Riots, raping and now Muslim immigrants are replacing the French language with their own version....often mixed with a bit of Arabic.
France, with Western Europe's largest Muslim population, is rapidly becoming an Islamic state.
French youths speaking their own language
By Mary Papenfuss Special for, USA TODAY
PARIS — Eli Cohen, a skinny 16-year-old from cozy central Paris, has little in common with the angry youths who torched their immigrant neighborhoods and fought police in scores of French cities in riots that started more than two months ago.
Except that he speaks their language, one that's incomprehensible to many French adults.
It's known as Verlan, a centuries-old French form of wordplay that has been reinvented in the bleak apartment blocks crowded with immigrant families from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. To the horror of France's language purists, the fast-morphing street slang is everywhere — schoolyards, newspapers, the Internet, movies, ad campaigns, TV and radio.
Hanging out near his school with friends, Eli ticks off Verlan terms that are part of his daily vocabulary: "Mifa (family), oim or wham (me), oite (you), cimer (merci or thank you), zikmu (music), zibou (kisses), z'y va (let's go)."
How often does he use Verlan in a typical day? "A lot," he says with a shrug. "Ten thousand times."
Not that his parents are happy about it. "They say it makes me sound like a moron," Eli says.
The 20 nights of riots that began in October awakened France to the growing economic and social disparities created by a system that had prided itself on equality.
France's minority communities have become plagued by crime, joblessness, low education levels and other ills as a widening divide has left ethnic Algerians, Moroccans, Senegalese and others from immigrant backgrounds on the outside looking in.
Arab and non-white hip-hop artists from the gritty suburbs were first to articulate the rage building there — and the first to prophesy social explosion. They did it in lyrics laced with Verlan from the street.
Bring Pressure by the group Skar warns: "We're ready to make the problems explode."
In France, "there are two ways to be heard," says Alain-Philippe Durand, author of a book on Francophone hip-hop culture and head of French studies at the University of Rhode Island. "You can do it the rough way, through violence, or you can do it through art."
French officials are not convinced that hip-hop performers such as Skar, Arsenik, Suprême NTM and Saïan Supa Crew have stayed on the artistic side of the line.
Members of Parliament have called for sanctions against several rappers they blame for fueling anger in the banlieues, or immigrant slums.
Last month, a French appeals court ruled in favor of Sniper, a group that had been charged with inciting violence with the anti-government anthem La France. The court concurred with a lower court judgment that Sniper's lyrics were violent but fell within the category of provocative artistic expression.
A conversation peppered with Verlan sounds like a record pushed backward. It mixes French, English and Arabic words, often transposing syllables. Guttural, throaty Arabic sounds are punctuated with sudden stops.
"It's interesting because many of the young people in the banlieues were born in France and aren't necessarily fluent in a dialect of Arabic," says Meredith Doran, assistant professor of French and applied linguistics at Penn State University. "It's as if they're saying, 'OK, if you're not going to treat us as if we're French, we're not going to sound French.' "
Verlan has grown to hundreds of words. Many are discarded or altered as quickly as their code is broken by mainstream society.
Teki Latex, a hip-hop performer with the group TTC, is proud of the creative wordplay but says rappers have to keep it "natural" to avoid sounding dated and overused. "Slang and street language evolve super-quickly, and being Verlan-obsessed would sound a little bit corny in 2006," he says.
"Middle-class, even upper-class, kids who don't live in the banlieues are speaking Verlan," Doran says. "They consider traditional French stuffy, not open to change."
Verlan has caught on elsewhere in Europe. In Britain, the BBC offers online instruction in "le français cool," taught by Algerian-born Hakim M'Barek.
France's government has long been obsessed with safeguarding elements of French identity. One result is that laws designed to protect the language — for instance, 40% of all music on the radio must be in French or by French-speaking artists — have inadvertently helped spread Verlan by effectively guaranteeing airplay for the homegrown hip-hop acts.
French politicians, often critical when foreign terms enter the popular lexicon, have been reluctant to criticize Verlan because it is seen as uniquely French.
One exception is Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who took a get-tough attitude toward rioters in the banlieues and has linked the violence to French rap music.
"There are inadmissible phrases, and we don't have to accept them," Sarkozy said recently.
Young rappers should not be "exonerated from the risk of sanctions" if their lyrics incite violence, he said.
What's unclear is whether the minorities minting new Verlan on the streets and on CDs will gain the same acceptance in France.
The fascination with Verlan among middle-class French youths "definitely raises awareness," says Durand, the author. "But will these kids go home and tell their parents, 'Hey, we should do something about what's going on in the banlieues'? I'm not so sure."
The street culture of the immigrant slums has had a profound impact on broader French culture. Yet that's no guarantee it will help Arabs and non-whites leap the economic and social divide, says Mikael Jamin, a linguistic researcher and French lecturer at Britain's University of Nottingham.
