Talk:Varieties of French

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Quite frankly, I don't believe most of these French dialects ought to have their own pages. Notability is an issue, but another factor is that several have been a mere sentence (that is, not even a true stub) for over a year. Here's how I break it down:

Acadian French, Belgian French, Cajun French, Jersey Legal French, Quebec French, and Swiss French are unquestionably developed and notable to remain their own pages.

Aostan French, Indian French, Maghreb French, Meridional French, and Vietnamese French are iffy. Indian French is certainly notable but its page hasn't been around for very long and I think it needs time to be developed. I don't know enough the other dialects to really determine their potential but I can go either way.

Southeast Asian French, Cambodian French, Lao French, French in the Gaspé, and Newfoundland French do not deserve their own articles. Cambodian, Lao, and Southeast Asian cover almost identical phenomena and are a sentence each. Gaspé can merge into Quebec French easily and Newfoundland can probably go into Canadian French or a similar article.

African French should just be deleted. Its information is duplicated in the Francophonie aricle and doesn't actually discuss dialects.

I propose that this page, rather than be a links hub, be the place for the information on some of these non-notable/unexpanded dialects. This way, no information is lost. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Comment moved from article

LISTS ON WIKIPEDIA HAVE A TENDENCY TO DEGRADE INTO A MASS OF INDISCRIMINATE INFORMATION. Therefore I tried to make some strict boundaries here before the horse gets out of the barn. Let's see if it works. User:HouseOfScandal

[edit] Definition

As the distinction between "dialect" and "language" is a social construction and open to discussion, some of the varieties of speech listed would be considered dialects of French by some, and relatives of French by others. Further confusing the matter is that some dialects of French exist on a dialect continuum and have been discerned from one another by many factors besides the characteristics of the speech itself.

More ambiguous or controversial lects should be included, but obvious cases of sister languages

[edit] Oïl languages

French is one of the Oïl languages, a subset of the Romance languages family. For the purposes of this article, all extant Oïl languages may be included, including those Oïl language endemic to mainland Normandy and the Channel Islands. As languages such as Sercquiais and Dgèrnésiais are better know to English-speakers as "Sark French" and "Guernsey French" respectively, their inclusion in this index is helpful.

In much the same way, no doubt, as the language Français is better known to English-speakers as "French"? --Paularblaster (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Franco-Provençal languages (such as Dauphinois and Savoyard) should definitely be excluded from this list, as should Occitan languages (such as the Gascon dialects). Many of these will be, however, included in the article "Languages of France".

[edit] Creole and patois

As languages such as Louisiana Creole French and Haitian Creole are discussed in the article "French-based creole languages" they are excluded from this list.

[edit] Varieties

In some cases, ways of speaking and writing French included on this list might be so similar to those advocated by the Académie française that they might better be regarded as varieties than dialects.

For inclusion on this list such varieties should be endemic to a geographical area and have some phonological, grammatical, spelling and/or vocabulary distinctions that separate it from the French standard language.

Sociolects and diatypes (of which Joual is an example) should be excluded from this list.

User:HouseOfScandal

If we start mixing up Oïl languages with dialects of French everyone will be horribly confused. There may be a case for including a comment that some people consider non-French Oïl languages to be dialects of French, but including some in the list and not others lacks rigour. Man vyi 08:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


More ambiguous or controversial dialects should be included, but obvious cases of sister languages should not. I don't think they should be considered "varieties," there are a number of differences between a dialect and a variety and what we are talking about is dialects. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 09:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm with Man vyi on this one. If the Insular Norman dialects are to be included at all, it should be in a separate section with a note about the naming convention and why it is misleading. The Jade Knight 09:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Norman, Law French and Anglo-Norman

