| Quebec French | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Français québécois | ||||
| Spoken in | Quebec (mainly), Ontario, Western Canada, New England | |||
| Native speakers | (mother tongue) 6 million in Quebec, 700,000 elsewhere in Canada[1] (date missing) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | Quebec (as French) | |||
| Regulated by | Office québécois de la langue française | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | – | |||
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-hq & 51-AAA-ii | |||
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Quebec French (French: français québécois), or Québécois French, is the predominant variety of the French language in Canada, in its formal and informal registers. Quebec French is used in everyday communication, as well as in education, the media, and government.
Canadian French is a frequently used umbrella term for the varieties of French used in Canada including Quebec French. Formerly it was used to refer solely to Quebec French and the closely related varieties of Ontario and Western Canada, but is no longer usually felt to exclude Acadian French, which is also spoken in some areas of eastern Quebec.[2]
The colloquial term joual[3] is often used to refer to a variety of Quebec French associated with the working class of the Montreal area, characterized by certain features perceived as incorrect.[4]
Canadian French is not derived, as is sometimes misstated, from Old French – a much earlier ancestor that spanned the 10th to 14th centuries and, in many ways, resembled Latin. The origins of Canadian French actually lie in the 15th and 17th century regional varieties (dialects) of early French language, also known as Classical French, and of other Oïl languages (Saintongeais, Norman, Picard, etc.) that French colonists brought to New France. Canadian French either evolved from this language base and was shaped by the following influences (arranged according to historical period) or was imported as a koine from Paris and other urban centres of France.[5]
Unlike the language of France in the 17th and 18th centuries, French in New France was fairly unified though unification might have occurred either before or after immigration (see the Barbaud-Wittmann controversy on this issue). It also began to borrow words, especially place names such as "Québec", "Canada" and "Hochelaga", and words to describe the flora and fauna such as "atoca" and "achigan" from native Indian languages due to contacts with First Nations peoples.
The importance of the rivers and ocean as the main routes of transportation also left its imprint on Canadian French. Whereas standard French uses the verbs "monter" and "descendre" to get in and out of an automobile, Canadians tend to use "embarquer" and "débarquer", relics from their navigational heritage.
With the onset of British rule in 1760, Quebec French became isolated from European French. This led to a retention of older pronunciations, such as "moé" for "moi" () and expressions that later died out in France. In 1774, the Quebec Act guaranteed French settlers as British subjects rights to French law, the Roman Catholic faith, and the French language, to please them, so they wouldn't follow the Americans in their independence war. Such early yet difficult success was followed by a socio-cultural retreat, if not repression, that would later help ensure the survival of French in Canada.
After Canadian Confederation, Quebec started to become industrialized and thus experienced increased contact between French and English speakers. Quebec business, especially with the rest of Canada and with the United States, was conducted in English. Also, communications to and within the Canadian federal government were conducted almost exclusively in English. This period included a sharp rise in the number of English-speaking immigrants from what are now known as the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. This was particularly noticeable in Montreal, which resembled a majority anglophone city in terms of its commercial life, but was predominantly francophone. As a result, Quebec French began to borrow massively from both Canadian and American English to fill lexical gaps in the fields of government, law, manufacturing, business and trade. A great number of French Canadians went to the US to seek employment. When they returned, they brought with them new words taken from their experiences in the New England textile mills and the northern lumber camps.
During World War I, a majority of Quebec's population lived in urban areas for the first time. From the time of the war to the death of Maurice Duplessis in 1959, the province experienced massive modernization. It is during this period that French-language radio and television broadcasting, albeit with a façade of European pronunciation, began in Canada. While Canadian French borrowed many English-language brand names during this time, Quebec's first modern terminological efforts bore a French lexicon for (ice) hockey, one of the national sports of Canada. Following World War II, Quebec began to receive large waves of allophone immigrants who would acquire French or English, but most commonly the latter. These immigrants would enrich the French language with their cuisine by contributing words such as "bagel" and "pizza".
From the Quiet Revolution to the passing of Bill 101, French in Quebec saw a period of validation in its varieties associated with the working class while the percentage of literate and university educated francophones grew. Laws concerning the status of French were passed both on the federal and provincial levels. The Office québécois de la langue française was established to play an essential role of support in language planning. In Ontario, the first French-language public secondary schools were built in the 1960s, but not without confrontations. Sturgeon Falls, Penetanguishene and Windsor each had its own school crisis.
