Beur ( pronounced [bœʁ] ), or alternatively rebeu , is a colloquial term, sometimes considered pejorative, in French to designate European-born people whose parents or grandparents are immigrants from the Maghreb . The equivalent term for a female beur is a beurette . However, the term beurette is condemned and criticized by several anti-racist organizations because of the xenophobic and degrading connotation that this word has taken on over the decades (in particular because of the fetishization of North African women in France as well as an insult stemming from colonialism : for several years the racial category beurette was the most popular in France on porn sites). The term rebeu is neither applicable to females nor does it have a female version.
35-497: The word beur was coined using verlan for the word arabe , which means Arabic or Arab in French. Since the late 1990s, many young people have used the twice-verlanised term rebeu as a synonym. This term is now the dominant term used by the younger generations (under 30). The word beurette , the female version of beur , is created by adding the -ette female suffix in French. In French many slang words are created by simply reversing
70-467: A ⟨e⟩ muet (such as femme [fam] ) and words that end in a pronounced consonant (such as flic [flik] ) gain the sound [œ] once reversed. In addition, verlan often drops the final vowel sound after the word is inverted, so femme and flic become meuf ( [mœf] – meufa in full form) and keuf ( [kœf] – keufli in full form), respectively. The study of written verlan
105-417: A verlan word on the fly; rather, their ability to use and understand words from an accepted set of known verlan terms allows them to be identified as part of a verlan-speaking group. Lefkowitz claims that the best speakers of the language are often the worst students, those most needing to hide from authority. Some verlan words have gained mainstream currency. Examples of verlan in cultural mainstream include
140-450: Is "past tense", in reference of it being a second past tense that exists along the regular one). Same as with them, in formal usage "ti" and "vós/vosoutros" change to "vostede" and "vostedes" and are followed by the third person. In verbs ended in -aer , -oer , -aír and -oír , the first and second person of the plural show the presence of a diaeresis . Hindi , an Indo-Aryan language , has indicative imperfect tense conjugation only for
175-468: Is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk". It contrasts with preterite forms, which refer to a single completed event in the past. Traditionally, the imperfect of languages such as Latin and French is referred to as one of
210-511: Is a type of argot in the French language , featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words. The word verlan itself is an example of verlan (making it an autological word ). It is derived from inverting the sounds of the syllables in l'envers ( [lɑ̃vɛʁ] , "the inverse", frequently used in
245-525: Is a verlan phonological inversion of nique , a profane slang term for sex, aloud, it sounds like "Lui sait juste ken," meaning "he only knows how to fuck." Warner Bros. refused to confirm or deny whether the profane double entendre was intentional but appreciated the added publicity that the poster generated. In the 2007 animated film Ratatouille , the character chef Auguste Gusteau's first name and last name are verlans of each other. Imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated IMPERF )
280-797: Is difficult as it is primarily passed down orally, without standardized spelling. While some still argue that the letters should be held over from the original word, in the case of verlan, most experts agree that words should be spelled as to best approximate pronunciation . For example, verlan is preferred to versl'en . The French author Auguste Le Breton uses numerous examples of verlan, for instance in Du rififi chez les hommes . Different rules apply for one-syllable words, and words with more than two syllables may be verlan-ised in more than one way. For example, cigarette may yield garetsi or retsiga . Some verlan words, such as meuf , have become so commonplace that they have been included in
315-465: Is generally limited to one or two key words per sentence. Verlan words and expressions are mixed within a more general argotique language. Verlan is used by people to mark their membership in, or exclusion from, a particular group (generally young people in the cities and banlieues , although some French upper-class youth have also started using it as their slang); it is a tool for marking and delineating group identity. Speakers rarely create
350-413: Is no such thing as a verlan grammar, so generally verbs are used in the infinitive, past participle or progressive form. For example: Here are some examples of French words that have been made into a verlan and their English meanings: Creating verlans often brings up words that are verlan of a verlan. This is sometimes called double verlan or veul . One can find the order of the consonants of
