“Motchus”, the Marseille motus that is a hit!

09 March 2022 par Claudia Pichon-Starke
The online game set up by Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus (LPL-AMU) and Denis Beaubiat attracts every day around 15,000 people eager to decipher the word of the day from Marseille or Provençal vocabulary..

Are you already addicted to Motchus? Last January, the online game Motchus was born, a Marseille version adapted from the French game Sutom, itself based on the principle of the old TV show Motus (and English Wordle version). It is a result of a collaboration between the linguist Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus (AMU-LPL, @MedericGC) and the mathematician Denis Beaubiat (@ze_armavi) and has gone viral on the Net and in many media – including Le Monde and ARTE in March 2022. Every day it attracts around 15,000 people (“fadas de Motchus”) eager to decipher the word of the day from midnight from Marseille or Provençal vocabulary.

Motchus online game: https://motchus.fr/

They talk about it (not exhaustive):
28-minute Arte broadcast of March 8 (from ‘41): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnY84o6j2b8
Article in Le Monde March 7: « Motchus » redonne au parler marseillais ses lettres de noblesse (lemonde.fr)
Article in Libé of February 24 (and special Libé grid): https://www.liberation.fr/lifestyle/mots-croises-apres-motchus-la-grille-marseillaise-de-libe-20220224_GHPZFK5RRRH5BM4FPQSI7QIO3A/
AMU News of February 14: https://www.univ-amu.fr/fr/public/actualites/motchus-testez-votre-parler-marseillais
France 3 PACA of February 3: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/bouches-du-rhone/marseille/motchus-le-jeu-de-mots-en-ligne -to-learn-to-speak-Marseillais-le-provencal-imagined-by-the-linguist-mederic-gasquet-cyrus-2445864.html

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