Picard language
Picard is a langue d'oïl of the Romance language family spoken in the northernmost region of France and parts of Hainaut province in Belgium. Administratively, this area is divided between the French Hauts-de-France region and the Belgian Wallonia along the border between both countries due to its traditional core being the districts of Tournai and Mons.
The language or dialect is referred to by different names, as residents of Picardy call it simply Picard, but in the more populated region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais it is called Ch'ti or Ch'timi. This is the area that makes up Romance Flanders, around the metropolis of Lille and Douai, and northeast Artois around Béthune and Lens. Picard is also named Rouchi around Valenciennes, Roubaignot around Roubaix.
In 1998, Picard native speakers amounted to 700,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom were elderly people. Since its daily use had drastically declined, Picard was declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation a "severely endangered language". However, as of 2023, the Picard language was listed as "vulnerable" by UNESCO.
Origin of the word ''ch'ti''
The word ch'ti, chtimi or ch'timi to designate the Picard language was invented during the First World War by Poilus from non-Picard speaking areas to refer to their brothers in arms from Picardy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais. It is an onomatopoeia created based on the frequent use of the /ʃ/ phoneme and of the /ʃti/ sound in Picard: "ch'ti" means the one, as in the sentence "ch'est chti qui a fait cha" , for instance.Recognition
gave full official recognition to Picard as a regional language along with Walloon, Lorrain language, Champenois and Lorraine German in its 1990 decree. The French government has not followed suit and has not recognized Picard as an official regional language, but some reports have recognized Picard as a language distinct from French.A 1999 report by Bernard Cerquiglini, the director of the Institut national de la langue française stated:
The gap has continued to widen between French and the varieties of Oïl languages, which today we would call "French dialects"; Frainc-Comtou dialect, Walloon, Picard, Norman, Gallo, Poitevin, Saintongeais, Burgundian language, Lorrain must be accepted among the regional languages of France; by placing them on the list , they will be known from then on as langues d'oïl.
Even if it has no official status as a language in France, Picard, along with all the other languages spoken in France, benefits from actions led by the Culture Minister's General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France.
Origins
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 in the north of France from before 1000. Often, the langues d'oïl are referred to simply as Old French.Picard is phonetically quite different from the North-central langues d'oïl, which evolved into modern French. Among the most notable traits, the evolution in Picard towards palatalization is less marked than in the central langues d'oïl in which it is particularly striking; or before, tonic and, as well as in front of tonic and in central Old French but not in Picard:
- Picard keval ~ Old French cheval, from *kabal : retaining the original in Picard before tonic and.
- Picard gambe ~ Old French jambe, from *gambe : absence of palatalization of in Picard before tonic and.
- Picard kief ~ Old French chef, from *kaf : less palatalization of in Picard
- Picard cherf ~ Old French cerf, from *kerf : simple palatalization in Picard, palatalization then fronting in Old French
- and , or : Picard ~ Old French
- and + tonic or : Picard and ~ Old French and.
Because of the proximity of Paris to the northernmost regions of France, French greatly influenced Picard and vice versa. The closeness between Picard and French causes the former to not always be recognised as a language in its own right, but rather a "distortion of French" as it is often viewed.
Dialectal variations
Despite being geographically and syntactically affiliated according to some linguists due to their inter-comprehensible morphosyntactic features, Picard in Picardy, Ch'timi and Rouchi still intrinsically maintain conspicuous discrepancies.Picard includes a variety of very closely related dialects. It is difficult to list them all accurately in the absence of specific studies on the dialectal variations, but these varieties can probably provisionally be distinguished: Amiénois, Vimeu-Ponthieu, Vermandois, Thiérache, Beauvaisis, "chtimi", dialects in other regions near Lille, "rouchi" and Tournaisis, Borain, Artésien rural, Boulonnais. The varieties are defined by specific phonetic, morphological and lexical traits and sometimes by a distinctive literary tradition.
The Ch'ti language was re-popularised by the 2008 French comedy film Welcome to the Sticks which broke nearly every box office record in France and earned over $245,000,000 worldwide on an 11 million euro budget.
