Tuesday 19 June 2012

Spirou: Journal d'un ingénu in 'Bruxellois'.

I recently bought this Spirou 'BD' as I was attracted by the wonderful illustrations of Brussels, the rather dark take on this very Belgian character and the fact that this version is in Bruxellois. Sometimes called 'Marollien' this dialect has been described as part French, part Spanish and part Dutch (http://belgafiles.com/brussels-speaking-marollian/)


So let's see for ourselves shall we? In the marvellous lexicon at the back of this book there is an exhaustive list of Brusselair words, some of which seem somewhat familiar…

Bruxellois / Dutch / English

doon / doen / to do
koemer / kamer / room
gebrauken / gebroken / broken
kozaain / neef (although I have seen kozijn used-poss archaic?) / cousin


In my own experience of learning French, first in France and then in Brussels, there are Dutch words I use in French without realising! Particularly:

'il fait douf'
'il drache'
and of course the beautiful: 'cheveux crollés'.



No comments:

Post a Comment