Talk:Quebec French

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Contents 1 History 2 Rhotic 3 The third ê 4 Maurician lect?? 5 A good read for all those contributing to this article 6 Refactoring 7 Phonology & phonetics 8 morphologic gender 9 Hypothetic infinitive 10 Epenthesis 11 Lenght opposition 12 Re: bus lines and highway numbers 13 Linking? 14 Archiving 15 IPA completed 16 Reorganization and separation 17 On the Quebec French norm 17.1 On the Quebec french "ear" and "mouth" 18 Interintelligibility 19 pronunciation samples 20 Oïl languages 21 Iles-de-la-Madelaine french 22 Salut les gars, les filles! 23 Non-standard Pronouns 24 Contradictory? 25 "courriel" 26 Anglophone Emigration 27 English Influence? 28 Little question about grammar

[edit] History

I don't understand clearly this sentence:

Such early yet difficult success was followed by a socio-cultural retreat, if not repression, that would later help preserve French in Canada.

What do "socio-cultural retreat" mean? Is this talking about the bill 101? If yes I can't believe someone think we retreated from the american or canadian culture so easily. Before about 1890, the french canadians were forming the majority in all Canada. Before that we were even more, more than 95% in 1760. How can we "retreat", I don't understand.207.253.108.186 00:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Fred.

[edit] Rhotic

Could someone confirm what rhotics are used in Quebec? Some previous contributor and I thought it was a uvular anyway, but according to Uvular_R#Québec this is false – they don't say what is true though. (¿) --Valmi 04:05, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I do think some dialect (at least in some social groups) have a rolled r /r\/, most noticeably in Montreal. It might have disappeared more or less, though. Personally, I've heard mostly uvular trills and uvular voiced fricatives. And I'm from Quebec city.--Circeus 19:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thinking about it the /r\/ doesn't seem untrue, but I don't hear it that often (anymore, anyway). And I'm from Montreal. Considering User:Gilgamesh wasn't so positive after all, I understand that we agree on uvular trill/uvular v fric and I remove the "dubious". --132.204.183.87 15:33, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC) (unlogged User:Valmi)

I base part of my assumption on a song by Beau Dommage (Marie-Chantal):

"Tu dis qu't'aimes la manière

Que j'ai d'rouler mes r

C'est frais, montréalais pis juste assez vulgaire"

Which is sung with audibly rolled r's. The song having been produced in the 70s, and from info gathered here and there, I assumed at least a "popular" pronounciation up to that point still had rolled r's. --Circeus 16:59, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That would be on a vynil, and mine are quite out of reach right now. ;-)

I found some documentation about all varieties or R's found in Quebec though, and they indeed document an uvular trill [r] that was used in Montreal and Outaouais and has been fastly declining lately in favour of of [R] (among other things – they were actually documenting 12 different rhotics used in Quebec, I'll have to read that more carefully later and update the article). --Valmi 17:54, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The third ê

French has a third phonemic "e" vowel, always, usually in words with orthographic <aî> or <ê>. It is also the rendering of all /e/ and /E/ before a final [r]. Minimal pairs include 'bête'("beast")/'bette'("beet") and 'maître'(master)/'mettre'(to put). I have had trouble putting a finger on it and used X-Sampa /E\/ (old IPA E), or and approximated /E_q/ to represent this vowel. --Circeus 19:15, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quebec French has, I mentionned it in the small paragraph I wrote about its phonology as /E:/ as opposite to /E/. I never heard [E_q] but I suppose that might very well exist. The most important point anyway is France French doesn't recognise this pair. --Valmi 05:03, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

¿What is /E\/ by the way? --Valmi 05:05, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

/E\/ is the X-Sampa symbol I use to represent the deprecated IPA E (Small capital e), which represented a lax /E/. My point was that there is a difference in quality (very audible to me) in addition to the difference in quantity. Neither distinction is made in Europe, AFAIK. --Circeus 16:54, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Glad we agree on the fact that it doesn't exist (anymore) in Europe. I couldn't really hear the quality difference, or then I would have guessed perhaps that it's (xsampa) [E_+], but I just found a book where the phoneme itself is described as (xsampa) /3/ (open-mid central). {sample} What do you think? I think it sounds weird. It would be quite important to agree on a notation for this phoneme though, since we agree it is a phoneme in Quebec French. By the way, huge shame on the Quebecer Robert for refusing to note it. --Valmi 18:07, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Maurician lect??

This entry should be deleted. I hear/have heard "cossin" and "la bus"(Decried all across the province) regularly in both Quebec and Montréal. "Patente" is a bit more common for "Gizmo", though. AFAIK, "cossin" means "a small undetermined thing, usually in numbers". --Circeus 19:24, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I spent my teenage years in Trois-Rivieres and I can tell you that, first, Montrealers underline a difference and second, that cossin is well known as a Mauricien expression. Now, it may have crossed to other places throughout the territory, like Boston English expressions in the rest of the american territory or British English expressions in the US and Australia, for example. But I believe it does not remove the legitimacy of the mention. I have also been met with surprise from Montrealers when I spoke of the la bus expression (I'll note that I do not use it) ;) and, among Trifluvians, is is renown as a local term. Salutations. --Liberlogos 05:31, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A good read for all those contributing to this article

http://www.uqac.uquebec.ca/~flabelle/socio/normecajo.htm (on the Quebec French norm)

The rest of the site is also excellent:

http://www.uqac.uquebec.ca/~flabelle/socio/ (on Sociolinguistics)

http://www.uqac.uquebec.ca/~flabelle/ (on Linguistics)

-- Mathieugp 02:45, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It seems we are a 2 decades behind in the way we treat the subject. This article is comparing Quebec French to the French of France, making it a regionalism of this language, rather than considering it as a national variant of French (with regionalism all to itself) much in the same way we compare British English and American English. -- Mathieugp 02:52, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, this article is about a dialect, right? and it doesn't make any linguistic difference whatsoever whether Quebec is a "region" or a "nation", or really even if it would be just one person that wouldn't change anything to the way the lect is to be described.