Although Quebec French constitutes a coherent and standard system, it has no objective norm since the very organization mandated to establish it, the Office québécois de la langue française, believes that objectively standardizing Quebec French would lead to reduced interintelligibility with other French communities around the world, linguistically isolating Quebecers and possibly causing the extinction of the French language in the Americas.
This governmental institution has nonetheless published many dictionaries and terminological guidelines since the 1960s, effectively allowing many canadianismes or more often québécismes (French words local to Canada or Quebec) that describe specifically North American realities. It also creates new, morphologically well-formed words to describe technological evolutions to which the Académie française, the equivalent body governing French language in France, is extremely slow to react. An example is the word courriel (a contraction of courrier électronique), the Quebec French term for e-mail, which was initially being favoured by the French Ministry of Culture and is now widely used among the Quebec public, but largely ignored in France. Today, French as Foreign Language books published in France prefer the term mél.
The resulting effect, other historical factors helping, is a negative perception of Quebec French traits by some of the Quebecers themselves, coupled with a desire to improve their language by conforming it to the Metropolitan French norm. This explains why most of the differences between Quebec French and Metropolitan French documented in this article are marked as "informal" or "colloquial". Those differences that are unmarked are most likely so just because they go unnoticed by most speakers.
Mutual intelligibility of Quebec French with Metropolitan French is a matter of heated debates among linguists. If a comparison can be made, the differences between both dialects are probably larger than those between standard American and standard British English, similar to the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and that of Portugal, but far less than those between standard German and Swiss German. Francophone Canadians abroad have to modify their accent somewhat in order to be easily understood, but most Francophone Canadians are able to communicate readily with European Francophones. European pronunciation is not really difficult for Canadians to understand; only differences in vocabulary present any problems. Nevertheless, the Quebec French accent is mostly closer to that of Poitou or of Normandy and also some parts of Wallonia.
In general, European French speakers have no problems understanding Quebec newscasts or other moderately formal Québécois speech. However, they may have some difficulty understanding informal speech, such as the dialogue in a sitcom. This is due more to idioms, slang, vocabulary and use of exclusive cultural references than to accent or pronunciation. However, when speaking to a European French speaker, a French speaker from Quebec is capable of shifting to a slightly more formal, "international" type of speech by avoiding idioms or slang.
Quebec's culture has only recently gained exposure in Europe, especially since the Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille), and the difference in dialects and culture is large enough that Quebec French speakers overwhelmingly prefer their own "home grown" television dramas or sitcoms to shows from Europe. The number of such TV shows from France shown on Quebec television is about the same as the number of British TV shows on American television: they are seldom broadcast except on obscure cable channels. However, since most foreign language (mostly American) TV shows and movies are translated in France before being broadcast in French Canada or elsewhere, Quebec French speakers are constantly exposed to European French since childhood and therefore have no problem understanding "Français de France" (French from France).
Canadian French was once stigmatized, among Quebecers themselves as well as among Continental French and foreigners, as a low-class dialect, sometimes due to its use of anglicisms, sometimes simply due to its differences from "standard" European French. Until 1968, it was unheard of for Canadian French vocabulary to be used in plays in the theatre. In that year the huge success of Michel Tremblay's play Les Belles-Sœurs proved to be a turning point. Today, francophones in Quebec have much more freedom to choose a "register" in speaking, and television characters speak "real" everyday language rather than "normative" French.
In the informal registers of Quebec French, regional variation lies in pronunciation and lexis (vocabulary). The regions most commonly associated with such variation are Montreal (esp. the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough), the Beauce region, the Gaspé Peninsula, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, and Quebec City. However, besides such impressionistic data, basilectal Quebec French dialects can be scientifically divided into two main categories and five subcategories as follows.
The "old dialects" are spoken on the territory of what constituted the colony at the time of the British conquest of 1759. The Laurentian colony of New France was then divided into three districts which were, in the order of their establishment, the Gouvernement de Québec, the Gouvernement de Trois-Rivières, and the Gouvernement de Montréal.
