Talk:French language in Canada

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Contents 1 Early discussions 2 Deletion anyone? 3 Sprachraum Map 4 National language 5 French in Canada 6 Quebec bias 7 Junk English Alert!!!!!!!! 8 Overly Belaboring Point on Different Canadian French Dialects 9 Section needing beaucoup work 10 Origins 11 French in Canada (2) 12 More on Acadian French 13 Discussion from User talk:Soulscanner 14 Requested move

[edit] Early discussions

No mention of the attitude of French speakers in France (particularly Paris) towards Canadian French ? I remember my wife being rather upset about the reception that her Montreal French received when we visited Paris in the late 1980s. She finally left the communication to me. My schoolboy French wasn't that great but at least it was acknowledged. Is that a general attitude or was she just unlucky ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:34, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

French peoples I have met (I'm from the east-end of montreal) have had reaction ranging from saying "I love you're accent" all the way to "what ? I can't understand a word you're saying !". In term of generality, I usualy get worst reaction from parisian then others and from older people then younger. However, because there is a bigger penetration of quebec culture in the francophony now then 20 years ago, people are bit more used to our speach pattern. In the end, as anything else, the reaction you get depend on who you speak to. --Marc pasquin 19:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Marc. I guess we were just unlucky. | Talk 05:16, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

A map of where french is spoken in Canada would be very helpful, but i tried to find one to no avail. Does anyone has or knows where is one? -- Renato Rocha 11:24, December 17, 2005 (UTC)

C'est ici: Francophones in Canada (pdf file) Dubhdara 16:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

This article should be called "French in Canada", which is not the same thing as Canadian French. Canadian French is the dialect specific to the Francophones of Québec, Ontario and the other western provinces. Canadian French is a synonym of Quebec French, since the adjectiv "Canadian" here refers to the former french colony of Canada which became later the province of Quebec, and not the actual federation of Canada. So Canadian French DOES NOT INCLUDE Acadian French and Newfoundland French which are also distinct dialects spoken in the actual territory of Canada.

The term "Quebec French" replaced "Canadian French" in the province of Québec following the rise of Quebec nationalism. So Francophones of Ontario and western Canada might still use "Canadian French", but the use is just a question of identity.

The links to "Canadian French" should instead link to "French in Canada", and "Canadian French" should redirect to "Quebec French". -- LeQuantum, March 9 2006

[edit] Deletion anyone?

I suggest this article be deleted and that the key term "Canadian French" lead to a disambiguation page for Quebec French, Acadian French, French in North America, Language Demographics in Canada, etc.

I have a few reasons for advocating deletion.

The first reason is that the article refers to French as an official language, i.e. its status, not its linguistic features.

The second reason is that "Canadian French" is a misnomer on two accounts: (a.) there is no such regional variety as Candian French and (b.) as an official language either on the federal or provincial level, there is no mention of regional variety in the status legislation. The hidden reality behind the adhoc(?) term "Candian French" is a group of varieties _in_ Canada: Quebec French, Acadian French and Prairies French.

The third reason is that Michif is not a variety of French - it's an interlanguage of its own.

Lastly, this article echos information from other articles, in particular, the "Language in Canada" article.

Let's nix this one, n'est-ce pas? (as we say in any variety of English)

CJ Withers 06:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Or maybe we should rename the article as suggest by LeQuantum? It would make sense to have an article entitled French in Canada which would be some sort of an umbrella article for all subjects related to the French language in Canada. It is true that we have an article entitled Language in Canada, but the focus is on all languages in Canada, which is a big subject all to itself. If people don't agree than my second best choice is to nix the article. -- Mathieugp 18:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually did rename the article a while ago, but for some unfathomable reason, the article was reverted (probably because the remaining redirect should be transformed into an article.) Circeus 19:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course it can be renamed, although I think the issue lies more with a meta organization of related articles. The more I explore related articles, the more I find a mess in terms of structure both internally and externally. Luckily, the content of articles on French in Quebec, "Canadian French" and Quebec French are (very) good. The opposite is true of English when it comes to the dialects box/page. A true nightmare both in content and structre. Plus I completely re-wrote the Quebec English article (QC Eng. not being a dialect/variety when it's more a colection of phenomena). Back to our flock, hehehe, I suggest a lot of discussion and planning before moving/deletion/re-organizing. CJ Withers 22:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The german Wikipedia has a good structure from my point of view. "Kanadisches Französisch" is a disambiguation page explaining that it means Quebec French (but it gives also a link to French in Canada), and "Französisch in Kanada" shows briefly statistics, history and status of the French language in Canada and finally introduces the different varieties of French for more info. First, I think we should move the Canadian French text into French in Canada and write something like the german text that I find pertinent and even sufficient. Then we should redirect the links properly among the other pages. The importance here I think is to finally eliminate the confusion that it exists a kind of coast to coast Canadian French language that can be subdivided naively in Atlantic, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec French...

