Interesting study on infant language

[velvetpage]

French and English look different to babies.

Comments

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

What I found amazing about that study was that it was English vs. Canadian French and the babies could still tell the difference. I know I hold my face completely differently when I'm speaking French - with English, I hold my upper lip taut, and with French my mouth gets pooched forward like I'm blowing a kiss - but Canadian French speakers, to me, look like any other Canadians when they're talking, with a stiff upper lip and flapping lower jaw. In fact, I'd always kind of theorised that the reason French Canadians sound so hilarious (to me, anyway!) is that they talk French while holding their mouths like English speakers. But... apparently not, if the babies can pick out a difference!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

They may hold their mouths as though they're speaking English, but the cadence is still decidedly different. Both Parisian and Québecois have what an old linguistics teacher used to describe as "la mitraillette" effect - one syllable after another, with inflection and rhythm provided at the sentence level rather than at the word level as in English. The cadence and inflection are certainly different in Québecois than in Parisian French, but both are markedly different from English.

I know what you mean about the way you hold your mouth, btw. There was a time when I could pass for French for a few minutes at a time, before a sound I couldn't be consistent with would give away the presence of an accent (tu and tout are, and were,my downfall - I kept mixing them up when I was speaking quickly) but I never had that distinct university-French accent that so many of my peers had, because I watched and imitated more than just the sounds. I treated it as a lesson in vocal diction, and that was always my strong point as a singer.

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

I have a weird accent when I speak French because I started speaking English and French at the same time, and my parents were non-native French speakers so half the French I heard as an infant was heavily accented. My father's French accent shatters glass, though, so I am lucky at least I didn't pick that up! Once a diplomat told me he knew whose daughter I was from my accent, and then the entire room laughed themselves sick at the look on my face, at which point he told me kindly that he was just kidding. Nice!