Also known as the "capital dialect" (Fr. de la Vieille-Capitale or de la Capitale-Nationale), it used to be considered as the standardized form of Quebec French and was generally spoken in the central Quebec and throughout St. Lawrence valley by the elite, especially the members of the Catholic clergy. By its pronunciation, it is most closely related to International and Metropolitan French.
Valley speak (Fr. Valois, de la vallée) is the second-most predominant form of Quebec French, after the Quebec City dialect. It is spoken all over the southern part of St. Lawrence valley, including Montreal and Trois-Rivières, as well as the Western area going from Gatineau to as far as Rouyn-Noranda. Basic distinctions include the pronunciation of unstressed "ai", as opposed to stressed "è" of the Metropolitan French. For example, the word "fraise" would be most likely pronounced as "phrase" in English, instead of "frèse" close to "fresque". Some extreme speakers would even say "frâse", similar to the "o" in "frost" in American English.[6] The Western-Central dialects can be further divided into Central and Western.
Relatively archaic forms of Quebec French are spoken on the territory corresponding to the historic Government of Three Rivers (Gouvernement de Trois-Rivières), notably Magoua and Chaouin. The Gouvernement de Trois-Rivières corresponded approximately to what is known today as Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec (known locally under the historical name of Bois-Francs). Mauricie was Attikamekw territory and Bois-Francs Abenaki. The Whites were mostly coureurs des bois who intermarried freely with aboriginal women before the arrival of the first filles du roy in 1663. The first coureurs des bois squatters settled in the area in 1615 and their speech differentiated itself in contact with the aboriginal population: Magoua in contact with Attikamekw, Chaouin in contact with Abenaki (Wittmann 1995).
As far as the pronunciation of /r/ is concerned, the area is transitional, the Saint-Maurice River forming a kind of isogloss line (Cossette 1970).
The Western dialect includes Montreal and surroundings and is sometimes considered an offspring of the Central dialect. The pronunciation of /r/ was traditionally alveolar but has been almost completely replaced by the International uvular /r/ except amongst the older speakers. The territory was probably already "Indian-free" when the first coureurs des bois from Trois-Rivières came there in the years preceding the establishment of the settlement in 1642. This dialect extended originally into the Detroit–Windsor area (Brandon 1898).
Basically, they are dialects of Quebec French with a phonological adstrat from Acadian French, spoken in the St. Lawrence delta and Baie des Chaleurs area. The morphology though is thoroughly Quebec French and not related to Acadian French: Absence of AF 1st person plural clitic je instead of QF on, no AF plural endings in -on on 1st and 3rd person verbs, no simple pasts in -i-, etc. Geddes (1908) is an early example for the description of the morphology of a maritime dialect. These dialects originated from migrations from the St. Lawrence valley into the area, from 1697 onwards well into the early 19th century, with contributions of refugees from Acadia in the 18th century, both before and after the British conquest of 1759.
The dialect Geddes described may be referred to as Brayon French, spoken by Brayons in the Bonaventure and Beauce-Appalaches regions of Quebec, the Madawaska region of New Brunswick and small pockets in the American state of Maine.
The so-called "new" dialects arose from colonization after 1759 which went on well into the late 19th century.
Primarily spoken in Sherbrooke and Magog, the dialect consists of French strongly distilled by the presence of New England dialects, such as Boston accent and Vermont speak. As a result, besides alveolar "r", the endings of many words which are pronounced in other varieties of French are not pronounced at all or are pronounced differently, for example, saying "connaissant" ("kon-a-san") instead of "connaissance" ("kon-a-sans"). Other variations include strong pronunciation of "-ant" and "-ent" word ending which sound almost as acute as "-in", for example "blanc" sounding like "blain" (close to as one would say "blam" in English).
The dialect spoken by inhabitants of such regions as Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte-Nord is characterized by long, stretched vowels in the middle of words, usually "e" or "a" in words such as "père" or "case", pronounced as "pére" and "càse". Other examples include an "eating" of the letter "r" at the end of the words, so instead of saying "cuisinière" (/kɥizinjɛʁ/), speakers might say instead "cuisiniéille" (/kɥizinjej/), which contrasts with "cuisinier" (read as /kɥizinje/). See Lavoie et al. (1985), in particular.
