Phonological peculiarities (segmental level) of the French language in Pondicherry (India)

This article is dedicated to examination of phonological peculiarities of segmental level of the French language in Pondicherry, one of the regions of the Republic of India. This region is a former trading post of the Fifth Republic, and currently is part of the preserved so-called “French India”. The goal of this research consists in determination of phonetic peculiarities of the French language of the population of Pondicherry in comparison with the central norm of pronunciation in France. The authors conducted an auditory analysis of the text recorded by the broadcasters, as well as thoroughly analyzed its results. In the course of research, the authors examined the level of realization of phonological oppositions within the system of vowels; as well as peculiarities of pronunciation of consonants, preservation or non-preservation of the phenomenon of “binding”, along with the instances pronunciation or fall out of [ə] caduc. The main conclusion consists in confirmation of the assumption on the causes of certain difficulties in realization of the French norm of pronunciation among the residents of Pondicherry. The differences in phonological systems of the French and Tamil languages (native to the population of Pondicherry) are the cause of the emergence distortions or replacements of certain French phonetic sounds. The conducted determined the pronunciation characteristics of French language of the population of Pondicherry, which were affected by their native Tamil language.