A variety of a language spoken in some specific geographic place is called a "dialect", I hope we agree on that. Quebec French is a dialect of French. France French is a dialect of French.

No, this is not correct. Do not confuse dialect with accent. Britons, New Zealanders or Australians spending time in English-speaking Canada have no problems communicating because there's no such thing as a Canadian or Australian dialect; it's a case of different accents, not dialects. The difference between the French of France and Canada is somewhat greater, but do not confuse, misuse amd abuse the term 'dialect.' - User:82.68.46.46

Just to clearify the idea (or maybe confuse things more), see Dialect, List of dialects of the English language and American English. The words variety and dialects are used interchangeably in theses articles. - Sepper 18:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now, how do you want us to describe the Quebec French dialect? If we were trying to make a Quebec French dictionary or grammar to the use of Quebecers, then you would be right, it would be innapropriate to describe Quebec French based on France French. But now we're writing an article about Quebec French in an encyclopedia that already has an article about France French (considered as standard French). So why describe Quebec French independantly when 95% of the material will be redundent and we could describe it differencially?

If you want to make an article describing Quebec French on its own, just copy this old article to Differences between the French and Quebecer dialects of French and go for it, but it will be a hard task as Quebec French short of its lexicon is not standard.

--Valmi 16:37, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Refactoring

No, I am not suggesting we duplicate all things in French language to here. That would not make sense. :-)

Quebec French and France French are two varieties of the same language. And yes, we are dealing with dialects, but more than that because we are dealing with normalized languages which are references by themselves. There is a France French norm to which regional dialects (marseille etc.) are compared to. There is also a separate Quebec French norm to which regional dialects (Gaspesie, Saguenay etc.) are compared to.

I am proposing that this article be refactored so as to cover more than what it currently covers. This could lead to a breaking down into other articles. Obviously, the differences between Quebec French and the French of France is going to be an important part of the subject, especially since it seems this is all that people are interesting in knowing! :-) Also popular are the regionalisms that exist inside Quebec. I think that introducing elements of sociolinguistics will help clarifiying a number of things and eliminate a number of generalizations and imprécisions currently in this article.

Also, nowhere does this article speak of the French that was spoken by the Quebec clergy, the one which was taught in Classical colleges until recently and of the important transformations in the French spoken since the education reforms of the 1960s. There is clearly an important rupture there. On top of that, I think we should cover the topic of the normalization of Quebec French that began in the 1960s and (probably in an article all to itself) of the Quebec debate over the quality of its spoken language.

What do you think?

-- Mathieugp 22:18, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think we agree in the first place to define the lect itself differentially to the France French dialect? I agree with you to defining the Gaspésie and Saguenay dialects based on the Quebecer dialect, that makes much sense. See further post.

As of major additions to be made to the article, I agree to most of your suggestions. Here is how I was already getting everything organised in my mind:

1. New subtitle right after History, something like Normalisation, that would necessarily include information about the perception Quebecers have of their dialect. That would discuss both the linguistique and sociale norm as they are called in this article you wanted us to read. (I reckon this is where Quebec debate over the quality of its spoken language would belong.)
2. Sociolectal information spread across the article. Whereas information about regional variants can be kept to a separate subtitle (that used to be Lects nonetheless), social variants should be inclded in the differential description itself, that is basically stating right away the context in which a "difference" is considered acceptable.
3. Obviously the subarticle about History of Quebec French requires serious work; this is where I reckon information about the clergy would belong.

By the way, what about creating a WikiProject for French dialects? --Valmi 18:25, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You're right. Most of what I was talking about would make sense under History of Quebec French. Right now, the equivalent article I started on fr.wikipedia.org is more complete. The best online source I found for this is here :

http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/histfrnqc.htm

Although not a primary source, it is very complete and up to date. What I wrote so far is evidently mostly taken from what I read there. :-) It has a political bias however. I am trying to make mine more objective, even if it means leaving out certain parts and even if I agree with most parts of this political bias. ;-)

Creating a WikiProject for French dialects seems like a good idea, although I am honestly not qualified to write much on the dialects of Acadia, Louisiana, Belgium, Switzerland etc. I guess I could start reading and learn. Meanwhile, you'll have to find more knowledgeable people than me. Do you know any good online sources on this subject?

-- Mathieugp 19:18, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I just had a look at French language for the first time since I started working on Quebec French, and it made me reconsider some things. More when I'm done with Phonetics & phonology. --Valmi 21:40, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, TLFQ @ ULaval are great as far as lexicology is concerned, they are the best source.

