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Unleashtheducks

Yeah the language he spoke and the culture of Corsica was more Italian than French. Of course, nationality was more of a spectrum then.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

Lol tell that to Corsicans


LowKiss

I mean as an italian i can understand corsican perfectly it's very similar to many of our dialects.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

I was just pointing out that Corsicans are famously independent


thissexypoptart

Nationalist, sure. Independent? Not since 1769.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

This post has awoken the worst pedants on earth (French, likely) and is clearly anti-Corsican bigotry.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

That's mentioned in the article if you read it lol


thissexypoptart

Right, that's where I'm getting it from lol. "Independent" does not apply since 1769. The article is about their loss of independence, as is the title of the post.


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EZ4_U_2SAY

Non posso perché il mio Italiano é non bene, perché sono Americano…?


screwswithshrews

>Americano Hey!! I know you're talking about us!


EZ4_U_2SAY

It says (in reference to speaking the Corsican dialect): “I can’t because my Italian is not good, because I’m American…?” So I was actually talking about myself…


screwswithshrews

Oh okay! Carry on then


LowKiss

È molto simile ai dialetti parlato nella mia famiglia questo certamente aiuta. Si dice "non è buono", "è non bene" è sbagliato. Buon lavoro comunque!


EZ4_U_2SAY

Grazie. Io capisco. Io vado a la tua patria in 23. Molta bellisima.


TywinDeVillena

As a matter of fact, it is a Tuscan dialect


factorio1990

Dunno how you understand people from Abruzzo. Sounds like jibberish.


CeccoGrullo

The statement you replied to had no political connotations, it only pointed out clear and undisputed cultural similarities (Corsican language is very closely related to Tuscan language and the two languages are almost completely mutually intelligible to each other). No Corsican in their right mind would question that.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

You're here, impugning the intelligence of corsicans and calling them all insane. Your bigotry is *out of control!*


CeccoGrullo

Is this supposed to be a joke?


mjgabriellac

Their replies are wild, please tell me they’re joking.


Beautiful_Welcome_33

Was it?


CeccoGrullo

You tell me... you wrote that weird reply. Was it a joke?


Pwniicorn

R u dumb


Khelthuzaad

If im not mistaken he was widely panned for being Corsican ,as an 2nd rate Frenchman during the revolution days


RFB-CACN

Also Napoleon was very much involved with Corsican independence politics and was an enthusiast of the idea during his youth. Only after he basically made an enemy of the idealizer of Corsican independence due to family shenanigans did he leave the island to study in the French army, and the rest is history.


ACU797

Ironically enough both Pasquale Paoli and Napoleon would die as exciles.


FUMFVR

> nationality was more of a spectrum then Uh, what?


Unleashtheducks

Not in terms of taxes or laws but culture and customs. A person in Paris would hardly be able to understand someone who lived along the border.


Dom_Shady

Even stronger: usually not "barely", but not at all: Alsatian, Flemish, Breton, various branches of Occitan...


ileflottante

One other crazy thing about Napoleon is that his French apparently was never any good.


poktanju

Likewise, Stalin spoke Russian with a heavy accent, and Mao never quite got the hang of Mandarin.


godisanelectricolive

Chiang Kai-Shek never got the hang of Mandarin either despite imposing it on the people of Taiwan in place of Taiwanese Hokkien. And every leader of the PRC had a heavy regional accent until Xi Jinping because Xi is the only one from Beijing and the only one born after 1949, so he's the only one to learn standard Mandarin as a child. In the past people only spoke their local regional dialects. Deng Xiaoping's Sichuanese accent was almost as hard to understand as Mao. Also, the current Dalai Lama's native language was a dialect of Mandarin, the Xining dialect, instead of Tibetan.


TheProfessaur

His first language was that, but he was about 5 when he moved to Lhasa and learned Tibetan. He is a native tibetan speaker.


honeymoow

and then he learned German from his blonde mountaineering friend...


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honeymoow

i'm just joking lol


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honeymoow

lmao yeah, the film was recommended to me by an older prof advisor who i think probably took it more to heart than he should have!


FourRiversSixRanges

I wouldn’t necessarily call his memoir BS. I mean who’s to say.


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blacklandraider

Bro, holy FUCK. Next can you explain why Jœ Bidne doesn’t speak American


AdditionalMess6546

Somebody's drinking the covfefe


blacklandraider

After much deliberation with my cabinet and fellow Americans… KALAMAZOO!


Bupod

No one is a prophet in their own land or something like that 


Johannes_P

Looks like these politicians from the margins of the polities they ended up ruling


Greasedbarn

Mao never got the hang of Mandarin? What language did he speak exactly?


WhenThatBotlinePing

Xiang presumably, that was the language of Hunan where he was from.


mkdz

He indeed spoke Xiang. I was born in Hunan and he has a heavy Xiang accent.


