Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

He really had only the vaguest idea that his Dad's roots were somehow "French", and none at all about Quebec.

The worst is when they completely butcher the French family names by removing the space between the two parts of the name, like "LeBlanc" or "LaFleur", "LaRouche". From a French point of view it looks both ridiculous and bizarre. Why stitch the article to the other part of the name and keep the capital letter in the middle? Makes no sense whatsoever!!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by lio45

As of this writing a full half of the Berlin NH city council has Québécois last names (yet I bet 0 of them speak decent French).

(4/8; Theberge, Morency, Berthiaume, Grenier.)

Canadien roots are extremely common in New England.

All these people could have populated one Francophone province in the Prairies if the federal government had been fair to you guys and had given you your corner of the West.

Needless to say, the ROC is probably thankful that there is only ONE Francophone province in Canada, troublesome already as it is.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

The worst is when they completely butcher the French family names by removing the space between the two parts of the name, like "LeBlanc" or "LaFleur", "LaRouche". From a French point of view it looks both ridiculous and bizarre. Why stitch the article to the other part of the name and keep the capital letter in the middle? Makes no sense whatsoever!!

Acadiens for some reason do this too. Not all of them but it's very common to see LeBlanc as opposed to Leblanc. In Quebec it's almost always Leblanc.

https://www.pm.gc.ca/fr/cabinet/lhonorable-dominic-leblanc

Franco-Ontariens and francophones in western Canada spell these names the same way as you'd see them in Quebec or France. So Leblanc, Lafleur, Laroche, etc.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

All these people could have populated one Francophone province in the Prairies if the federal government had been fair to you guys and had given you your corner of the West.

Needless to say, the ROC is probably thankful that there is only ONE Francophone province in Canada, troublesome already as it is.

Yes, Canada at the time did not want that, even though the Catholic church in Quebec for a time tried to establish a francophone population corridor north from Montreal into Abitibi in NW Quebec and then into northern Ontario towards Manitoba to join up with the Franco-Manitobans who were in difficulty. It did get as far as just west of Hearst Ontario before it ran out of steam. Francophone population patters still reflect this today, and if you look at a map of language groups in Canada (with French speakers indicated in blue) you can clearly see a line of blue pointing towards Manitoba in northern Ontario.

But as I said, the federal government did not want this. During that period transportation was made cheaper from Ukraine to Western Canada than from Montreal.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Of course, the name Basque is totally of francophone Canadian origin, borne by a number of Acadiens and Québécois.

I've never seen this name before in France. Doesn't look right...

Originally Posted by Acajack

If he truly were Basque, his name would have been Euskaldun or something.

French Basque names are usually written with a French spelling, so rather different from Spanish Basque names (and of course not the Basque official spelling invented in the 19th century).

For an idea of French Basque last names, just open the phone directory of Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon, where 1/3 of the population has Basque family names. Just looking at the list of council members in the territorial council of St Pierre and Miquelon I can see: Gaël Arrossaména, Olivier Detcheverry, Stéphane Artano, Naomi Haran, Valériane Urdanabia, Tatiana Urtizbéréa, Claude Hacala.

Franck Detcheverry is the mayor of Miquelon by the way. This name is quintessentially French Basque. Berri (in 19th century official Basque spelling) means "new", and "etxe" (in 19th century official Basque spelling) means "house", so Etxeberri means "new house", but here it's spelled in a French way predating the official Basque spelling adopted in Spain in the 19th century, so Etcheberry (or Etcheverry, depending on spellings), and the French "d" ("of") was added, so his ancestors where "of the new house", which is one of the most common French Basque names. In Spain it would be "Echeverria".

PS: A French genealogical website I've just checked says that French Basque name "Etcheverry" or "Detcheverry" has become... "Chevarie" in Québec!! I had never heard of that!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

It's always interesting to see how French names are prounounced by Americans though that's common in Canada for non French English names. .

In my experience French names in the US are pronounced closer to the proper French way the closer you are to theE border and also if the Franco-American population is higher.

A lot of French names are also pronounced (somewhat) properly in Louisiana, even if most people don't speak French.