As I have just written, I hadn't read French language for a long time, and hadn't noticed how incomplete it is. That makes me reconsider my position that Quebec French should absolutely be defined differentially, and I'm suddenly thinking we could take some extra freedom, finally.

I'll have to read more of that FL article though. After I ate. (I indented your signature too, hope you don't mind.)

--Valmi 22:32, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject French dialects --Valmi 00:29, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think we should also create this projet on fr.wikipedia.org. This might attract more people than just on the English side. -- Mathieugp 22:06, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology & phonetics

It is likely that I made mistakes in the big lot of stuff I wrote about Quebec phonetics today, please feel very very free to have a close look. Also, I worked with HTML entities, so some API may be totally wrong. --Valmi 22:18, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I honestly wouldn't be able to know without comparing what you wrote with a reference manual (which I don't have). I trust you on these things. I will focus on history for now since I already started. -- Mathieugp 22:06, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] morphologic gender

Seems good to me, however something other than "auto" will have to be used as an example as both "auto" and "automobile" are in fact feminine words... :-) Maybe "une avion" instead? That's the most common 5-year old type mistake most francophones do when they grow up. I know I did. ;-)

-- Mathieugp 12:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yuk! I would say I was probably very tired when I wrote this little bit. Very tired. :-) --Valmi 17:26, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible that naming the bus routes by their feminine numbers be influenced through analogy by the same habits of naming highways? La 20, la 40 are only a short way to l'autobus 7 -> la 7.--Circeus 12:22, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• points out* It seems to me like we don't necessarily need to "weaken" the article to make them identical. An important cause might also simply be the loss of nasalization before a pronounced nasal. I personnaly pronounce a distinct /y/. --Circeus 14:38, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is important to note the almost slavic sounding consonant clusters in spoken Québec French such as "M'a'l'vende" : Je vais le vendre (I will sell it) "Ch'tsu ben?" : Je suis bien n'est-ce pas? (I'm content aren't I?) Notice the ch'ts cluster. Many slavic languges and aslo Hungarian has a similar syllable, it almost loses its Latiness. Usually the initial voyel can be dropped as in "Vous v'nez tsu?" : Venez-vous (Are you plural coming?) The v'n cluster sounds almost scandanavian. Many such consonant cluster arise in spoken Québec French.

[edit] Hypothetic infinitive

I don't have time for an addition right now but someone should write something about the use of the hypothetical infinitive used instead of si+past subjunctive. Maybe to avoid use of the (wrong) conditionnal? Is the use of conditionnal in clauses starting with "si" widespread? --Circeus 18:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I can't understand what you mean by hypothetical infinitive, nor see any case where using si+past subjunctive is considered correct. Could you just show some examples?

Si + conditionnal is a rather frequent error, but it's not exactly widespread as most people are conscious of its agrammaticality. --Valmi 23:47, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My bad, should be past indicative after "si", subjunctive is used after "que", mea culpa. "Avoir de l'argent, je t'en prêterais", "Pouvoir t'aider, je le ferais" are good examples. Regular form would be "Si j'avais de l'argent, je t'en prêterais" etc. --Circeus 15:22, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Aow, yyyyes, that is a most interesting thing I had never reflected about. I would bet tis an archaic construction [I mean, in "standard" French], but shall try to find documentation about it. --Valmi 20:57, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've read it is a grammatical innovation specific to Quebec (as is the use of surcomposed tenses (Ce couteau, il a eu coupé.) in Swiss or southern european French)--199.202.104.120 21:14, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I've quickly overread an article on the subject today, and that's what it seems like, although other languages have the same -- there was an example with Italian, but I cannot remember now. Anyway I added a (very) short paragraph on the subject. And I'm not sure whether embeddable is an appropriate translation for enchâssable. --Valmi 20:32, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like Yoda speech to me :) Vaguely reminiscent of "J'aurais de l'argent, je t'en prêterais" that you frequently hear in France. Or is that only in the past "Tu m'aurais appelé, je serais venu..."

[edit] Epenthesis

I'm thinking more and more of adding a small section on epenthesises specific to Quebec such as the change of /Re/+stop into /aR/ (which I've heard extended to verbs like "rentrer"!)and /EksipRE/ from /EksprE/. Any remarks on it?--Circeus 17:50, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That would be very interesting indeed. As of /EksipRE/ though I doubt that is is specific to Quebec. Also I think this /a/ is more probably an open /@/. For instance, I would personally pronounce <rentre> [@_0Xa~t] (bad example I think), or <regarde> [@_0RgaRd]. --Valmi 18:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree that most of the time, the added vowel is weak, bordering /@/ or /9/ (/6/ is not impossible, but that vowel sounds more like /E/ to me), it tends to strenghten in joual-type talks. I've seen "Quebec dictionnaries" include verbs starting in ar- (artourner, arparler, arvenir). Off course these were "hard-core" dictionnaries arguing that Quebecois is a separate language and using joual as a rhetoric tool, but the orthography is quite descriptive of some talking you'll hears.