385-427: Is used to express the ideas of habitual actions or states of being; physical and emotional descriptions: time, weather, age, feelings; actions or states of an unspecified duration; background information in conjunction with the passé composé; wishes or suggestions; conditions in "si" clauses; the expressions "être en train de" and "venir de" in the past. Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: Notes: Conjugation of
SECTION 10
#1732773222468420-402: Is verlan for maestro . One hypothesis holds that Voltaire , the nom-de-plume of François-Marie Arouet, is a verlan word for Airvault . The French language movie poster for the 2023 American film Barbie contains a line that has been interpreted as verlan: "Elle peut tout faire. Lui, c'est juste Ken", "She can do everything. He’s just Ken". By referring to the character Ken, which
455-535: The Petit Larousse . The purpose of verlan is to create a somewhat secret language that only its speakers can understand. Words becoming mainstream is counterproductive. As a result, such newly common words may be reversed a second time (see § Double verlan ) . Some verlan words, which are now well incorporated in common French language, have taken on their own significance, or at least certain connotations that have changed their meaning. For example,
490-666: The Maghreb . Due to cultural integration between such peoples across Europe, the term is now popular in other parts of Europe with a large Maghrebi community, such as the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy. Since 1992, the BEUR.FM radio station has broadcast nationwide (106.7 FM in Paris ). On Beur Literature: Verlan Verlan ( pronounced [vɛʁlɑ̃] )
525-403: The simple past tense is used instead: "He was hungry"; "We knew what to do next." Habitual (repeated) action in the past can be marked by used to , as in "I used to eat a lot", or by the auxiliary verb would , as in "Back then, I would eat early and would walk to school." (The auxiliary would also has other uses, such as expressing conditional mood .) However, in many cases
560-518: The 1984 comedy Les Ripoux ( My New Partner ) ( ripou is verlan for pourri , or rotten, and refers to a corrupt policeman); and the 1977 hit " Laisse béton " by singer Renaud ( béton is verlan for tomber and the phrase means "drop it"). Verlan is popular as a form of expression in French hip-hop . Artists claim that it fits well with the musical medium because "form ranks way over substance". The stage name of Belgian pop artist and songwriter Stromae (real name Paul Van Haver)
595-524: The Portuguese imperfect. Like in Italian, it is also commonly formed by combining the imperfect of the verb estar (estava, estavas, estava, estávamos, estáveis, estavam) with the gerund (for example, "falando", the gerund form of "falar", to speak, to talk). In Brazilian Portuguese, both in informal oral speech and informal written language (for example, online or phone texting), it is more common to use
630-419: The appropriate ending (the forms for être (to be), whose "nous" form does not end in -ons , are irregular; they start with ét- but have the same endings). Verbs that terminate in a stem of -cer and -ger undergo minor orthographic changes to preserve the phonetic sound or allophone. Verbs whose root terminates in the letter "i" maintain the letter despite the consecutiveness in the "nous" and "vous" forms. It
665-473: The composite "estava falando" (commonly reduced to "tava falando"), than to use the synthetic "falava", which is more common in formal written forms. Both in European and Brazilian Portuguese, the synthetic pluperfect ("eu falara" "I had spoken") is considered old-fashioned and never used in spoken communication – it is substituted by the composite "eu tinha falado", which is formed with the imperfect form of
700-399: The event is continuous or habitual. For a continuous action (one that was in progress at a particular time in the past), the past progressive (past continuous) form is used, as in "I was eating "; "They were running fast." However certain verbs that express state rather than action do not mark the progressive aspect (see Uses of English verb forms § Progressive ); in these cases
735-406: The habitual nature of the action does not need to be explicitly marked on the verb, and the simple past is used: "We always ate dinner at six o'clock." Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: Notes: In Romance languages , the imperfect is generally a past tense. Its uses include representing: A common mistake of beginners learning a Romance language is putting too much emphasis on whether
SECTION 20
#1732773222468770-495: The imperfect indicative: Notes: In Spanish, the imperfect can be called the imperfecto or the copretérito . Conjugation of the imperfect indicative: In Portuguese, the imperfect indicative, called "pretérito imperfeito", is quite similar to Spanish: There are four irregular verbs: "pôr" (to put), "ser" (to be), "ter" (to have) and "vir" (to come). Unlike in Spanish, the verbs "ver" (to see) and "ir" (to go) are regular in
805-437: The original word, but the vowels have been modified. For example, meuf (verlan of femme ) becomes feumeu . The verlan word beur , derived from arabe , has been made into rebeu . Verlan is less a language than a way to set apart certain words. Many verlan words refer either to sex or drugs , related to the original purpose of keeping communication secret from institutions of social control. Verlan
