State of Youth Slang In France

[Paul Frank]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:02:22 -0500, "Grant Barrett"
<gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG> said:
> If you read French, this article in Le Monde is a fascinating look at
> current youth slang in France (though I suspect that, like such
> articles in American newspapers, it might need to be looked at with a
> lick-block of salt).
>
> http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3230,36-402088,0.html

The article quotes a linguist who reckons that young people in poor
neighborhoods have a vocabulary of 350 to 400 words, whereas "we" have
2500 words. That has to be nonsense.

--
Pas simple de chercher du travail, d'ouvrir un compte en banque ou de
s'inscrire à la Sécurité sociale quand on ne possède que "350 à 400
mots, alors que nous en utilisons, nous, 2 500", estime ainsi le
linguiste Alain Bentolila, pour qui cette langue est d'une "pauvreté"
absolue.
--

Paul
________________________
Paul Frank
Chinese-English translator
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
http://languagejottings.blogspot.com