The same phenomenon often occurs with the article "le" in the same positions, albeit the vowel usually remains a schwa. --Circeus 20:49, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This sort of epenthesis is also a feature of Norman language ( e.g. èrpâler, èrv'nîn, èrgarder) and Picard language (e.g. éd = de, él = le) so it is probably one of the langue d'oïl features inherited by the language of Quebec. There are more examples of 'èr-' prefix in Jèrriais article -- Man vyi 06:33, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

That is a possibility, albeit I'm not sure there were that much speakers from these regions amongst Quebec colonists. I'm not a linguist but my hunch is toward parallel evolution. THe oddest epenthesis you will often find in Quebec remains the addition of a parasitic "s" in verb ending in -ouer(louer) or -uer(puer), mostly at indicative present or imperfect tense (y lousent, vous pusez). Any other hearings of this one?--Circeus 00:23, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

loûser means louer (praise, worship) in Jèrriais; the mainland form is loser. Can't help with pusez without research into neighbouring languages. On the colonist question, from our side of the Atlantic we tend to believe that similarities between our langues d'oïl and the language of Quebec is explained by the influence of oïl speakers. -- Man vyi 06:49, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

On a totally unscientific note, both louer and puer were derived in Latin from nouns with a nominative in S. I'm not saying it's related – but I'm probably meaning it. (By the way, never heard pusez.) --[[User:Valmi|Valmi ✒]] 08:15, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The louer I'm talking about is the "rent" one. IIRC, it has a different origin in latin. Will have to look into that. My sister will often say puser, though she is no reference, I occasionnaly hear louser here at Cegep.--Circeus 11:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lenght opposition

I think it is relevant to mention that whenever the A/a, O/o and 3/E peirs occur they are opposed in both lenght and quality.--Circeus 01:02, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

EG? --[[User:Valmi|Valmi ✒]] 02:57, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

/pat/ & /pA:t/ (NOT /pAt/), /cOt/ & /co:t/ (NOT /cot/), /mEtr/ & /m3:tr/ (NOT /m3tr/). While short /A/ and /o/ do occur, they never do in contrasting position with /a/ and /O/ AFAIK and by such are not phonemes.--Circeus 13:48, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I think the [A:] isn't specific to QF, but the difference in quantity of /o/ could be worth mentionning. At that, you could add a note about /ø/ and diphtongs. As of /3/, I don't think there is any kind of convention, so feel free to write /3:/ if you fancy since all allophones are long anyway. --[[User:Valmi|Valmi ✒]] 20:19, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Re: bus lines and highway numbers

Answering Circeus: Is it possible that naming the bus routes by their feminine numbers be influenced through analogy by the same habits of naming highways? La 20, la 40 are only a short way to l'autobus 7 -> la 7.

I doubt your hypothesis, but I must honestly admit I shouldn't know how to prove it wrong. If only commuter train lines were numbered, we'd know if le train 4 is le 4 or la 4. I think it would be le 4 though. ;-)

It seems to me that those metonymies follow quite a logical serie anyway: le numéro 42 -> le 42, la route 132 -> la 132, l'autobus 7... [?]

I would also like to provide a more formal counter-example from France, but the only one I can think of is in Queneau's Exercices de styles, which I cannot find now because I'm repainting and my flat is a real chantier de construction, and I'm not even sure whether it's l'autobus, l'omnibus or just le bus S.

--[[User:Valmi|Valmi ✒]] 00:58, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Linking?

Could someone please clarify that Quebecois lacks most "linking"? Do they mean liason? So does this mean that beaux-arts has a glottal stop in the middle instead of a voiced sibilant? Or what? Please be specific and use examples, I'm confused.

Ok it's clearer now but still not entirely clear. When one "avoids linking", one has a vowel clash. Is the clash resolved by blending the vowels, or by inserting a glottal stop? Someone who knows please answer...

Steverapaport 15:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

or nothing. All solutions are possible AFAIK. That phenomenon is probably one of the most complex in French. I'll have to check my books when I get home. --Circeus 17:15, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

By inserting a glottal stop, I'd say... See fr:Liaison for a correct definition of the linking, and for the mandatory vs. optionnal cases of linking. In QF, optionnal cases are almost never observed. --Valmi ✒ 19:36, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving

This talk page is extremely long. Maybe parts of it should be archived or deleted? --Circeus 22:00, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done. Moved old or irrelevant discussions to Talk:Quebec French(archives), and appropriate ones to Talk:History of Quebec French or Talk:Quebec French lexicon. ALso deleted a few bits. --Circeus 15:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] IPA completed

I completed the IPA-ification of the article. --Circeus 15:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization and separation

I'd like to have opinions on the possible moving of the Phonology article to a separate one, much like Lexicon. Merging the subsections in Regional variations should also be considered IMHO, until we have enough materials to actually separate them. --Circeus 19:07, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the Quebec French norm

For those interested in the subject, there is currently a very interesting series of two articles by Marie-Éva de Villers (author of the Multidictionnaire de la langue française) in Le Devoir. The articles present the results of a study which tried to establish the real norm of Quebec French by comparing all the words used in newspaper articles published in Le Devoir and Le Monde for the year 1997. The second and last article was published today (January 5, 2005). Very interesting read. -- Mathieugp 22:17, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the Quebec french "ear" and "mouth"

I'd love to note somewhere the obvious difference between the location in the mouth of Quebec French vs. France French, and the related difference in how a Quebecois hears foreign sounds. Unfortunately I'm not really qualified to do this in detail. All I know is that the foreign "th" sounds come out very different in the different French accents when speaking English:

sound	English	Quebec	France
[θ]	"think"	"tink"	"sink"
[ð]	"this"	"dis"	"zis"

Obviously the two languages are either differently placed in the mouth, or have a different "ear" for consonants, or both. Anyone understand the linguistic terminology here well enough to comment on this?

