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It’s a very serious joke. A simple online word game which, every day, attracts more than 15,000 addicts, triggers feverish spelling controversies, awakens childhood memories with the scent of thyme and olive oil… And raises the ethnological questions of neo -Marseillais confused by so much particularism. The online game Motchus, to be pronounced with emphasis on the “tch”, was born on January 20, 2022.
But this adaptation of the renowned french online game sutom, itself derived from the television program “Motus”, on France 2 until 2019, has since continued to gain followers. Its rule is simple: discover, in six moves, a mystery word “ Marseilles, Provençal or particularly employed in Marseilles » of which only the first letter is revealed. “I open Twitter and I see that we have all become gaga of Motchus », wondered, in mid-February, the socialist mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan.
MOTCHUS #15 3/6 ????????? ????????? ????????? https://t.AURTfEcou
His first assistant, the ecologist Michèle Rubirola, publishes her daily schedule. Journalists, business leaders, traders devote themselves to Motchus without hiding. And Eric Berton, the president of Aix-Marseille University, which manages nearly 80,000 students, appears as a fan on social networks.
“I am one of those linguists who think that a language does not belong to the elites, to the academies or to the teachers, but to the people who speak it. » Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus, linguist and co-creator of « Motchus »
Sitting on a café terrace a stone’s throw from the Old Port, protected from a sharp mistral by his hooded sweatshirt, Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus relishes. This little brunette with puff and glasses, doctor in sociolinguistics, is, in duet with the professor of mathematics Denis Beaubiat, the instigator of the affair. “I am one of those linguists who think that a language does not belong to elites, academies or teachers, but to the people who speak it”asks this lecturer at AMU.
The waitress comes to congratulate him on the initiative. The day before, it was a teenager who stopped him in front of the Stade-Vélodrome. ” Motchus, it’s you ? Thanks, we’re having fun! » let go of him. Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus still can’t believe it. “A friend tells me that her hospitalized grandmother waits for her every evening to do the grilling with her. I never thought I would touch all generations like this…”he rejoices.
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