Why are these missing? Matthieu 17:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Law French is in See Also; Norman (with its Anglo-Norman dialect) is an Oïl language, not a dialect of French. Man vyi 18:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
So is Law French (an oil language that develloped from Norman) Oil languages are part of the French family or would you consider that American English, for example, is a distinct language than British English? The old French area is the oil area. I don't have any problem reading the Norman wikipedia for sure. I perfectly and totaly support the use that wrote this here, I can understand English would oppose the idea yet Normans is a dialect of French for sure (Breton, Occitan based languages and Frankish aren't but they are totaly different):
Oïl languages
French is one of the Oïl languages, a subset of the Romance languages family. For the purposes of this article, all extant Oïl languages may be included, including those Oïl language endemic to mainland Normandy and the Channel Islands. As languages such as Sercquiais and Dgèrnésiais are better known to English-speakers as "Sark French" and "Guernsey French" respectively, their inclusion in this index is helpful.
Franco-Provençal languages (such as Dauphinois and Savoyard) should definitely be excluded from this list, as should Occitan languages (such as the Gascon dialects). Many of these will be, however, included in the article "Languages of France".
Matthieu 19:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
American English and British English are varieties of English - British English is not a dialect of American English; French, Norman, Picard, Gallo etc are varieties of Oïl - Picard is not a dialect of French. The problem of nomenclature for English speakers who lack an adjective for Guernsey is irrelevant to the linguistic classification (and anyway Sarkese is available alongside Sark French for most English speakers with experience). Are you sure you're not confusing the Guernsey dialect of French (which is a dialect of French) and Dgèrnésiais (which isn't)? I also fail to grasp your argument re intelligibility - I can read the Francoprovençal WP, but I don't claim on those grounds that it's Oïl. Man vyi 22:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Man vyi. In addition, I've yet to find a French speaker who can readily understand spoken Norman (the written form is artificially close to French). Anyone with an in-depth knowledge of Norman would understand that it is in no way a dialect of French (apart from their having shared a common ancestor, and nomenclature confusions). This is particularly true for the insular dialects, which are politically separate. And perhaps for Law French, you are thinking of late Anglo-Norman? The Jade Knight 08:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to have to disagree that all Oïl languages should be included. They shouldn't, even if there is a significant deal of mutual intelligibility. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
But Norman is a variety of French too, the level of intelligibility is VERY high, the comparison with Franco-Provencal doesn't stand, although what they speak in Savoy is very close to French it is mixed to a significant extent with Occitan. Norman is, on the other hand, an oil dialect, which is definately the old French speaking area. Of course if you compare a 13th text in Norman and modern French you'll find differences, but comparing a 13th century French text to a 13th century Norman text would reduce even more differences. Matthieu 06:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the French state, Norman, Gallo, Picard, Walloon, Poitevin-Saintongeais... are langues de France, not langue française. Of course, if you went back to the 13th century - closer to the common ancestor - differences would be less marked. What you are doing is labelling the common Oïl ancestor as "Old French" and claiming that therefore all Oïl languages derive from French. The problem is that this "Old French" is equally "Old Norman", "Old Gallo", "Old Picard" depending on region. You'll find a similar argument bubbling under with regard to "Old Russian language" and "Old Ukrainian language" - both linguistic cultures claim the same roots but disagree over nomenclature. The question of intelligibility is irrelevant for classification - for example, Czech and Slovak are very, very similar but that doesn't mean that one is a variety of the other. Man vyi 07:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree, mutual intelligibility, while it should be the determiner for the classification of the difference between a language and a dialect, is not so. The article on Oïl languages even shows Norman to be a separate language. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 08:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Norman is much less mutually intelligible in its spoken form. If Spanish and Portuguese retained particularly archaic spelling forms, they would appear to be virtually identical, as well. There are a wealth of cognates, and similar verb conjugations, but idioms are completely different (even for simple expressions), and the tenses cover different ground. Some words, though closely related, are virtually unrecognizable as cognates (such as "cachi" and "chasser"). There is no question that Norman is very closely related to French, but as for mutual comprehension, I think it's mostly limited to the written form. The Jade Knight 08:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
That's an interesting point. If one compares the orthographical reformers of various Oïl languages, one can see differences of approach. Feller's system for Walloon makes Walloon look different from French orthography - I couldn't say whether that was an intention in itself or simply a by-product of representing the varieties of Walloon. Supporters of the Feller-Carton system for Picard certainly argue that one of the benefits of a normalized orthography is the visual differentiation from French. Modern Gallo orthography not only intentionally archaizes the orthography to (re-)establish the link with mediaeval literature, but also to provide a visual identity for the language (partly stimulated by the concurrence of Breton). On the other hand Norman orthographic reformers, such as Métivier, Pipon Marett and Lechanteur, have tended to be more concerned to retain continuity with the body of literature than to innovate (the Normans tend to be very attached to the written text as opposed to orature). It is one of the interesting things to compare early C19th Jèrriais literature (with k and w for example) with later literature - Pipon Marett was concerned to establish conventions for the literary language based on French orthography with modifications as necessary. Man vyi 08:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] french dialects in the pacific

in addition to neo-caledonian french (wich comprise the french spoken at Wallis and Futuna) you should mention the french-Polynesia french (Tahitian french) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.173.190.18 (talk) 03:50, August 21, 2007 (UTC)