La prononciation du français au Burundi: influence du français de Belgique et du kirundi

Abstract French in Burundi offers an interesting case of language contact: speakers have Kirundi as their first language and French imported during the colonial era was the variety spoken in Belgium, which does not share all the features of reference French. In this study, we analyze a corpus of 12 speakers (including 4 women; mean age 38.5) producing different speaking styles collected according to the methodology of the Phonologie du Français Contemporain project: word reading, text reading, and free narration. The results of the pronunciation analysis concern vowels, consonants and schwa. We identify eight pronunciation features that differ from reference French. In addition, we analyze for each one the possible interferences with Kirundi or with Belgian French. In conclusion, we discuss which of these features can be considered pan-African.