Secondly, we should maybe write something about "Canadian French", but I don't have a strong opinion about what to do. If it only redirects to Quebec French as it is a synonym, then nothing in Wikipedia would tell us explicitly about what speak Francophones in Ontario and the West. If Quebec French must be the article for what is also spoken in Ontario and the West, then we should mention it in that article. If we follow the logic "Canadian French"="Quebec French", then I like very much the german article "Quebecer Französisch" which start by clearing away any confusion: Als quebecer Französisch bezeichnet man die Variante des Französischen, die in Quebec, Ontario und den westlichen Provinzen Kanadas gesprochen wird. Die traditionelle Bezeichnung kanadisches Französisch wird heute immer mehr durch die Bezeichnung quebecer Französisch ersetzt, die allerdings unterschlägt, dass diese Variante des Französischen auch westlich der Provinz Quebec gesprochen wird (siehe Frankophone Kanadier, Französisch in Kanada). Klar vom kanadischen bzw. quebecer Französisch abgrenzen kann man das akadische Französisch, das in den Seeprovinzen Neu-Braunschweig, Neu-Schottland, Prince-Edward-Island und in einem kleine Teil der zu Quebec gehörenden Gaspésie gesprochen wird. It says Quebec French is spoken in Quebec and west from that province, Acadian French is in the Maritimes and Gaspésie; also that Quebec French is prefered to Canadian French although it is spoken elsewhere than just Quebec. LeQuantum 21:04, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Figures the German wikip. would be more organized! *chuckle* Anyway, I'll have a look there and thank goodness for multilingual diversity. BTW, I've been investigating the Qc English stuff and found that a page on mostly demographics and official status was filed under "Anglo-Quebeckers". Jeepers! We really need to go meta on everything and, yes, create a larger disambig. page for French in Canada. CJ Withers 21:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sprachraum Map

As for *plastic smile* "New! and Improved!" French in Canada / Quebec French articles, we desperately need a Sprachraum map with one color for QF and another for AF (Acadian French). Although Statistics Canada's got loads and loads of data, I find that this data is not always usable and they certainly do not give a true portrait of the country. If anything much of the data feeds into the bilingual-country myth.

I have a bunch of ideas on what and how to represent the salient info, but I remember that Mathieu also suggested a changing map or a video map to show how things have evolved. That idea is seriously needed to show historical changes in N.Am.

Oh, and I finally found a somewhat inspiring map from albeit not-so-useful articles on Latin Europe, Germanic Europe, and Slavic Europe. What I found interesting was the use of a gray political map over which a non-symbolic color was added. The maps show presence of an official language in one or two colors, and therefore are not true Sprachraum maps...anyway, it's a baby muse of inspiration. In fact, I think such gray political maps can be very useful to show Sprachraums (or Sprachräume ??) and phonetic variation. CJ Withers 21:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this map showing the linguistic border between QF and AF (with disregard of english speaking population!). http://www.cyberacadie.com/images/dialect_acad.gif LeQuantum 16:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks cool, but I'm wondering what criteria were used. Was it a majority of En or Fr speakers in an area that put it into the respective Sprachraum? Personally, I'm not fond of isoglosses or other lines because, in general, they aren't very accurate. I checked out some of the articles for Languages of Canada and they have some wicked cool maps, especially for Scottish Gaelic in Canada and Bungee language. I guess the overall questions here are (1) representation of official languages per nearby province NB, ON (2) Sprachräume for QF and AF with overlap in Acadie, (3) actual human population of En / Fr (ratio per municipality?). I thought some the Amerindian language maps did a great job of the latter. Also, the Stats Canada maps play around with percentages too much and make the population of French speakers look beefier while boosting bilingual numbers visually. CJ Withers 18:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Here are maps for English mother tongue, French mother tongue, English-French mother tongue, and Other languages mother tongue:

* The Atlas of Canada - Mother Tongue (you must click on the radio buttons to switch from one map to the other)

We see a great level of detail using the Zoom In feature. Maybe we can use a GFDL-licensed map of Canada and manually draw the Sprachraum of French and English on it using the Atlas data as reference. The Atlas' maps are copyrighted of course (http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/aboutus/important_notices.html). -- Mathieugp 22:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've checked those maps out before. However, they're quite deceptive for a few reasons. First, they do not show first/maternal language _still spoken_. Second, they color the map according to census/polling district, a practice that creates a visual trope leading people to believe that French speakers can be found in large numbers in very sparsely populated areas. Just compare the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region with Montreal Island. One could very easily believe there are more francophones in the former. Third, the distribution of percentages is misleading, and almost always is, with Stats Canada language maps. Not only are the colors too bright at the low end of the scale, they're also skewed. By having a bright pink to represent 5 percent or less makes it look like there's an abundance of francophones in the Toronto area. Oh, and notice how reds/violets are used for French - they stick out better.

