coat’, ‘riding’ which comes from a French verb rider and coat from cotte de mailles (coat of mail). I love the verb ‘performer’. Many say it is an Anglicism. It is true, but it borrows from ancient French ‘parformer’, which borrows in itself from the latin ‘performare’.
In an interview with The Connexion, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse [the late perpetual secretary of the Académie Française] mentioned her pet hate was politicians saying they were ‘en capacité de’ because it derived from the English but did not mean anything in French.
This circumlocution is a bit heavy, I agree.
Does rap help make French a ‘living’ language?
Yes, of course. Words change meaning over time. They have a literal one, often the first. The second is often more closely aligned to the world of imagery. It is called a catachresis, a figurative meaning. Wesh lost some of its semantic content to gain greater semantic power by becoming more of an interjection than an adverb. It now means hello or what’s up? or can be an interjection to express different sentiments, such as fear or anger.
Evidence of that language change is confirmed by writers and newspapers. There comes a moment when you have to take Booba or Aya Nakamura into account, just as you would Balzac or Shakespeare. The words we hear most nowadays are spoken by artists, mainly rappers and stand-up comedians. These are the artists who keep the language alive. We need them.
The goal, on an individual level, rests on “the importance of mastering several registers of a language, the only way to express itself as precisely as the context requires,” you said. What are the registers that expats should master?
They would need to master the argot. It is the hardest, but funniest. It remains the most innovative form of language, according to César Chesneau Dumarsais, a philosopher and grammarian from the 17th Century, who said: “I am convinced that there are more figures of speech being spoken at the farmers’ market than over days of academic meetings.”
This is exactly the experience of French a majority of our readers have. It is a daily exploration, that of the farmers’ market and the boulangerie…
We see it with stand-up comedian Coluche or singer Aya Nakamura – two artists who brought many new words into the French vocabulary.
There is sort of a misunderstanding about the role of rap in society. It is not an aesthetic based on clarity, but rather a demonstration of phonetic and rhythmic force that looks to produce effects, elements of speech rather than delivering a sense.
My interest for English was born out of an infatuation for Eminem at around 12. I understood maybe 10% of what he said, but I was fascinated by the flow, the pace, the plays-on-words, the arrogance, the bravado and provocation…
Eminem is a great example because speed is such a strong component of his style. Most French rap fans listen to US rap without understanding most of it.
The argument about comprehension to disqualify, disregard with disdain, anyone listening to rap is ill-fated. It’s fine to not understand some of what we listen to.
Read more: Really speak like a local… use these French filler words
Similarly, can our readers learn French by listening to rapper Booba, reading Louis-Ferdinand Céline or watching stand-up comedian Raymond Devos?
I do not think Céline is useful because his work is dated. Raymond Devos, on the other hand [a Belgian humorist best known for his sophisticated puns and surreal humour] could be very, very interesting. Orthophonist Aurore Ponsonnet developed a method to learn French that is based on homophonic words.
Raymond Devos is all about that, in every sketch, all the time (see below). And Booba is an excellent introduction to understanding French as it is spoken in the street.
‘Mesdames, messieurs! Ici-bas pour représenter. On roule tous à 200…
…certains ont pété l’essieu.’ Outstanding punchline! ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Here on Earth representing. We all drive at 200. Some have broken the axle’ – with the word ‘essieu’ (axle) to suggest “cieux” (the Heavens) and create an opposition with ici-bas (here on Earth).
Would you consider Booba to be a poet? Or even a writer? His writing style was compared to Céline, and praised for ‘metagore’, a figure of speech invented to describe his ability to conjure gory metaphors.
Rap is a form of oral poetry. Some think it is even literature. Literature remains, for me, the stuff of books.
Rap is closer to songwriting. The greatest difficulty for the genre is to be able to stand the test of orality and be equally powerful in writing.
Booba passes the test, but he is one of very few. Some poems of Baudelaire or Rimbaud are made to be written and read. Others are made only to be listened to.
The problem French language has, in comparison to English, is the growing gap between oral and written language, a gap that Céline tightened a bit. Orality is a major component of Shakespeare’s writing, for instance. Less so in the case of 17th-Century playwright Jean Racine.
Is it what you referred to when you told the New York Times about the “cult of purity” around the French language?
It is related. It goes back to French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau, who said: “What is to be conceived easily is expressed easily and the words to say it come naturally.”