Steverapaport 20:20, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

While the fact has been widely aknowledged (I've seen numerous references to it), I have yet to see a suggested hypothesis. Maybe Quebecois are more exposed to English slang /t, d/ for [θ, ð] than European French speakers? --Circeus 20:42, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First, my qualifications to comment: I lived in Ottawa (near the Quebec border) for a year, and in Northern Quebec for a summer. I've also spent a bit of time in France and in other parts of Europe where I have had business dealings with Frenchmen. In English and in Parisian French, which I studied for 7 years.

The difference is definitely not due to slang English influence, because in the remote parts of Quebec there isn't any to speak of. It is rather due to an entire way of speaking. To my ear the Quebecois speak a version of French that is spoken further back in the mouth -- their "R"s retreat almost to the uvula, the mouth is held further open, and the words alternate between sounding swallowed and sounding flat. The articulation points are further back on the tongue. There's also a bit of an adenoidal sound, as if the speaker has a cold.

The Parisiens speak closer to the front of the mouth, with more closed mouth, and most of the articulation done near the tip of the tongue and lips. I'd love to say all this with authority but all I have is my own eyes and ears for this.

I'm pretty sure that the difference in the "th" sounds is related to the different articulation points or the adenoidal thing, but I don't have much to back it up. But I'd love to hear from someone who does! Steverapaport 23:37, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wow! This whole discussion is really interesting and important, so here's my (socio)linguistic grain of salt. As for the "mouth", in linguistics we call that "place of articulation"; "ear" would refer to "phonological framework". In order to understand "phonological framework", you can think of a matrix or a screen into which English-language sounds are categorized or slotted by FQ's. Naturally, the "sink"/"tink" versions of "think" show that Francophone Quebeckers have a different phonological framework in their heads than other Francophones do and vice versa. For example, Brazilians consistently pronounce "th" as f/v. Among FQ's, this difference exists despite spelling pronunciations, i.e. pronouncing what one sees; the proof of this is the "d" for voiced "th". A so-called "exposure" to English "slang" [sic] has nothing to do with this phenomenon among FQ's (or Francophone Ontarians, for that matter). The phenomenon is present particularly among unilingual francophones who have never been in contact with English, even before seeing written English or English borrowings.

However, there is someone who asserts that FQ's produce "sink" instead of "tink". She's an English instructor who was working at UQAM when I was there. I can't remember her name. Anyway, I have a hard time believing such an assertion because it's very clear that FQ's perceive both "th"'s as explosions, not vibrations. A study would use nonce words (made up, yet plausible-sounding English words); however, they would need to be read by an English speaker and repeated by the FQ.

As for what the FQ phonological framework consists of, there was an article written by Denis Dumas a few years back. I don't remember the exact title/date, though you should be able to find the info easily on line.

Btw, sorry for my laziness of not using IPA. CJ Withers 03:14, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... As a french speaker who already noticed this, I'd be tempted to say it's because the french are specifically taught to use those "s" and "z" sounds instead of the "th" sound that doesn't exist in french, while us Quebecers who are a bit more accustomed to english are taught the "correct" way to pronounce the "th" sound as best as we can, but since the "th" sound is very unnatural for french speakers, we mangle it into the resulting "de", "dis" and "tink"... Am I making sense? :) Etienne D. 16:39, 02 February 2007

[edit] Interintelligibility

In my own humble personal experience, as a French person:

• Fast, colloquial Québec French can be difficult or impossible to understand (e.g. Lynda Lemay when she gives her "Québécois lessons").
• In normal situations, while the Québecois accent is easily recognizable, there is no problem understanding Québécois speaking. David.Monniaux 18:31, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have a question. If the discussion page is not an appropriate page for the question, apologies. Could someone add a section to the page on the adoption of (American) English phrases in Quebec French? I live in Montreal and my French isn't good enough to tell whether this is true, but I was at a party several months ago where a number of academics from Belgium were making fun of the claim that Quebec French is "less English" and "more pure" than European French. They weren't being mean and they weren't suggesting that Quebec French is inferior. But they said, basically, if you're fluent in English it's much much easier to understand Quebec French due to the adoption of wholesale phrases from American English. Actually it's not just that. It's the use of verbs in ways that match their English counterparts. Examples: Ca fait du sense. Je sympathise avec toi. The Belgians had a long and very funny list of these but I can't remember them. I think it is interesting from a linguistic viewpoint to look at what (in terms of language "purity") can be controlled by force of will and force of law. It seems that noun substitutions can be controlled to a point, but I'm wondering how Quebec, surrounded by, what, 250 million? anglophones can keep hold of a version of French that is less anglisized than European French. MySamoanAttorney 08:15, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They can, and they do, precisely because they're surrounded by 310 million Anglophones. It leads to a siege atmosphere which allows them to do almost anything, including pass questionable laws (see Bill 101), to prevent the encroachment of English into their language. France has no such reason to worry about Spanish, German or English, so France borrows occasional words and constructions, and is none the worse for it.

