Quote:
Originally Posted by Jalen
Any good fan knows that Alizée was born and raised in Corsica.
I have a few questions about that 
1. Did her entire family blood line reside in that island? Or is she a first/second generation Corsican?
2. If the above is true, would that technically mean that Alizée has some Italian blood in her? |
First, there are a certain number of violent nationalists who object to "French" people living on the island, even after two centuries of political union with France. This can only discourage people from mentioning the fact that not every last one of their ancestors lived there since the dawn of time.
Second, French law forbids official enumerations of ethnicity, presumably in the hope of discouraging ethnic conflict.
All that said, no one in Corsica would be surprised to hear that "Jacotey" is not likely of Italian (or Corsu) linguistic origin! So I was not deterred from investigating the geography of that patrilineal name (and others) in an essay called
Alizée: The return of Annette. You can use the Web-based tool I cite there to explore further on your own!
All of the most popular surnames in Corsica sound "Italian" to us who speak English. "Jacotey" is very rare in Corsica, and is even unusual in France, where you will find most of the people using it. It is most highly concentrated in Franche-Comté, the eastern limb of historic Burgundy, on the Swiss border and not far from German Swabia and Italian Piedmont. See the cited Web page for more details.
Alizée certainly fits the physical stereotype of a Ligurian/Mediterranean person on the basis of features, coloring and height. But while you might visually distinguish a group of 100 Corsicans from a group of 100 Danes, one can't reliably guess on an individual basis. Remember, Normans once ruled Sicily.
Some native Corsu music is used to introduce
Mon Maquis. And when in 1999 the host on
Graines de Star bade Alizée to say "bon soir" (French), she instead offered "buona sera" (Corsu).
I like Alizée whatever place her ancestors ever called home. Don't you?
