Patois

[Gardian]

When on a bus in Paris last week, we overheard a conversation between a young black couple.

It was an English / French / something mix: you could just about understand half of a sentence and then it was gone.  Caribbean most likely, but maybe West African?

For a while, I've said that if I could have my time again, I'd study Linguistics. 

Any ideas anybody?  

[YCCMB]

Jeez it could have been anything. Caribbean, possibly..The Antilles have their own creole, as does Haiti. In the other direction you've got Mauritius, reunion and the Seychelles who all have Creole, and then of course you've got whole swathes of West Africa. In the main, West Africans speak all sorts of local languages although French is an official language.

There's a sort of pidgin in Cameroon and that area which is a mix of French, English and I don't know what else.

So, in short, they could have been from more or less anywhere, or they could have been French born and bred, and just interspersing their French with a bit of Wolof or Bambara spoken at home...

[Keni]

Having had to spend a few days in hospital recently, I had an 'old girl' next to me and we conversed well in French, but she kept speaking to me in patois.

So each morning instead of saying 'ça va', I now say to my neighbours 'cor vy biem' or goes it well. They think its a hoot, me having a go at patois, but it breaks the ice each morning!

[Gardian]

Thanks Betty.

There was never going to be a definitive answer, but your thought of Cameroon sounds good.

[Pierre ZFP]

You don't have to go to exotic places to hear Patois.

My neighbours speak almost exclusively Chi'ti between themselves but kindly speak 'Real' French to me.

I work with a woman who comes from near Dunkerque, she says Chi'ti is spoken a lot around there but she only understands a few words even though she grew up in the area