Corsican Language

[bandeirante]

Yes, he was born in 1769, in the same year that Corsica was conquered by France.

% of Corsica who speak Corsican?

[Mens-Sarda]

% of Corsica who speak Corsican?

Today? It's difficult to say exactly, until 40 years ago, almost everyone spoke Corsican in every day life, but nowadays most of the youngsters speak French, or can speak Corsican with heavy French accent. Moreover in these last decades there was also a consistent migration of foreigners from France. Of 330.000 total inhabitants, almost 40.000 are North Africans arrived from France.

[Calpurnius]

It seems like between Corsican and Gallurese a good degree of asymmetrical intellegibility has developed, a while ago we had some Corsican musical group perform in our city in Gallura, and apparently they said they do not understand spoken Gallurese anymore, while we usually can understand Corsican. Not sure how good their own Corsican proficiency was though. I think it may be because we also speak Italian so it helps us.

[Mens-Sarda]

Current Corsican has been ruined by French accent, most people are unable to pronounce the vowels in the correct way, and use the French pronunciation, which makes Corsican harder to understand. I think that they have become too used to this kind of accent and they find difficult to understand Corsican without French accent as it's spoken in Gallura.

Sometimes ago I've found this ancient recording of Corsican language, made in 1913, it's an interview to a Corsican soldier. In his language there is no trace of French accent, probably he couldn't speak French at all. The accent sounds like a mix of Gallurese with an hint of Sicilian and Calabrese accent.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128053q/f1.media

There are two recordings, click on Face A and Face B.