Bill 101 provided, for some time, that commercial signage MUST be in French. Lawmakers also concerned themselves with making up new French words to replace English borrowings like "hot dog" (chien chaud). Joni Mitchell said "You don't know what you've got till it's gone", but the Québecois have been determined since 1977 to make sure they keep it instead.

Both Quebec French and European French have anglicisms, but different ones (there are many cases where Quebec French uses a French word while European French has borrowed an English word, and there are many other cases where Quebec French borrows an English word where European French uses a French word). Neither one is more "pure" than the other. The difference is that Quebec French has absorbed English vocabulary as a gradual process through 250 years of contact with English-speaking populations within Quebec, while European French with very few exceptions (spleen, clown, etc) did not borrow much from English at all until very recent decades when it became faddish and fashionable to use English words as slang. -- Curps 23:32, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Curps is correct too. In summary then, France has anglicisms from the late 20th century on, but few from before that. Quebec has anglicisms (and nativisms) from the 17th century until the late 20th century, and then they stopped (mostly) taking in more. Steve Rapaport 12:30, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

French is my second language, and I have little difficulty understanding either Québécois or European French as long as it's not too fast or too full of colloquialisms, but this may be because I was taught by European French speakers while living near Quebec. Anyhow, that's not why I'm making this comment. I wanted to bring up two seemingly contradictory statements in the section about interintelligibility with other dialects. It says "European pronunciation is not at all difficult for Canadians to understand; only slang expressions present any problems". Then in the very next sentence it says "Television programmes and films from Quebec often must be subtitled for international audiences, which some Quebecers perceive as offensive, although they themselves sometimes can hardly understand European French pronunciation and slang." I don't feel I'm qualified to make a judgment on this issue, not being a native French speaker myself, but at least one of these sentences needs to be changed. — Ливай | ☺ 21:56, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to say that *standard* european pronunciation (as the one you would see on the french news) is perfectly understandable for most of us but slang (like parisian argot) isn't, not at all in some cases (a few movie characters seemed to be speaking a foreign language to my ear). Then of course there is the problem of regional accent which can be quite hard in both cases if they are particularly thick (saguenayen accent to a parisian or marseillais to a québecois.)--Marc pasquin 02:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The accent of quebec may be hard to understand for someone who's not accustomed , like the accent from the south of France. It is just a question of practice. But the difference of southern french and québécois is that the metropolitans hear southern french quite often in films, ads, etc. and so we all can easily understand what they say, without subtitles. The subtitles when a québécois speaks in french television is for people who have never heard quebecois spoken before --80.11.154.154 17:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Article is NOT correct about relative Interintelligibility between French and English. I am a Canadian anglo who has lived in Montreal French for over 60 years, has family in England and who has also lived or visited for lengthy periods in France,Belgium, Switzerland, Africa etc. I have two points to make about the article (and some of the discussion):

==1 - the range of difficulty between different groups of English speakers is significantly wider than amongst Francophones; but

==2 - the English-speakers don't worry about it whereas Francophones make an issue of it.

==1. Quebecers, even those with working-class accents, can be immediately understood in Europe when they speak carefully. And Europeans can always be understood in Quebec, because of exposure to French radio, TV and films, but also because it is the "posh" language of native Quebecers, used in the Canadian media, and any where else where some pretentiousness is desired.I have seen Quebec hockey players (not noted for cultural sophistication) get on perfectly in Switzerland and France with vitually no learning curve.The same applies in French Africa.

HOWEVER, I have also been in work groups made up of US, British, Australian and Anglo-African mid-level managers. After a year together, our Australian and our US Southerner were not able to have a fully comprehensible discussion with each other. In our travels, Scottish security guards and taxi drivers were incomprehensible to most of the group. While African managers were able to speak very comprehensible English, labourers were incomprehensible (unlike French-speaking Africa where the fractured French of labourers was nevertheless immediately understandable, albeit amusing.) Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers in Toronto are often not understandable, whereas Haitian taxi drivers in Montreal have no language barrier in French, despite the obvious accent. (Language schools such as Berlitz have felt the need to teach spoken "American" as a different language from English; this does not occur in French, not even in Quebec where such an idea would be a source of amusement. As well, courses are now offered in the Southern states of the US to social climbers seeking to get rid of the regional accent. "My Fair Lady" is a G Bernard Shaw story about teaching a working-class English girl to speak "posh". I am unaware of such an approach in the French-speaking world.

2 - The Francophone world is traumitized by the need to conform. On language matters there is l'Académie française and Quebec's Office nationale de la langue française. Differences in language do not hinder understanding. But the degree of adherence to the norm is an indicator of class and education much more than in English. Some Canadian Francophones prefer to make their career in English where an accent is irrelevant, rather than in French where their birth-place and level of education becomes obvious the minute they open their mouth. Quebecers feel snubbed in France but treat Acadians with even greater disdain. North-Africans in Paris are chased away from employment centres the minute they say an accented word - but a "pure" African like President Senghor wins universal admiration in France because he masters the official version of French.

IN the ENGLISH world, Prince Phillip correctly said that "bad English is the international language." The only criterion is understandability. Anglophones never think of language as an issue of conformity to a norm. Indeed its dictionaries seek to record usage rather than to dictate rules. Thus the wide variety of spoken English is simply not an issue in the English-speaking world. However, amongst Francophones it is a source of disbute.... perhaps because they understand each other sufficiently well to be mutually insulting.