It's for the above reasons that I believe we need another map. Linguistic reality first and not the perceptions or propaganda. -- CJ Withers 00:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of the problems with the maps. That is why I suggested using them as a reference to create new ones. Naturally, there is no point in re-creating the bias in the new maps. Unfortunately, we are forced to live with the census data from StatsCan. I am not aware of another State providing alternative data. As far as I know, all linguistic research/studies in Canada use the census data as a starting point since there is nothing else. Am I correct on this? Is there an accurate and up to date alternative to the 2001 census data?

I agree. It's the maps I don't like, not the data, but in terms of the data, 1st lang. + if it's still spoken are what we need to know. We need a cartographer or a map-lover to do this once we have the data. I'd definitely be a labor of love. -- CJ Withers 03:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] National language

Hey folks! I've written a lot on this page today so don't forget to read the stuff above.

I've used the term "national language" before and it's helped a lot for reorganizing the English dialect box/page (TBA). When we apply it to this article (Canadian French), it doesn't work. Think: Canadian French = the national language vs. official language. It does, however, describe Quebec French appropriately.

Oh, and we have to do something about getting rid of "Canadian French" from the French dialects box (both in E & F if it hasn't already been done in both). CJ Withers 22:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] French in Canada

I edited something in French in Canada. There is no big consequence on Wikipedia yet since nothing links to that page for the moment. It is a start in the purpose of eliminating the confusion between Canadian French vs. French in Canada. If you want to move more text from the Canadian French page to French in Canada, go ahead. We should then decide what to do with the Canadian French page: a disambiguation page or a page with appropriate text? LeQuantum 19:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, but it definitely needs re-inforcement because the notions of official language, minority/majority language and dialect (i.e. a SUBlanguage of France-French or a deviant or non-standardized variety or any other inferior/subordinate relationship) lead to confusion. There definitely needs to be coordination with what is _already_ out there. That's why I mentioned the meta level of organization. And a map. Without a map or maps, it seems like conjecture and is opening itself to tons of disagreement due to federal myths and identity politics.

On that note, why must there be an article on French in Canada? or French in Quebec? Personally, I'm for Quebec French, Acadian French, Cajun French with their respective demolinguistic data in each of their article. Otherwise, French in Canada by virture of its title, through appropriately named, still gives the impression that there is only one variety; the comment on official languages only serves to galvanize this misconception. I think "French in North America" is enough and avoids the nationalism problem. That way, the detour around Canada can be made all the while giving a true portrait of the Sprachräume, history and greater presence of Quebec French. Again, I'm all for a "French in North America" page. Let's leave the official status to the "Canada" and "Quebec" state pages themselves.

I believe it make sense to have articles on the languages and the real language communities themselves, regardless of political borders. A quick look a various language/ethnic group pages indicate that this is the direction Wikipedia is taking right now. (See Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages and Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups). French in North America would make sense for many reasons, one being that everytime we use the Canadian federation as a territory, we always end up talking about Quebec French in Quebec, the other provinces and neglect to mention the presence of that language in the New England states, which was, historically-speaking, very significant. Same for the obvious link between Acadian French in the Maritimes and Cajun French in Louisiana.

Also, I think it's utterly important to stop the constant comparison with France-French. Even though it is commonly done, there is no true need to refer to France-French either in terms of structural differences or intelligibility, especially in an intro section or paragraph. Remember, French is pluricentric, the two poles being Paris and Montreal. User:CJ Withers/Quebec French -- CJ Withers 00:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

That basically means we have to attack the French language article itself. -- Mathieugp 22:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

No. The French language article is fine concerning official language status, variety, standard language, etc. The only problem it has/had was how everyone and their mother were writing their own dialect, e.g. "Ontarian French", etc. The quality, in fact, the French phonology article is amazing. I was very suprised to see that the vowel inventory took into account Quebec differences. However, the reason why "in Quebec" is written is because Quebec has two norms: the Quebec national norm and the exogenous (foreign) norm from France. It's this relationship that makes things sticky. If they were truly separate, the author would have had to write "France" or something akin to "the rest of la Francophonie". Remember, in Quebec the exogenous norm was the only norm on television and in theater up until the late sixties. Even today most newscasters, save for Mongrain and Proulx, strive to duplicate this very stilted norm in Quebec. Heck, even Le Coeur a ses raisons uses (and mocks) the exogenous norm.