840-422: The other hand, the sentence " I used to have fun in the 1960s. " is a good candidate for the imperfect, even though its period is known. In short, knowing when an action occurred is not nearly as important as how long it occurred (or was and still is occurring). To form the imperfect for French regular verbs, take the first person plural present tense, the "nous" (we) form, subtract the -ons suffix, and add
875-438: The plural imperfect form (थे thē) in masculine gender but singular form (थी thī ) in feminine gender. These imperfect conjugations also act as copula to form the imperfect past forms for the three grammatical aspects that Hindi hasː Habitual , Perfective , and Progressive aspects. In Assamese , two imperfect forms are recognisedː present progressive and/or present perfect & past progressive and/or remote past. There
910-435: The pronoun itself. So, the grammatically singular pronouns (e.g., मैं ma͠i "I" and तू tū "you" etc.) are assigned the singular imperfect forms (i.e. था thā or थी thī ) depending on the gender of the person or the noun they refer to, and the grammatically plural pronouns (e.g. हम ham "we" etc.) are assigned the plural imperfect forms (थे thē and थीं thīm̊ ). An exception to this is the pronoun तुम ( tum ) which takes in
945-509: The second half of the 20th century, beur and beurette (from arabe ) refer to people of northern African descent who live in France. The word rebeu (a double verlan) is much more recent, and evolved to refer more generally to people of Arab descent who live in France. In theory, any word can be made into a verlan, but only a few expressions are used in everyday speech. Verbs translated into verlan cannot be conjugated easily. There
980-421: The sense of "back-to-front"). The first documented use of verlan dates back to the 19th century, among robbers. Words in verlan are formed by switching the order in which syllables from the original word are pronounced. For example, français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] becomes céfran [sefʁɑ̃] . Verlan generally retains the pronunciation of the original syllables. However, French words that end in
1015-706: The simply conjugated past tense (to contrast with the Perfekt or compound past form), but the term Präteritum (preterite) is now preferred, since the form does not carry any implication of imperfective aspect. "Imperfect" comes from the Latin imperfectus "unfinished", because the imperfect expresses an ongoing, uncompleted action. The equivalent Ancient Greek term was paratatikós "prolonged". Bavarian does not have Imperfect. Imperfect meanings in English are expressed in different ways depending on whether
1050-523: The tenses, although it actually encodes aspectual information in addition to tense (time reference). It may be more precisely called past imperfective . English has no general imperfective and expresses it in different ways. The term "imperfect" in English refers to forms much more commonly called past progressive or past continuous (e.g. "was doing" or "were doing"). These are combinations of past tense with specifically continuous or progressive aspect. In German, Imperfekt formerly referred to
1085-413: The time the action occurred is known. This generally does not affect how the imperfect is used. For example, the sentence " Someone ate all of my cookies. " (when translated) is not a good candidate for the imperfect. Fundamentally, it is no different from the sentence " We ate all the cookies. " Note this fails the repeatability requirement of the imperfect, as it is only known to have happened once. On
Beur - Misplaced Pages Continue
1120-452: The verb "ter" (to have) (tinha tinhas tinha tínhamos tínheis tinham) plus the past participle ("falado"). Alternatively, the verb "ter" can be swapped with the imperfect form of the verb "haver" (to have) (havia havias havia haviamos havíeis haviam) Similar to the closely related Portuguese, as well as to Spanish, but often called "copretérito" (from co- , same particle found in English "collaboration" and "coexistence", plus "pretérito", which
1155-460: The verb होना ( honā ) [to be] and the rest of the verbs lack this conjugation. The indicative imperfect forms of होना (honā) comes from Sanskrit स्थित (stʰita) "standing, situated" which are derived from the PIE root * steh ₂- (“to stand”). The imperfect conjugation is derived from a participle form and hence its conjugations agree only with the number and gender of the grammatical person and not
1190-400: The word meuf , which can still be used to refer to any woman, also refers to the speaker's girlfriend when used in the possessive form ( ma meuf → my girl); while the original word femme would refer to the speaker's wife when used in the same way ( ma femme → my wife). Such words retain a cultural significance from the time at which they appeared in common language. Widespread in
1225-487: The word in terms of spelling and then reading it out. Because of French grammar rules, the new word is usually completely different from the result of reversing the word phonetically. The word beurgeois is derived from a combination of the words beur and bourgeois . The term is mostly used in French-speaking European countries ― France, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg and Switzerland ― as well as in
#467532