The author(s) of the text would be well advised to take another run at this issue.

I completely agree with you on most of the points and elaborations thereon, however, I prefer to simply say that the sections on standardization and on intelligibility not only consist of bunk but also play into myths and other preconceived notions. I did a major overhaul of the entire article EXCEPT for those sections because they were hopeless, no offense to their authors. They seem more like personal accounts on a discussion-talk page than decent article material.

I've avoided reworking this section because 1. the two headings need to be removed entirely (which will surely shock some folks), 2. for lack of other contributions, I could bring in personal research on language sociology, 3. I am hesitant to introduce some upsetting news to the French-language speech communities both in France and Québec (statistics on functional literacy, class issues, language awareness, etc., and 4. I got busy in the meantime. À vous de jouer... CJ Withers (sorry, the tildes and markup don't on the computer I'm currently using)

[edit] pronunciation samples

The section describing pronunciation is prety techincal. It would be extremely nice to have contrasting pronunciations of a word or two (perhaps petit). --Andrew 03:52, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Very good also is a comparison between the pronunciations of the 7 days of the week. We hear Quebecers (often without them truly realizing it) pronounce lundzi, mardzi, mercredzi, jeudzi, vendredzi, samedzi while the French (most of them at least) will not do the linking "zzz" sound between the "d" and the "i". (Sorry, I have no idea how to use IPA. You can fix my sentence if you want. :-) -- Mathieugp 03:06, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

can`t help about the way to write it but this what is called "affricative". People from the gaspesie region seem to have a much milder case of it maybe due to the acadian influence.--Marc pasquin 00:54, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I wrote most of this section a long time ago, and I'll take the fact that almost nobody touched it since then--even though it seriously needs better vulgarisation--as the ultimate proof that it's impossible to understand. Myself, not being so immersed in the subject anymore (in fact I'm not even using the French language on a daily basis nowadays), I'm suddenly finding it very heavy.

Whenever I have some time and energy for it, I'll totally rewrite it in a way that normal people can make some sense of without getting a headache. --Valmi ✒ 05:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oïl languages

It has been proposed that Languages of Oïl be renamed and moved to Langues d'Oïl. Comments and votes on Talk:Languages of Oïl, please, if you're interested. Man vyi 09:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iles-de-la-Madelaine french

First, I'm no linguist, and not an excellent english speaker (and writer). I'm a French-Canadian from montreal, and I worked for a long time on Québec's lower-north shore. The accent there is sometimes incredibly hard to understand, being a mix of Acadian (Shiac), Quebec and Iles-de-la-Madelaine (Madelinot) french. One caracteristic of the language, is they omit the letter "r" in all their words. Someone told me it's because when the english deported the Acadians, some of them moved to Iles-de-la-Madelaine, and rejected the King (le Roi)and the queen (la Reine)of France that abandonned them. To be sure that no one ever spoke of the Roi (and Reine)again, they deliberatly stopped using the letter R. Thats why it's easy to spot a Madelinot on mainland Quebec. He says: Déba'que instead of Débarque, Pou'quoi instead of Pourquoi and so on. On some occasions, they use some kind of hard H, instead of R, like in h'gahde instead of Regarde. Someone can confirm or infirm that story?

The "r" drop, i.e. lack of rhoticity, is due to Acadian French. Most varieties of French in Canada fall into one of the two categories: Quebec or Acadian. Of course, there are some other slight differences, yet they should not necessary be considered justification for the "dialect" title. CJ Withers 02:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Salut les gars, les filles!

Hey folks! I'm re-writing bits and pieces of the Quebec French article, both in English and in French. You'll notice that some information has been removed; I've transferred the stuff into my Sandbox on Quebec French. You see, I'm trying to retain the same content all the while re-organizing, streamlining and enhancing. So, there's no need to worry about the old data. If you want to help out, PLEASE DO! CJ Withers 02:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-standard Pronouns

Shouldn't there be a reference in the grammar section to the (familiar) use of non-standard personal pronouns in Québec French, e.g. (quoting from the French version of the article) A m'énerve, Y sont fous, or È sont foulles ? 161.24.19.82 18:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

There is info on that, but the entire repertoire of pronouns needs to be redone (check my sandboxes) because in some cases it's use, phonology or semantics. For example "y" for "ils" is not Québec French, it's all spoken French dialects. This phenomenon is due to "l" being unstable. Anyway, as I said, I'm working on a coherent presentation of the pronouns. CJ Withers 19:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

All three, A, Y, and È, are due to unstable L. Nothing to do with grammar. --Valmi--quite unable to find a tild on the Argentine keyboard.

Exactly. Check my sandbox on User:CJ Withers/Quebec French (syntax). CJ Withers 17:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradictory?

These sentences currently appear in the article (emphasis added):

Francophone Canadians abroad have to modify their accent somewhat in order to be easily understood, but very few francophone Canadians are unable to communicate readily with European Francophones. European pronunciation is not at all difficult for Canadians to understand; only differences in vocabulary present any problems.

Television programmes and films from Quebec often must be subtitled for international audiences, which some Quebecers perceive as offensive, although they themselves sometimes can hardly understand European French pronunciation and slang.