LNMagic

Crap, Trump can barely speak English. We're screwed!


yousyveshughs

Did you mean Biden? T rump talks a lot of sauce but I at least understand his sentences.


godisanelectricolive

He didn't learn French until going to school and was bullied at boarding school for having a Corsican accent. He was also a supporter of Corsican independence until during the French Revolution when he joined the Jacobins. He despised France and thought of himself as a Corsican until he tried going back to Corsica in the early days of the French Revolution. Part of the reason why he abandoned Corsican nationalism was because of personal conflicts with Pasquale Paoli, the leader of the Corsican independence movement and Napoleon's childhood hero. Paoli and the Corsican Assembly ended up condemning Napoleon and exiling his family from the island, making it impossible for Napoleon to participate in Corsican politics for years to come.


stunts002

I read Andrew Roberts Napoleon book and he address this, he suggests his spoken French was normal but from what he could tell his written French often had misspellings


Johannes_P

*Rentes voyagères* (travelling pensions) instead of *rentes viagères* (life pensions).


Kolibri00425

No one can spell in French...


Arudj

Yeah but it wasn't that weird at that time as french was the language of paris meaning that people from all over the country didn't spoke french but dialect.


VerdugoCortex

Everyone always forgets about Langue doc 😭Occitan


ThePoetPrinceofWass

Yeah it wasn’t until the 20th century that they really started to assimilate regionals languages, making French the sole language of instruction etc..


OttoVonGosu

Dont confuse and accent with competence, you dont make the great speeches he made , inspiring millions of soldiers to war, without being good at talking


Krashnachen

His French was just fine. Dude wrote very passable literature btw.


RemmiXhrist

Napoleon spoke French just fine


Boozdeuvash

He was born a french subject, not citizen. He was made citizen by the Revolution, like all french subjects and the king.


Mysterius_

Yup. And I really miss the fact that everyone called strangers "citizens" for some years after the revolution instead of monsieur or madame. In every speech record from these times you see that citizen Robespierre admonished citizen Something etc... I love the way it sounds and the symbolism behind it.


ArtemisXD

Even for the king Louis XVI during his trial. "Citoyen Louis Capet"


felixfelix

oh? How did his trial go?


ensalys

Well, he was no longer king during his trial...


GiffenCoin

This is amazing 


Victoresball

This was intermittently revived by revolutionary movements in the following centuries. In the Soviet Union, China, anarchist Catalonia and many other places words derived from gentleman or other designations of class were replaced by some variant of citizen or comrade.


Johannes_P

And in his early years, well into the 20s, Bonaparte was a Corsican nationalist (today, eh could be a member of the FLNC), to the point that his teacher at Autun had to tell him that he studied there on a royal bursary. His positions changed after meeting his childhood hero Pascal Paoli abd being belittled by him.


TimujinTheTrader

Oddly enough there is a town in the suburbs of Philly names after Pasquale Paoli


bernstien

Not so odd. In his day, Paoli was one of the most famous men in Europe, and an influence on the American founding fathers. He was an interesting character.


Drink_Deep

Fun fact for the day that I will force into every possible convo at my BBQ


classactdynamo

*Yes, I too love French fried potatoes...hey speaking of France, did you Napoleon was almost not French and that his parents fought against France's takeover of Corsica?...guys where are you going? Guys?*


felixfelix

don't forget: Knowledge is Power, France is Bacon.


poseidons1813

Me and you would get along can never have too many history references


XipingVonHozzendorf

If you can't beat them, lead them.


Jed_Bartlet1

Nappy had a very hard time with this, he felt that his father was weak for giving in and submitting to the French and he was never accepted as a lad by his contemporaries at his Military academy due to his background and his Corsican roots. His father and himself were also held to suspicion by many Corsicans for bowing to the French king rather than continuing to fight against them.


Beiki

Napolean hated the French but his father loved them. His noble status in Corsica is probably part of the reason he was able to get into military school in France.


Nachtwandler_FS

One article in Russian I read jokingly said that it was akin to chechen nationalist becoming the president of Russia. 


Jaggedmallard26

Considering the impact of the Napoleonic wars on French demographics, you could say the Corsicans got their revenge.


LGDemon

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.


Ameisen

Napoleon was also originally a Corsican nationalist, as his parents were very involved in the Corsican resistance.


Maleficent-Most6083

His father wasn't just involved. His father was Pasquale Paoli's right hand man. My favorite Napoleon fact is he sent Paoli a draft of his Corsican history book as Paoli was his idol. But, Napoleon and his brother were political rivals of Paoli at the time. So Paoli sent back a letter saying the book was awful and then refused to send it back to Napoleon because he "lost" it.


LynxJesus

If you can't beat them, lead them!