Verbs and tenses
The first person plural often appears in spoken Picard in the form of the neutral third person in; however, the written form prioritizes os. On the other hand, the spelling of conjugated verbs will depend on the pronunciation, which varies within the Picard domain. For instance southern Picard would read il étoait / étoét while northern Picard would read il étot. This is noted as variants in the following:Vocabulary
The majority of Picard words derive from Vulgar Latin.| English | Picard | French |
| English | Inglé | Anglais |
| Hello! | Bojour ! or Bojour mes gins ! or Salut ti z'aute ! | Bonjour |
| Good evening! | Bonsoèr ! | Bonsoir |
| Good night! | La boinne nuit ! | Bonne nuit ! |
| Goodbye! | À s'ervir ! or À l'arvoïure ! or À t'ervir ! | Au revoir ! |
| Have a nice day! | Eune boinne jornée ! | Bonne journée ! |
| Please/if you please | Sins vos komander or Sins t' komander | S'il vous plaît |
| Thank you | Merchi | Merci |
| I am sorry | Pardon or Échtchusez-mi | Pardon or Excusez-moi |
| What is your name? | Kmint qu'os vos aplez ? | Comment vous appelez-vous ? |
| How much? | Combin qu'cha coûte ? | Combien ça coute ? |
| I do not understand. | Éj n'comprinds poin. | Je ne comprends pas. |
| Yes, I understand. | Oui, j' comprinds. | Oui, je comprends. |
| Help! | À la rescousse ! | À l'aide |
| Can you help me please? | Povez-vos m'aider, sins vos komander ? | Pouvez-vous m'aider, s'il vous plaît ? |
| Where are the toilets? | D'ousqu'il est ech tchioér ? | Où sont les toillettes ? |
| Do you speak English? | Parlez-vos inglé ? | Parlez-vous anglais ? |
| I do not speak Picard. | Éj n'pérle poin picard. | Je ne parle pas picard. |
| I do not know. | Éj n'sais mie. | Je ne sais pas. |
| I know. | Éj sais. | Je sais. |
| I am thirsty. | J'ai soé. | J'ai soif. |
| I am hungry. | J'ai fan. | J'ai faim. |
| How are you? / How are things going? / How is everything? | Comint qu'i va ? or Cha va t'i ? | Comment vas-tu ? or Ça va ? |
| I am fine. | Cha va fin bien. | Ça va bien. |
| Sugar | Chuque | Sucre |
| Crybaby | Brayou | Pleurnicheur |
Some phrases
Many words are very similar to French, but a large number are unique to Picard—principally terms relating to mining or farming.Here are several typical phrases in Picard, accompanied by French and English translations:
Numerals
Cardinal numbers in Picard from 1 to 20 are as follows:| English | Picard | French |
| One | un / eune | un / une |
| Two | deus | deux |
| Three | troés | trois |
| Four | quate | quatre |
| Five | chonc | cinq |
| Six | sis | six |
| Seven | sèt | sept |
| Eight | uit | huit |
| Nine | neu | neuf |
| Ten | dis | dix |
| Eleven | onze | onze |
| Twelve | dousse | douze |
| Thirteen | trèsse | treize |
| Fourteen | quatore | quatorze |
| Fifteen | tchinse | quinze |
| Sixteen | sèse | seize |
| Seventeen | dis-sèt | dix-sept |
| Eighteen | dis-uit | dix-huit |
| Nineteen | dis-neu | dix-neuf |
| Twenty | vint | vingt |
Use
Picard is not taught in French schools and is generally only spoken among friends or family members. It has nevertheless been the object of scholarly research at universities in Lille and Amiens, as well as at Indiana University. Since people are now 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 distinctive features and may 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, particularly under 50.The 2008 film Welcome to the Sticks, starring comedian Dany Boon, deals with Ch'ti language and culture and the perceptions of the region by outsiders, and it was the highest-grossing French film of all time at the box office in France until it was surpassed by The Intouchables.