Expatriate dialects, due to emigration in the 19th century, are mostly spoken in Manitoba and the New England states, mostly in the state of Maine.
Historically speaking, the closest relative of Canadian French is the 17th century koiné of Paris.[8]
Formal Canadian French uses essentially the same orthography and grammar as Standard French, with few exceptions,[9] and exhibits moderate lexical differences. Differences in grammar and lexicon become more marked as language becomes less formal.
While phonetic differences also decrease with greater formality, Quebec and European accents are readily distinguishable in all registers. Over time, European French has exerted a strong influence on Quebec French. The phonological features traditionally distinguishing informal Quebec French and formal European French have gradually acquired varying sociolinguistic status, so that certain traits of Quebec French are perceived neutrally or positively by Quebecers, while others are perceived negatively.
Sociolinguistic studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s showed that Quebecers generally rated speakers of European French heard in recordings higher than speakers of Quebec French in many positive traits, including expected intelligence, education, ambition, friendliness and physical strength.[10] The researchers were surprised by the greater friendliness rating for Europeans,[11] since one of the primary reasons usually advanced to explain the retention of low-status language varieties is social solidarity with members of one's linguistic group. François Labelle cites the efforts at that time by the Office de la langue française "to impose as French a standard as possible"[11] as one of the reasons for the negative view Quebecers had of their language variety.
Since the 1970s, the official position on Quebec French has shifted dramatically. An oft-cited turning point was the 1977 declaration of the Association québécoise des professeurs de français defining thus the language to be taught in classrooms: "Standard Quebec French [le français standard d'ici, literally, "the Standard French of here"] is the socially favored variety of French which the majority of Francophone Quebecers tend to use in situations of formal communication."[12] According to Ostiguy and Tousignant, it is doubtful that Quebecers would today still have the same negative attitudes towards their own variety of French that they did in the 1970s. They argue that negative social attitudes have focused instead on a subset of the characteristics of Quebec French relative to European French, and particularly some traits of informal Quebec French.[13] Some characteristics of European French are even judged negatively when imitated by Quebecers.[14]
For examples, see the section "Sociolinguistic status of selected phonological traits" below.
Quebec French has some typographical differences with European French. In Quebec French, no spaces are inserted before punctuation marks other than the colon.[15] European French requires spaces before the exclamation mark, the question mark, the colon and the semicolon.
However, the "Ramat de la Typographie", a rather popular document among Quebec typesetters and graphic designers, recommends following the European French rule and insert fine spaces before semicolons and exclamation marks, among others. One reason for this might be for mutual compatibility.
A notable difference in grammar which received considerable attention in France during the 1990s is the feminine form of many professions, which traditionally did not have a feminine form.[16] In Quebec, one writes nearly universally une chercheuse [17] "a researcher", whereas in France, un chercheur and, more recently, un chercheur and une chercheuse, are used.
There are other, sporadic spelling differences. For example, the Office québécois de la langue française recommends the spelling tofou for what is in France tofu "tofu". In grammar, the adjective inuit "Inuit" is invariable in France but, according to official recommendations in Quebec, has regular feminine and plural forms.[18]
Grammatical differences between informal spoken Quebec French and the formal language abound. Some of these, such as omission of the negative particle ne, are present in the informal language of speakers of standard European French, while other features, such as use of the interrogative particle -tu, are either peculiar to Quebec or Canadian French or restricted to nonstandard varieties of European French. For further information, see the sections "Syntax", "Pronouns" and "Verbs" below.
While the majority of lexical items in Quebec French exist in other dialects of French, many words and expressions are unique to Quebec. The differences can be classified into the following five categories.[19] The influences on Quebec French from English and Native American can be reflected in any of these five:
The following tables give examples[20] of each of the first four categories, along with the Metropolitan French equivalent and an English gloss. Contextual differences, along with individual explanations, are then discussed.