That's why I was saying we have to modify the French language article, so that it does not assume France French to be the norm to which all others must compare. On fr.wikipedia.org, there is a project dedicated to this very problem : too many articles are franco-centrés and are written as though what happens outside of France is peripherial. -- Mathieugp 03:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The remedy for our dilemma, I think, lies in establishing the answers to who-what-when-where-how-why questions concerning the linguistic reality and not what people perceive it to be. Those (false) perceptions as to what and where an article title should be can easily be handled by a redirect. A simple renaming of an article, on the other hand, only begets an additional content problem, that is, unless it's pure semantics, e.g. Quebec Literature vs. Literature of Quebec (same entity, different label). I suggest we look at the Languages of Canada page, clean that up and then think of how and where French should be. Personally, I don't think there are anywhere nearly enough articles on French or on Quebec French on the Languages of Canada page, a page that acts as a springboard for discovery/learning. -- CJ Withers 23:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The article Languages of Canada was written by me, originally based on Language demographics of Canada, itself modeled on Language demographics of Quebec. Then it took a completely different direction and was utimately destroyed and even renamed when various people started to add "information" on official bilingualism. In short, it is a mess and I don't intend to do anything about it.

On the subject of meta organization, to avoid duplication and overlap, I should inform you (CJ and LeQuantum) that I am in the process of rewritting/completing/creating a number of articles on language in my drafts page here. I believe the titles make it clear what subject is going to be covered in the article. If you wish to contribute, you are more than welcomed. I guess I should first be finishing up the History of Quebec French since it is only half-complete and looks stupid with its empty headings. However, am I quite obsessed with the question of language statistics these days, so I am more likely to work on this even though I probably shouldn't. For a map of where and to what degree French is spoken in Canada, I am under the impression that we are going to have to produce a genuine map of our own, but maybe I am wrong and somebody did the job already and will be willing to lincense the work under a GFDL or public domain license. -- Mathieugp 03:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Cool, cool and triple cool. I've got a question concerning nomenclature. Among my sandboxes I put a "Quebec French (sociopolitical history)" since it would in a way be a sub-article of a larger article that had the most basic information on the sociopolitical history, sociolinguistics issues, and linguistic features. What do you think about this naming with the subheading/Related article in parentheses?

I find the nomenclature to be good. Wikipedia suggests using this form for disambiguation purposes. For example, Assimilation (linguistics), Assimilation (biology) and Assimilation (Star Trek). However, reading the Wikipedia:Naming conventions, we see that they are doing exactly what you are doing for sub-articles, e.g., Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) etc. -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, although I know the sociopolitical history very well, I'm not up for contributing anything except to say that both maps and demographics help _a lot_. It's the social isssues part, such as language variation, language attitudes, analphabétisme, illettrisme, and all linguistic features that interest me and fall more specifically into my field. Right now I'm working on the section on pronouns from a phono-syntatic point of view. Anyway, yes, lets try to give birth to a map, but brainstorming on what and how the data need to be represented. Btw, do you happen to know anyone who's a superwhiz at wikipedia tables? -- CJ Withers 03:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not a whiz, but I understand how they work and I have done a few. This tutorial is helpful: Help:Table -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I think a page about "French in North America" is a good idea CJ. Originally, I just wanted to break the confusion made in Wikipedia between "Canadian French" and "French in Canada" since the first refers to one variety of french in Canada. The confusion is still there since we did not modify yet the Canadian French page. I would like now to move what is still pertinent in Canadian French into French in Canada, then rearange the links and finally make Canadian French a redirected page to Quebec French. I think this is relevant whatever you want to do as future reorganisation. LeQuantum 21:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would certainly prefer simply redirecting Canadian French to Quebec French, however this is likely to confuse a lot of people and even be controversial. Many will think this is a mistake and ask why it is so. Others will think that Quebec nationalists have taken over Wikipedia and challenge this all the time. It will be considered by many visitors and contributors to be a POV that Quebec French = Canadian French. For all these reasons, I think we should have Canadian French redirect to French in Canada, where all will be able to learn of the varieties of French in Canada and continue reading whatever they wish from there. -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quebec bias

