Meridional French - Lexicon

Lexicon

The dialect has some vocabulary peculiar to it, such as péguer (Occitan pegar), "to be sticky" (standard French poisser), chocolatine (southwest), "pain au chocolat" or flute (a bigger baguette, called pain parisien (parisian bread) in Paris).

Dégun (nobody), from Occitan degun, is often used in southern France, instead of personne; as in "Il y a dégun ici" (there's nobody here) or "je crains dégun" (I fear no one).

Some phrases can mean something different from what they would usually mean in French. For example, s'il faut, literally meaning "if it is necessary", actually means "maybe" (which would be rendered in standard French as peut-être). This is a calque of Occitan se cal.

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