"It does not bring them food on the table," Jamin says. "The way they talk can hurt them in traditional society. They might have less chance to get a job."
usatoday.com
France, with Western Europe's largest Muslim population, is rapidly becoming an Islamic state.
French youths speaking their own language
By Mary Papenfuss Special for, USA TODAY
PARIS — Eli Cohen, a skinny 16-year-old from cozy central Paris, has little in common with the angry youths who torched their immigrant neighborhoods and fought police in scores of French cities in riots that started more than two months ago.
Except that he speaks their language, one that's incomprehensible to many French adults.
It's known as Verlan, a centuries-old French form of wordplay that has been reinvented in the bleak apartment blocks crowded with immigrant families from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. To the horror of France's language purists, the fast-morphing street slang is everywhere — schoolyards, newspapers, the Internet, movies, ad campaigns, TV and radio.
Hanging out near his school with friends, Eli ticks off Verlan terms that are part of his daily vocabulary: "Mifa (family), oim or wham (me), oite (you), cimer (merci or thank you), zikmu (music), zibou (kisses), z'y va (let's go)."
How often does he use Verlan in a typical day? "A lot," he says with a shrug. "Ten thousand times."
Not that his parents are happy about it. "They say it makes me sound like a moron," Eli says.
The 20 nights of riots that began in October awakened France to the growing economic and social disparities created by a system that had prided itself on equality.
France's minority communities have become plagued by crime, joblessness, low education levels and other ills as a widening divide has left ethnic Algerians, Moroccans, Senegalese and others from immigrant backgrounds on the outside looking in.
Arab and non-white hip-hop artists from the gritty suburbs were first to articulate the rage building there — and the first to prophesy social explosion. They did it in lyrics laced with Verlan from the street.
Bring Pressure by the group Skar warns: "We're ready to make the problems explode."
In France, "there are two ways to be heard," says Alain-Philippe Durand, author of a book on Francophone hip-hop culture and head of French studies at the University of Rhode Island. "You can do it the rough way, through violence, or you can do it through art."
French officials are not convinced that hip-hop performers such as Skar, Arsenik, Suprême NTM and Saïan Supa Crew have stayed on the artistic side of the line.
Members of Parliament have called for sanctions against several rappers they blame for fueling anger in the banlieues, or immigrant slums.
Last month, a French appeals court ruled in favor of Sniper, a group that had been charged with inciting violence with the anti-government anthem La France. The court concurred with a lower court judgment that Sniper's lyrics were violent but fell within the category of provocative artistic expression.
A conversation peppered with Verlan sounds like a record pushed backward. It mixes French, English and Arabic words, often transposing syllables. Guttural, throaty Arabic sounds are punctuated with sudden stops.
"It's interesting because many of the young people in the banlieues were born in France and aren't necessarily fluent in a dialect of Arabic," says Meredith Doran, assistant professor of French and applied linguistics at Penn State University. "It's as if they're saying, 'OK, if you're not going to treat us as if we're French, we're not going to sound French.' "
Verlan has grown to hundreds of words. Many are discarded or altered as quickly as their code is broken by mainstream society.
Teki Latex, a hip-hop performer with the group TTC, is proud of the creative wordplay but says rappers have to keep it "natural" to avoid sounding dated and overused. "Slang and street language evolve super-quickly, and being Verlan-obsessed would sound a little bit corny in 2006," he says.
"Middle-class, even upper-class, kids who don't live in the banlieues are speaking Verlan," Doran says. "They consider traditional French stuffy, not open to change."
Verlan has caught on elsewhere in Europe. In Britain, the BBC offers online instruction in "le français cool," taught by Algerian-born Hakim M'Barek.
France's government has long been obsessed with safeguarding elements of French identity. One result is that laws designed to protect the language — for instance, 40% of all music on the radio must be in French or by French-speaking artists — have inadvertently helped spread Verlan by effectively guaranteeing airplay for the homegrown hip-hop acts.
French politicians, often critical when foreign terms enter the popular lexicon, have been reluctant to criticize Verlan because it is seen as uniquely French.
One exception is Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who took a get-tough attitude toward rioters in the banlieues and has linked the violence to French rap music.
"There are inadmissible phrases, and we don't have to accept them," Sarkozy said recently.
Young rappers should not be "exonerated from the risk of sanctions" if their lyrics incite violence, he said.
What's unclear is whether the minorities minting new Verlan on the streets and on CDs will gain the same acceptance in France.
The fascination with Verlan among middle-class French youths "definitely raises awareness," says Durand, the author. "But will these kids go home and tell their parents, 'Hey, we should do something about what's going on in the banlieues'? I'm not so sure."
The street culture of the immigrant slums has had a profound impact on broader French culture. Yet that's no guarantee it will help Arabs and non-whites leap the economic and social divide, says Mikael Jamin, a linguistic researcher and French lecturer at Britain's University of Nottingham.
"It does not bring them food on the table," Jamin says. "The way they talk can hurt them in traditional society. They might have less chance to get a job."
usatoday.com