Jules Renard was right to note that "the circumflex accent is the swallow of writing." Because when speaking, he is the one who takes words off. It is to him that we must see rising notes, often called "singing". All French people know this better than anyone, we do not speak in the same way depending on whether we are in Brest, Marseille or Strasbourg.
And so much the better! The language is rich in its particularities. As Linda Giguère points out in L'Humeur de Linda, broadcast on TV5 Monde, "the French we speak in the South is not the same as in Paris" . And to clarify: "It is the legacy of several decades of forced cohabitation between the French of Paris and the Occitan, called langue d'oc."
In this way, "in Toulouse, Montpellier, we can hear Occitanisms, that is to say words and expressions of Occitan origin" , continues the journalist. This is the case, for example, of the verb "rouméguer" . From the Rumanian Gascon "to mull over" , the word means "to express his dissatisfaction" . It is a synonym for "grumbling" , as Le Larousse notes.
The verb "escagasser" , for its part, comes from the Provençal escagassa , "to collapse, to crush". As the thesaurus always specifies, "in the Provence region", its definition is "deteriorate", "spoil something" . By extension, it can also mean "tire, annoy someone" . Finally, more transparent, the verb "poutouner" means "to give someone a kiss," to "kiss" .