This article assumes that Canadian French is Qubec Frech. I think it is more correct to call Canadian French an umbrella term for all the varieties of French used in Canada, which also includes Acadian French, for example.--Sonjaaa 03:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

"Canadian French" is a grave misnomer because what it actually refers to, i.e. Quebec French, excludes Acadian French. Moreover, it imposes a (false) notion of a unified dialect of French (see Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Language and thought articles). So-called "Canadian French" is neither a dialect or an umbrella term. At best it's a cognitive shortcut. For example, nobody who understands the dialect realities in Canada says or uses "Canadian French in Quebec" or "Canadian French in New Brunswick/British Colombia/the Maritimes, etc." simply because "Canadian French" makes no linguistic sense unless your talking purely about French terminology on the federal government and some vowels (usu. out of context). In fact, what distinguishes francophone Ontarians from francophone Quebecers is not dialect related at all -- it's the average degree of bilingualism (p. 525, O'Grady & Archibald, cited below). That's the case if we're not talking about Quebecers who've moved to British Columbia, where among francophones, both Quebecers and Quebec French are the majority.

More concrete proof of this comes from the THE Canadian bible Contemporary Linguistic Analysis (W. O'Grady & J.Archibald), which is approaching its 5th edition as the staple intro text in Linguistics in Canadian universities. When you locate all the instances of the key phrase "Canadian French", you will note that the examples, although cited as "Canadian French", describe ONLY Quebec French. There are 4 instances for Quebec French and one for Acadian French while most of what are mostly Quebec French termed "Canadian French" are 8 examples. In fact, virtually none of the transcriptions apply to Acadian French at all, that is if they don't specifically avoid dialect differences. What's even more ludicrous is that Canadian French is not once described in the entire book, no matter what the chapter/subject heading. In the first sentence of the first paragraph on Canada's national languages, the authors mention (the label) "Canadian French" just once only to continue describing Acadian and Quebec French respectively and then subsequently under separate headings.

The only thing that is obviously pan-"Canadian French" is a laxing of vowels in closed syllables, and some vocabulary (note Acadian Fr. vocab. is rapidly losing ground to Quebec Fr. and English vocab.) In other words, the laxing phenomenon in French dialects in Canada would be the French-language counterpart to the phenomenon of Canadian raising, which is also present in some areas of the U.S. and has its own article (note, it is not called "Canadian English"). No one in the States, including Americans, ever gets upset that the raising is called "Canadian Raising" due to the majority of its speakers being Canadian even when the phenomenon occurs as far as in Martha's Vineyard. So, why then should anyone be upset when "Quebec French" and "Acadian French" are used to describe just that? For that matter, it would be interesting to see, for French, an article on Canadian laxing for why should the "Canadian" in "Canadian Raising" only refer to Canadian English? Talk about exclusion. Since when did "Canadian" only mean pertaining to English? In this case, throwing around the label "Canadian", albeit easy, is disinformative and contradictory given Canada's bilingual context and public image.

The O'Grady/Archibald text also confuses "Franco-XXXer" with "francophone XXXX", which as we know from Canadian History and the reality of francophones' assimilation rate into English, are two different realities with an overlap in specific cases. That is obviously another cognitive shortcut/short-changing, esp. as per Stats Canada.

Despite the public misnomer and misconceptions, I did flesh out and rework the article to add both factual and NPOVs. CJ Withers 08:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Junk English Alert!!!!!!!!

Just What Kind Of Word Is "Majoritarily"? Good Lord, Who ever wrote this article or had revised it recently stepped in the meadow muffin of bad, bloated english with that one! I suggest, "for the most part", despite it being four seperate words... Majoritarily, is a non word, along the lines of shpadoinkle. Whoever wrote the article should delete that word and add the phrase, "for the most part," if I don't... Michael 15:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not in the dictionary, but I wouldn't call it a "junk" word as it is a properly constructed and meaningful Anglicization from Latin/French vocabulary, and similar to the existing "majoritarian".

Looks like a new coining, from the French. And a useful one, as I can't come up with other phrasing to replace it that doesn't break up the sentence flow. Send the article to the OED for their clippings file!

[edit] Overly Belaboring Point on Different Canadian French Dialects

This article we may suspect has been written/edited by an oppressed Acadian French speaker!

By the 10th or 20th sentence explaining that Canadian French is not homogenous, we are all too well aware of this fact. The Labelling section is entirely too defensive, and the examples of British Islands English and Dutch are linguistically confused and obscure to a typical, for example, U.S. reader.