So which is correct? Can Quebecois understand Euro French pronunciation or can they not? I realize that the second sentence says "sometimes," but the first sentence seems to indicate "all the time." It seems that some clarification is necessary. JordeeBec 15:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The section "Social perception and language policy" need a complete re-write both for content and style. While I feel this is probably one of the most important sections, I've been waiting to re-write it because of all the facts and examples I've been gathering. Most of what's already there is, in fact, contradictory, as it is also heresay or preconceived notions.

There are some surprising facts in terms of language attitudes versus linguistic realities that will be presented. For example, the television series Fortier, which is 99% intelligible to francophones even if they are not used to Quebec French pronunciation, is available dubbed into Metropolitan French. Also, many films are dubbed into Metropolitan French though in Quebec by speakers of Quebec French. An example of this is Brokeback Mountain, whose vocabulary is completely foreign and whose pronunciations are devoid of anything cowboy-sounding regardless of the regional dialect. More on these issues later. CJ Withers 01:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The apparent contradiction might partly come from this: "standard" european french (the type heard on tv news for example) is, apart from the odd expression, perfectly understable to quebecois in general. Argot on the other hand sounds completely alien.--Marc pasquin 18:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue has nothing to do with structure or any other intrinsic properties of either dialects and all of their registers. It's familiarity, not inter-intelligibility. Speakers of Acadian French or Quebec French are exposed to Metropolitan French in film/tv/radio whereas other francophones are not. In fact, the tv series Fortier, which is clearly intelligible in terms of structure, pronunciation and its quite non-regional vocabulary, is dubbed into Metropolitan French because of a perceived lack of intelligiblity, not familiarity. Also, it's not so much "accent", i.e. pronunciation, that people modify; it's syntax, vocabulary and rythm. Keep in mind that North American francophones when in Europe are in an environment that encourages socio-linguistic convergence. Therefore, the modification cannot be contributed to inter-intelligiblity only.

It would be interesting to compare actors' dialog from Les Invasions Barbares (which was not later dubbed) with dialog from Fortier (which was later dubbed). Clearly, the former is less "intelligible" outside of Francophone North America. CJ Withers 16:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "courriel"

You said that the word "courriel" is widely used in France. That's not the case. Almost everybody in France use the word "mail" ou "mel" for "E mail". "Mel" is the official word (Académie française) in use in France, but many people write it "mail". "courriel" is mention in the french dictionary as "used in Québec". Excuse my poor English... Clio64B 20:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You who? The preceding message is in the 2nd person, though it's about a subject of general interest, i.e. the term "courriel". Could you specify the name of the contributor whose statement or words you're referring to. Personally, I can't imagine anyone saying such a thing because it's common knowledge that "mail", "mel" and even "mél" are used in most French-speaking countries and regions other than Canada and Québec. Oh, and don't worry about your English! ;-) --CJ Withers 21:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anglophone Emigration

Need something on Anglophone emigration from modern Quebec affecting language balance.

Could you sign your comment please? :-)

This article is about the regional variety of French called Quebec French, not about language demographics for French and English in Québec. There are two articles, French in Canada and Language demographics of Quebec that are appropriate places for the info you mention. CJ Withers 04:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English Influence?

In PRONOUNS - "this is one of the very few possible influences of English on Quebec French aside from vocabulary".

A section summarizing these non-lexical influences would be useful.

Wondering: are the slack [ɪ], [ʏ], [ʊ] from some regional dialect of France, and not English?

Could you sign your comment, please? :-)

The lax, not "slack" (connotation!!), vowels are phonologically conditioned and do not come from English. This lax/tense pairing is also seen in German and Swedish. There is a detailed discription of the phenomenon in Denis Dumas' book Nos façons de parler : les prononciations en français québécois, which should already be cited at the bottom of the main article, but isn't. Anyway, the main article for Quebec French is way too long as it is. Should it be truly needed, an explanation of the lax/tense phenomenon would go in the Quebec French pronunciation article, which, by the way, needs a major overhaul. CJ Withers 04:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Little question about grammar

   * Particle "-tu" used to ask "yes/no" questions or to form tag questions. In this last use, "-tu" functions in the same way as "n'est-ce pas":

   C'est-tu prêt? (Est-ce prêt? / C'est prêt? / Est-ce que c'est prêt?) Is it ready?

is it a '-tu' or is it a 'y' with a liaison like in some french dialects. In 'haute bretagne' there are a lot of people who use 'C'est-y prêt ?' pronounced 'ces ti prêt'. Chris CII 14:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it probably has the same origin, indeed; it would seem plausible anyway. But it is usually spelled (and pronounced, for that matter) as "tu" in modern Quebec French Saintamh 16:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The -y sound is, by my experience (which I don't have much of, don't take my word for it) used more often in rural speak, which tends to sound slightly more like Acadian French. It's not used much, and I've mostly seen it used by humourists spoofing people living in rural areas, but I've occasionally heard it used in plain speech too. Ryke Masters 22:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The Guy in The Simpsons (washing floors at school) who looks comming from Scotland : in french canadian this guy use the particle Y, like a french acadian living in nova scotia... it is very funny and quebeckers laught a lot.. We laught because in reality we don't use that here in Quebec, except by some people from Gaspesie (in quebec but close to new brunswick and nova scotia). Quebec use right now the particle -TU, but it has increased recently, because I remember we were using a lot more the "est-ce que" before. 207.253.108.186 23:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Fred.