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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

It's amusing hearing them discuss the differences between the accents of Montparnasse, Montmartre and La Villette. Who today could identify where, within Paris somebody is coming from based on accents only? I know I couldn't. The world was bigger back then, a different arrondissement was already a foreign place.

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The world is bigger, but not that much. The speech and clothing differences between "Paris Ouest" and "Paris Est" are still recognizable. While differences are less stark, arrondissements still have distinct styles.

The 8th arrondissement at lunch time has a uniform, distinct from La Défense's. The 16th's rue de Passy and the 7th's rue Cler have clear differences in clothing and speech style on a Saturday morning. Le Marais and the 11th have different stereotypical accessories.

We'll see what'll be the public opinion about us in 108 years!

And the N-E suburbs became the soil for a completely new 'banlieue' accent and lingo (blend of gypsy and northern-africa).

Would love to know more about those differences in dress and speech within Paris. I've spent many months in France and love the country but spent less than a week total in Paris even though its a city that fascinates me.

An accent is an indication of the extent of communication beyond a group.

The world wasn't bigger back then (or even today). People were less connected and their speech patterns were not influenced by audio-visual media.

See funny thing is as a French person in London.

I don't think I can spot accents from different parts of Paris, but I can definitely spot accents from different parts of London.

I think there's something else at play, I'm not sure what. Maybe how much people have moved in last few decades? Maybe how much of a hyper-local life there is in each area?

I don't disagree. That still exists to some extent. I don't think I could tell a Brooklyn accent from a Bronx accent, but i think some can? (Can they hear it in 20-year-olds not just 60-year-olds? Not sure).

I can very easily tell Bronx from Brooklyn from Manhattan from Queens, in some cases down to specific neighborhoods or cultures...but really only in folks 60+, maybe occasionally in people more in the 40+ range who had fairly isolated upbringings, but that's it. Any younger than that, I often can only even tell you're from New York City by word choice and slang, not accent. I suspect that's similar to what's going on in Paris, albeit I'm in absolutely no position to know.

(For context: I did not grow up in NYC, but my family was from there, and I lived there for quite awhile myself as well. It's entirely possible someone who did grow up in NYC can do better than I can, but, at least to my ear, it gets very close to just standard American broadcast English the younger you go, so I doubt it.)

The usual caveat about Paris applies: the city of Paris is but a tiny core of the larger Paris metropolitan area (Paris: 2.1M people, Paris metro: c. 10M). Paris is about one fifth of its metro area, a city like NYC is about half.

A closer analogue to being able to distinguish accents from Montparnasse, Montmartre and La Villette would be to able to distinguish accents from different places in Manhattan.

I think even today there are substantial accent differences within the Paris metropolitan area (think Versailles vs le Marais vs Aulnay), but within Paris proper not so much.

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