This can all be stripped down to a much simpler presentation, that the popular conception of a single "Canadian French" is inaccurate, and there are in reality several distinct dialects, and they are...

To make matters worse, after all this, we learn absolutely nothing about the mysterious other completely distinct -- and we surmise threatened -- less-spoken dialects, beyond Acadian.

But what the article really needs is some linguistic science: despite their differences, do all of the French dialects in Canada stem from a common source in early Canada, and thus represent a single branch of French language, distinct from that in France, which should legitimately be called the "French Canadian dialect group"; or, do the different dialects in Canada stem from settlers from different parts of France, and thus there really is no "Canadian French" in a phylogenic sense -- just New World members of dialect groups in France?

All that should be clarified as well with a lovely chart showing the dialect branches of French including the New World members.

I agree that the page has a lot of text just to say that "Canadian French" is inaccurate. In the french version of Wikipedia, it is simply a disambiguation page. But because of the bilingual nature of Canada, many think that if it exists a canadian english dialect, the same should apply to french. So some clarifications should remain to stay clear and avoid that someone rewrite the page with information that should be instead in Quebec French or in French in Canada.

When you ask about branching, Quebec and Acadian French differences has to do with the settlers coming from different parts of France (as you said). A greater part of acadian settlers originates from Poitou, while Quebec has a greater representation from Normandy and Brittany. I don't think that the two dialects influenced each other in North America until the use of radio and television. Quebec French includes most french regional variations in Quebec, Ontario and western Canada which can be branched all together with what is spoken in Montreal and Quebec City (french immigrants spread from those two cities); Cajun French in Louisiana takes instead its origin from Acadian French.LeQuantum 17:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section needing beaucoup work

"The language across Canada" section needs a lot of work. Very little of the information therein is noteworthy or verifiable. --CJ Withers 06:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

The idea that Quebec French primarily has its origins in Oïl dialects other than the Parisian one is a common misconception. Settlers in New France came from all over France, so their descendants needed to quickly adopt a common form that everyone would understand, and that form was the prestigious Parisian one spoken by administrators. Parisian travellers to New France sometimes remarked that it was easier understanding people in New France than 20 miles outside Paris. The differences between Quebec French and Parisian French that exist today are primarily the results of changes that have happened since the 1700's in Quebec and in France. Joeldl 06:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Please re-read. There was nothing in the article excluding what might be labeled "Parisian French", i.e. the multiple Paris sociolects of the Juristes, the Court and Classical writers all being Oïl dialects. Note that the French of New France was certainly not a product of the Préciosité Movement, which is considered the Parisian French of its time. It would be more interesting and useful to explain how the Filles du Roy acquired a more unified French and how administrators in New France may have had an influence. --CJ Withers 15:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: The following response pertains in part to refactored comments found in this version of the talk page: [1]. Joeldl 23:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Their origins in Canada lie in the 17th and 18th century regional varieties of early Modern French, also known as Classical French, and of other Oïl languages (such as Norman and Picard) that French colonists brought to New France

First of all, this paragraph is just as unreferenced as what I wrote. This version gives too much emphasis to the other Oïl languages. Here is a quote from Jean Marcel Léard, Grammaire québécoise d'aujourd'hui, p. 8:

• Les témoins venus de l'extérieur ont tous constaté que le français parlé au Québec au XVIIIe siècle se rapprochait fort de celui parlé à Paris et ne renfermait que très peu d'éléments tirés des dialectes d'origine: les Parisiens comprenaient le parler de la Nouvelle-France, mais non ceux de la France en dehors de Paris. Il est par conséquent difficile d'attribuer à des phénomènes dialectaux les particularités du québécois, en grammaire du moins.

The other main theory, besides the one I gave in my last comment above, was that the colonists had travelled quite a bit within France before going to Canada, and knew "le français populaire de Paris", even though they spoke "patois" as their first language. In any case, the main influence was Parisian French, whether "populaire" or not. Maybe you can give some quotes from your source if you don't believe this. Joeldl 15:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French in Canada (2)