Playwrights Racine and Corneille used fewer words than their English counterparts because they look to be part of a dramatic beauty in a French way, using [verse structure] alexandrines, a syntax that is skillful, virtuoso.
A thought needed to be conveyed the shortest way possible. It was about the art of precision, concision – not abundance. A form of purity.
How would you define the French language?
What interests me is how it sounds. Going back to rap, it reintroduced an element of rhythm into the language which, because of what we’ve just said about purity, will break the monotony that was predominant in chanson française, French songwriting. We have rejuvenated resonance, rhythm, accents, elements that were strong components of poetry of the Middle Ages.
The French language needed to take inspiration from African-American communities in rap to bring back elements of rhythm, flow, scansion, punchlines – another word inspired from the French and borrowing from the vaudeville and cabaret culture.
You published Tu parles bien la France in 2016. What does it mean to speak French properly?
Bernard Cerquiglini, once again, has written a book called Eloge de la variante. I want to praise variations. I want there to be a profusion of words. To speak well is to speak naturally, as the ancient Roman writer Cicero advocated.
It means adapting to the context, varying your language, sometimes relying on emotions with hyperbole, at other times being more restrained.
In the case of our readers, language is a strong element of integration. Can they speak “naturally”?
Nobody speaks French properly. Everybody makes mistakes because the rules are extremely complex. And each and everyone only sees the mistakes of others. We correct each other constantly.
I am now thinking about the best way to teach French. I think I would lean on rhetoric and oratory. This is what schools did previously with the Grand oral au Baccaulaureat. Likewise, students had classes on rhetoric skills until 1902 before these were replaced by commentary texts and dissertation writing.
We are slowly returning to that time, although the dictée remains very much at play in schools.
Artificial intelligence will give us the ability to write more clearly. I think students should then focus on the art of thinking through speech. The most important thing is to express a thought to integrate into a society, avoid violence and frustration.
“Is the mediocrity of our universe dependent on our power to enunciate?” asked the 19th-century surrealist poet André Breton. Our power to enunciate is what makes the world more peaceful. This is what speech is about.
What would be the book, poem, rap song you would recommend to our readers?
L’Amour la poésie, a collection of poems by the surrealist Paul Éluard.
Read more: 10 French songs that have sparked debate over the years
Decipher these tongue twisters
Find links on YouTube for the last two by typing ‘Raymond Devos – Oui Dire (Olympia 1999)’ and ‘Lino - 12ème Lettre’. Find lyrics of ‘12ème Lettre’ on genius.com using the search bar.
1. “a a débuté comme ça. Moi, j’avais jamais rien dit. Rien. C’est Arthur Ganate qui m’a fait parler. Arthur, un étudiant, un carabin lui aussi, un camarade. On se rencontre donc place Clichy. C’était après le déjeuner. Il veut me parler. Je l’écoute. « Restons pas dehors ! qu’il me dit. Rentrons ! » Je rentre avec lui. Voilà. « Cette terrasse, qu’il commence, c’est pour les œufs à la coque ! Viens par ici !” The first sentences of ‘Journey to the End of the Night’ by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
2. “Si au lieu de dire “l’oreille”, on dit “l’ouïe”, alors... L’ouïe de l’oie a ouï... Pour peu que l’oie appartienne à Louis, alors là, c’est... L’ouïe de l’oie de Louis a ouï. Ah oui ? Et qu’a ouï l’ouïe de l’oie de Louis ? Elle a ouï ce que toute oie oit ! Et qu’oit toute oie ? Eh bien, toute oie oit quand mon chien aboie le soir au fond des bois : toute oie oit “Whoua ! Whoua !”, qu’elle oit l’oie!”
Sketch by Raymond Devos[1] on the verb ‘ouïr’ (to hear).
3. “Qui c’est? C’est L.I.N.O. le L, la douzième lettre, l’alien, le libre penseur, l’alerte, l’unique, le seul, la balle à ailettes, le lanceur de lames liquides. Je t’allume, c’est de l’art à inhaler. J’me livre, salue la vie sur l’air de Live & Die in L.A. Là c’est la lutte finale, sans délais. Vite, je me soulage l’âme à l’oral. Fêlé, j’suis l’élu m’a dit l’oracle. L’électron libre, j’ai l’aura qui luit sous la lune, lance des litres de lyrics et les livres comme les lamelles dans l’alu.”
Lyrics from the song ‘La 12ème lettre[2] ’ by rapper Lino, which relies entirely on an alliteration of the letter L (the 12th letter of the alphabet).