Examples of lexically specific items:
| Quebec French | Metropolitan French | English gloss |
|---|---|---|
| abrier | couvrir | to cover |
| astheure | maintenant | now |
| chum (m) | copain (m) | boyfriend |
| magasiner | faire des courses | to go shopping/do errands |
| placoter | papoter | to chat/chatter |
Examples of semantic differences:
| Lexical item | Quebec French meaning | Metropolitan French meaning |
|---|---|---|
| blonde (f) | girlfriend | blonde-haired woman |
| char (m) | car | chariot |
| dépanneur (m) | convenience store | repairman |
| gosse | gosses (fem pl): balls (testicles) | gosse (masc sg): child/kid |
| suçon (m) | lollipop | hickey |
| éventuellement | eventually | possibly |
Examples of grammatical differences:
| Lexical item | Quebec French grammar | Metropolitan French grammar | English gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| autobus (noun) | autobus (f) | autobus (m) | bus |
| pantalon (noun) | pantalons (pl) | pantalon (sg) | Trousers |
Examples multi-word or fixed expressions unique to Quebec:
| Quebec French expression | Metropolitan French gloss | English gloss |
|---|---|---|
| avoir le corps dérangé | avoir la diarrhée | to have diarrhea |
| avoir le goût dérangé | gouter une saveur étrange | to taste something strange, unexpected |
| en arracher | en baver | to have a rough time |
| faire beau soleil | faire un temps radieux | to have radiant/sunny weather |
| prendre une marche | faire une promenade | to take a walk |
| avoir le bec fin | faire le difficile | to be picky |
| se faire passer un sapin | se faire duper | to be tricked |
| parler à travers son chapeau | parler à tort et à travers | to talk through one's hat |
Some Quebec French lexical items have the same general meaning in Metropolitan French but are used in different contexts. English translations are given in parentheses.
In addition, Quebec French has its own set of swear words, or sacres, distinct from other varieties of French.
One characteristic of major sociological importance distinguishing Quebec French from European French is the relatively greater number of borrowings from English, especially in the informal spoken language.[21] In contrast, Quebecers show a stronger aversion to the use of anglicisms in formal contexts than do European francophones, largely because of what the influence of English on their language is held to reveal about the actual superior position of anglophones in Canadian society.[22] According to Cajolet-Laganière and Martel,[23] out of 4,216 "criticized borrowings from English" in Quebec French that they were able to identify, some 93% have "extremely low frequency" and 60% are obsolete.[24] Despite this, the prevalence of anglicisms in Quebec French has often been exaggerated. French spoken with a number of anglicisms viewed as excessive may be disparagingly termed franglais. According to Chantal Bouchard, "While the language spoken in Quebec did indeed gradually accumulate borrowings from English [between 1850 and 1960], it did not change to such an extent as to justify the extraordinarily negative discourse about it between 1940 and 1960. It is instead in the loss of social position suffered by a large proportion of Francophones since the end of the 19th century that one must seek the principal source of this degrading perception."[25]
Ouaouaron, the Quebec French word for bullfrog, a frog species native to North America, originates from an Iroquois word. [2]
The following are areas in which the lexicon of Quebec French is distinct from those of other varieties of French:
Some recent Quebec French lexical innovations have spread, at least partially, to other varieties of French:
For phonological comparisons of Quebec French, Belgian French, Meridional French, and Metropolitan French, see French phonology.
Systematic, i.e. in all unmonitored speech:
Observable in some but not all unmonitored speech:
Systematic:
For detailed information on other topics in phonology in Quebec French, such as prosody, see Quebec French phonology.
The examples below are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to illustrate the complex influence European French has had on Quebec French pronunciation, and the range of sociolinguistic statuses that individual phonetic variables can possess. For the specific technical description of the features in question, see the phonology sections above or the article Quebec French phonology.
There are increasing differences between the syntax used in spoken Quebec French from the syntax of other regional dialects of French.[44] However, the characteristic differences of Quebec French syntax are not considered standard despite their high-frequency in everyday, relaxed speech.
One far-reaching difference is the weakening of the syntactic role of the specifiers (both verbal and nominal), which results in many syntactic changes:
Other notable syntactic changes in Quebec French include the following:
However, these features are common to all the basilectal varieties of français populaire descended from the 17th century koiné of Paris.
In daily use, Quebec French speakers usually use a substantially different set of subjective pronouns in the nominative case than those traditionally used in standardized French:
In their syntax and morphology, Quebec French verbs differ very little from the verbs of other regional dialects of French, both formal and informal. The distinctive characteristics of Quebec French verbs are restricted mainly to:
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