October 25, 2004

How to Speak like a Cape Bretoner
posted by jb 20 years ago
  • Pretty much...a friend runs a Newfie bar here on the west coast popular with Maritimers in general. And they sell a shitload of Keith's. I tell you, go into a town where you don't know a soul, and if you can find a Maritimer's bar, you're good, because they'll take you right in. You'll end up lunatic drunk and running down the street naked by the end of the evening, but with considerable more friends than you started with.
  • That's because sailors never drink.
  • Here's a bit about Cape Breton, which, for benefit of the geographically challenged, is that odd bit sticking off the northeast end of Nova Scotia.
  • IANACB, but I t'inks dat "b'y" is a Newfoundland word, b'y.
  • Anyone want to learn to speak French like a Breton? I have extensive resources.
  • >Anyone want to learn to speak French like a Breton? I have extensive resources. Qu'est-ce qu'y baragouine, çui-ci alors ?! :) /difficult to convey the accent.
  • Jeezley, dat's some nice link there jb eh? I have a couple of Cape Breton aquaintances, and I can vouch for the b'y being part of the Cape Breton vocabulary. OT-Isn't Breton French for Britian? If my memory serves the King of England once ruled over that part of France n'est pas?
  • Well, Breton is a Celtic language, closely related to Cornish and (a little less so) Welsh. Brittany was settled from the south-western Celtic areas of the isles after the Romans buggered off. I don't know if it was ever part of the kingdom of Great Britain, though - there was no Great Britain at the time of Celtic settlement, and I think Britanny was an independent dutchy by the time the United Kindom was, well, united. But I could be wrong. Brittany is "Little Britain", after all.
  • Qu'est-ce qu'y baragouine C'est qu'un con.
  • I's da b'y dat builds da boat. and I's da b'y dat sails 'er. I's da b'y dat catches de fish and takes dem home to Liza... / or something like that. Good song. Anyone know the towns that follow? Fobo, Twilingate, Martin's Harbour..or something? or is that Newfoundland...
  • Aye, that'd be Newfie b'y.
  • Qu'est-ce qu'y baragouine dammit Koant, I've been trying to forget that miserable year in Plouézec... I swear they must have been waiting for months for a sunny day to take that utterly misleading photo.
  • flashboy: I just read an interesting book about how thinking of "Celtic" as an identity before the modern period (c. 1700+) is anachronistic - it really just is a language group, like Germanic. They were always different peoples and kingdoms.
  • that miserable year in Plouézec... Un trou à crêpes et cidre, eh?
  • Please view the comment above in unicode!
  • Mais oui, Wolof, j'en avais marre.
  • I spent several months over here, but also went sailing here as part of a tall ships festival. Strange that the port's not in shot!
  • Strange also that shot makes Douarnenez, population 17,000, appear aboout the same size as Plouézec, population 3,100. Brittany is terribly photogenic, but the endless endless endless gray rainy damp nearly drove me 'round the bend.
  • Not a nice place to winter. Cold and humid. Still, beautiful for at least one month of the year. I got email from Brittany not two hours ago.
  • Ma doué benniget ! I wouldn't have thought that some monkeys had lived in Brittany. Ambrosia: I'm sorry you didn't like it. Maybe only natives can appreciate its subtleties. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 if you liked it.
  • Since there's so many east coasters around, can anyone recall the local myth for Mosquodobit Bay? I recall it as something like, the man on the horse looked around and said, "must go, dobit" and hence the name.