I would like to change the title to French in Canada, as that seems to be the main focus of the article, and only give light treatment of linguistic issues. I think Canadian French should become a very short page akin to a disambiguation page, with an additional link to French in Canada. I don't think it should redirect to Quebec French. Of course, there is a good deal that is common to Acadian French and Quebec French, and one could adopt the point of view that one should first describe everything that is common to both, in Canadian French, and then have separate pages for things that are specific to only one of the two. But in practice, Quebec French is much better described in reference works and is likely well known to people interested in Acadian French, so it is more practical to have a page on Quebec French and then have the Acadian French article focus on the differences between it and Quebec French. (This is analogous to the situation with the article Quebec French, which focuses on differences with Continental French.) Joeldl 12:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so: Canadian French is a referenced and accepted term (well, maybe not by some editors here), with volumes dedicated to it and almost 1 million online hits, while French in Canada is a nebulous affair with no authority and which (in comparison) actually may have mild anti-federalist connotations to it. Despite the prevalence and influence of Quebec French (already addressed in the article), I'm unsure why editors continue to try to deprecate a legitimate term while trying to rationalize the use of a vague title. Corticopia 19:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Canadian French and Quebec French are both legitimate terms. "Canadian French", it appears, is more common in English and "français québécois" is more common in French, but neither is rare in either language. (Ordinarily, one would just use the most common term in English. But because the divide is likely ideological, it's best not to grant special status to English usage in this case.) In German they decided on de:Französisch in Kanada. This is what they say on the German page de:Quebecer Französisch:

• Als Quebecer Französisch (fr. le français québécois) bezeichnet man die Variante des Französischen, die in Québec, Ontario und den westlichen Provinzen Kanadas gesprochen wird. Die traditionelle Bezeichnung kanadisches Französisch (fr. le canayen) wird heute immer mehr durch die Bezeichnung Quebecer Französisch ersetzt, die allerdings unterschlägt, dass diese Variante des Französischen auch westlich der Provinz Québec gesprochen wird (siehe Frankophone Kanadier, Französisch in Kanada).

Personally, I have no preference, but since 95% of francophone Canadians speak Quebec French or a closely related (i.e., non-Acadian) variety, the linguistic content is going to be substantially similar, with the exception of any material about Acadian French, which could also be covered at Acadian French. So having both Canadian French and Quebec French amounts to a POV fork, unless Canadian French were to concentrate solely on similarities between Quebec and Acadian French. As it stands, most of the linguistic facts are covered at Quebec French and Acadian French. This article hardly deals with linguistic facts at all, except at a very general level. It's mostly legal status, demographics and so on. (The words vowel and consonant don't appear once, there's not a single phonetic symbol, and there's not even a single example of a word or sentence in French.) And if it did deal with linguistic facts, that would duplicate Quebec French. The content corresponds to "French in Canada" much more closely than to "Canadian French". If you want to argue that the article Quebec French should be renamed Canadian French and modified slightly to reflect its new title, that's certainly possible. But even then, it would make sense to have an article called French in Canada with precisely the kind of information this article has. Of course, it would be appropriate for the article French in Canada to have some linguistic information about Canadian French at a very general level (as Canadian French currently does). Joeldl 21:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

While some of the notions regarding the niceties and distinctions of the various dialects may be true, your argument in support of French in Canada is unconvincing. This is analogous to creating an article called English in Canada, souping it up, and redirecting Canadian English to it while retaining, say, Newfoundland English -- this makes no sense. Amid all the insistence on having (some) content at French in Canada, while ignoring references and citations which clearly indicate the currency and authority of the moniker Canadian French, NO ONE has yet reliably demonstrated the utility or authority of FiC and why it should be an encyclopedic title in lieu of the current one. Even conduct some simple online searches (in Google): Canadian French : Quebec French : French in Canada = 888K : 158K : 86K. Given this, arguably, French in Canada would constitute the POV fork, which is probably why it was redirected here earlier. And to have both would be redundant. And if this or any article is lacking in facts, one must build it -- that is the nature of the beast. Corticopia 21:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is denying that "Canadian French" is a legitimate term. So is "Quebec French". My point is that the bulk of the linguistic facts should only be covered at one of those two locations, because they are so similar. There is definitely a political element to the choice between "Canadian French" and "Quebec French". I don't think that the number of hits for a title is that important in all cases. A title like Monarchy in Canada covers a number of realities, about the Queen, the Governor General, Lieutenant Governors, and the relations between them, for example. But the phrase "Monarchy in Canada" might itself be quite rare. That doesn't matter. There is an article called French in the United States. Presumably, it would cover demographics, legal status, social issues, etc., without in-depth linguistic coverage. You might find that at Cajun French. Here is a book with the title "The French language in Canada":

• Wolf, Lothar (1987): Französische Sprache in Kanada. München, 417 S.

