Are there different pronunciations for ‘Merci’ ?

Question

I know merci is thank you but I have definitely heard some French people say (phonetically) mercish (i.e with a shesh on the end of merci). I have asked people about this and they seem to deny it! Is it just a dialect? I have heard it both in Northern France and down in the SW.

On wiktionnaire you have 2 pronunciations, one of them from north france, but no "cish" at the end : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/merci#Prononciation — Istao, Sep 08 '13 at 19:55
See here: http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/16320/words-ending-on-i-u-spoken-with-ipa-%c9%aa%c3%a7-is-there-a-system — Stéphane Gimenez, Nov 10 '15 at 02:00
I agree with @StéphaneGimenez, it has everything to do with phrase-final vowel devoicing on "i", and nothing to do with "merci" in particular. So most of the answers are off-topic... — Teleporting Goat, Aug 20 '19 at 09:51

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 10 '15 at 01:50

4

Sometimes people will say "mercish", "mershi" or "merki" instead of merci. It's a wrong pronunciation on purpose, to be funny, alleviate the mood or to be less formal than a straight "merci".

answered Nov 10 '15 at 01:50

meristel

418
1
3
5

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 10 '13 at 12:09

3

That's in no way specific to the word merci, but yes, you're right, some people pronounce a slight hiss and the end of words ending in -é(e) or -i(e).

I'm unsure it's really localized, though some regions can be more prone to that particular oddity.

answered Sep 10 '13 at 12:09

Romain Valeri

15,044
3
47
91

There is a localization of words ending in '-i', but it is not specific to this particular word. – meduz Sep 11 '13 at 19:39

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '19 at 05:01

1

Have heard “mersheesh” often in the Lot Valley near Cahors. I was told it was frowned upon as uneducated—similar to “warsh” for “wash” or the use of “ain’t” in the American South and Midwest.

answered Aug 20 '19 at 05:01

Del Lausa

11
1

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 11 '13 at 12:29

1

You must have heard «mercikes». Those are "little thank yous" not in French but in Flemish, common here in Belgium.

answered Sep 11 '13 at 12:29

Abhimanyu Arora

1,971
8
27
37

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 10 '13 at 13:42

"merchiche" peut être utilisé par un humoriste qui simule un lusophone, avec tout un environnement de phonations ibériques.

C'est un mot plus sensibles aux accentuations (mêêêêêêrci beaucoup) qu'aux différents parlés locaux.

Toutefois cela peut faire genre (attitude argotique pour paraître 'dans le vent', pour être 'in') de torturer les prononciations habituelles.

Are there different pronunciations for ‘Merci’ ?

5 Answers5

Linked