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The Patois of this Country is the most difficult of all languages. Short sentences I can
catch, a long story is quite unintelligible to me; not only the country people speak
the patois only, but half the Servants in Montaubon; the cries in the Streets are
in Patois — the way in which I catch the sense is from the similarity to the Spanish,
and perhaps italian — a woman calls "marone calde" marons chauds "pla pooli castagna",
very fine chesnuts; but the pla and the pooli belong to no language that I am
acquainted with; they are words in constant use pla being the superlative employed upon
all occasions and pooli expressing excellence of every kind — A man accosted me
on the road one day "pooli esta camina" showing me the card of a leather Merchant
at Montaubon, he asked me if he was taking the right road to his house, by good
luck the Merchant lived in a Street which formed a continuation of that we were
in, so that I was able to direct him; but in our Country Walks we are much embarrassed,
as we seldom obtain any other answer to our questions than "ne parlé françése"
our Gardener has lately gone to reside at a place too far away for him to continue to
work for us, in enquiring for another, one of the conditions, and which excludes a great
number, has been that he must speak french — strange condition to be obliged to
make in France. Probably some moorish words are mixed with the other languages
of which this said patois is composed, you know the moors had possession of
the Country still to the north of this, between this and Spain many places still retain
the moorish names; Castel Sarragine you may have remarked; there is between
this and Toulouse Castel-nau, and there are a great number of other castls
as -castel.
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Identifier: | JB/010/251/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 10.
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010 |
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251 |
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001 |
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correspondence |
1 |
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recto |
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arthur wellesley, duke of wellington |
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1818 |
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copy of part of letter 2529, vol. 9 |
3687 |
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