It seems difficult to argue that it would be an inappropriate title for an article when it's been the title of a book. As I said above, the solution in German was to have Quebec French cover linguistic facts, French in Canada give an overview, and Canadian French be a disambiguation page. That is also what was done in French, if I'm not mistaken. An alternative would be to have Canadian French cover both Quebec French and Acadian French, and have them redirect there. I'm afraid I really don't see why "French in Canada" sounds anti-federalist to you. It's not a different way of saying "Canadian French". It's something different, and I think it's more or less what this article covers as it is now. If you want to make "Canadian French" the title for the linguistic content of what is now at Quebec French, then that is a separate issue. For example, the following paragraph fits "French in Canada" much better than "Canadian French":

• While French, with no specification as to dialect or variety, has the status as one of Canada's two official languages at the federal government level, English is the native language of the majority of Canadians. The federal government provides services and operates in both languages. French is the sole official language in Quebec at the provincial level and is co-official with English in New Brunswick. The provincial governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba are required to provide services in French where justified by the number of francophones (french-language speakers). However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires all provinces to provide primary and secondary education to their official-language minorities at public expense. Joeldl 22:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

You are being polemic for not what. There's no reason why the 'facts' cannot co-exist in both Canadian French and Quebec French (and elswhere) -- the focus of each will vary. You continue to advocate for a vague title while deprecating one that is more prevalent and accurate (e.g., entry in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, referred to in the Canadian Encyclopedia). In the former (p. 220), CF is defined as "the French language as it is spoken and written by francophone Canadians" -- what's the problem? (Three entries above, Canadian English is defined almost exactly the same, except substitute in 'English' and 'anglophone'.) Given the above, I can only assume that continued insistence on this is 'ideological' -- that is what is giving rise to my concern about 'how it sounds' (also see moribund chat about this above). The comparison of the monarchy is not quite the same (since it covers a number of items/entities which may not effectively be covered through another moniker, unlike here), and I'm unconcerned with how the topic is dealt with in the German wiki. An article about 'French in the US' is more apt, given its minor status and localisation in Louisiana and the northeast ... but not in this instance (i.e., I do not believe 'American French' is a noteworthy term, but I could be wrong). Moreover, the book you cite i germane but not precisely the same, and (again) there are a number of volumes dedicated to Canadian French too. The number of web hits for this and that does not demonstrate anything in and of itself, but neither have you. French in Canada is as it should be: a redirect to this article. And beyond that I can't comment further. Corticopia 02:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I argued above that one would expect different content in Canadian French and French in Canada, the former being more specifically linguistic, the latter demographic, social, etc., with a few general linguistic comments, which is what Canadian French currently is. You have rejected this saying that they're the same, and that since "Canadian French" is more common, it should be used. You write that Canadian French is "the French language as it is spoken and written by francophone Canadians". Agreed. But this clearly makes reference to a variety of French. A statement about the educational rights of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec simply has to do with when and where French is spoken in Canada, not how or what kind. I don't see why you don't care how other wikis have dealt with this. It can be instructive to see how others have solved the same problem, without being bound by their decisions. I agree that there is some ideology involved in deciding whether to give the main treatment of linguistic issues at Canadian French or Quebec French, but I see nothing like that between Canadian French and French in Canada. I am sure that there are many books that talk about "Canadian French", but I'm willing to bet that their coverage of demographics, etc., is more marginal, whereas "French in Canada" would deal with those issues more explicitly. Joeldl 10:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on Acadian French

The article currently states that "Acadian French shares many traits with Quebec French." While there is some truth to it it ignores their distinction, almost suggesting that there are no noteworthy differences. It seems that perhaps only the Acadian French of New Brunswick is taken into consideration. Acadians in Nova Scotia (in Par-en-Bas and Par-en-Haut at least) have little exposure to spoken Canadian French/Québec French/whatever one wants to call it and thus speak in ancestral Acadian accents. We and the Cajuns sound alike, whereas the better known variety of Acadian French sounds most like Canadian French. Spoken, our variety is mutually unintelligible with Canadian French. I would suggest such a difference merits some elaboration. One can hear Par-en-Haut Acadian radio online at http://www.cifafm.ca/ to get some idea of Nova Scotian Acadian French.

I added the point about Acadian French and Quebec French sharing many traits, and it does not refer to Quebec-influenced Acadian French. Traditional Acadian French and Quebec French are closer to each other than either is to European French. Even people in Louisiana who have only heard Cajun French find Quebec French less "foreign" than French French. I don't have appropriate references for the moment (and won't have a library available for a couple of months), but this fact is definitely sourceable. If you're unhappy about it being unsourced for that long, comment it out and I'll source it this fall. [Please sign your posts with ~~~~ ] Joeldl 22:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion from User talk:Soulscanner

[edit] Requested move