It's also pretty common for French names to be pronounced in English in much of Anglo-Canada, the further you get away from Quebec.

And of course some anglophone names are pronounced in French in Quebec.

A main boulevard near where I live is called Maloney and everyone says "mal-oh-nay". Another street is called Davidson and my kids and their friends call it "dah-veed-suhnn".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

PS: A French genealogical website I've just checked says that French Basque name "Etcheverry" or "Detcheverry" has become... "Chevarie" in Québec!! I had never heard of that!

I know it. It's more common in Acadia than in Quebec.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There are two regional health authorities in NB - Vitalite (French) and Horizon (English)

So the French authority has an English sounding name and the English authority has a French-sounding name. Seems legit!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

So the French authority has an English sounding name and the English authority has a French-sounding name. Seems legit!

The Vitalité name actually has an accent aigu, even if MonctonRad didn't include it.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Acadiens for some reason do this too. Not all of them but it's very common to see LeBlanc as opposed to Leblanc.

It shows they don't really understand French grammar anymore. They treat it almost like a Scottish Mc name.

But then it's typical of the Americas in general, this way of butchering family names and not understanding their origins. I see that a lot in Brazil too. To say nothing of the Caribbean of course!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

So the French authority has an English sounding name and the English authority has a French-sounding name. Seems legit!

There was a conscious effort at the time the authorities were established to make sure their official names would be as neutral as possible (easily identifiable in both languages).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It shows they don't really understand French grammar anymore. They treat it almost like a Scottish Mc name.

I've always felt it could be related to anglo influence. And the Canadian Maritimes have a huge Scottish population and therefore lots of Mac names. Maritime anglophones are mainly Scottish in fact, even if Acadiens generally refer to them as "les Anglais".

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In my experience French names in the US are pronounced closer to the proper French way the closer you are to theE border and also if the Franco-American population is higher.

When I lived in California, some people made a point of pronouncing "Target" (the store) as "targè" in French. I've always found that pedantic and ridiculous.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The Vitalité name actually has an accent aigu, even if MonctonRad didn't include it.

Ah, I see. Makes more sense.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Getting francophones to serve anglophones in English is almost never the problem in Canada, even in Quebec actually.

True. But a big benefit of having two unilingual sets of services is it reduces the amount of French language skills expected of the anglophone services. The main grievance anglophones have over bilingualism is the perception that it creates job requirements that are discriminatory against them. Personally I think that is a bit of a silly mindset because it really shows just how atrocious FSL education is in Anglo-Canada more than anything else, but that's now most people see it.

I think we'd see a lot more political support among anglophones for improving the lot of the francophones-hors-Québec if it wasn't for this grievance.

But you could argue it benefits unilingual francophones as well by creating more spaces in which one can exist without any expectation of having to switch to English (as often happens in environments that nominally "bilingual").

[New Brisavoine]

In France the social security card is called "Carte Vitale" by the way, which is a pun (the French love puns).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think it depends on which figures you were looking at.

The total number of people born in another country living in Canada can include people born in 1934 or 2024.

Of these, there are probably quite a few of these "American immigrants" who were people born to Canadian parents who were working in the US and later moved back to Canada with their young children.

I know quite a few people like this and even have a number of them in my family.

Most of the people in this situation however would be over 70 years old.

(Note that Quebec compiles statistics on immigrants by nationality including their mother tongue and home language. The majority of "American immigrants" in Quebec actually have French as their mother tongue. Of course this is only Quebec. The rest of the country has more people born in the US.)

All of this being said, the more recent immigrants to Canada from the US are not going to be part of this old trend and so they're typically random Americans who moved to Canada by choice, either for a job opportunity, because they married a Canadian or because they consider themselves to be self-anointed political refugees.

That would be odd, since they would have been considered British subjects or, later, Canadian citizens. It would not be logical to record them as Americans.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

When I lived in California, some people made a point of pronouncing "Target" (the store) as "targè" in French. I've always found that pedantic and ridiculous.

It's pronouced that way as a joke.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well the ones with recent ancestry have Canadian citizenship so wouldn't be counted. The others have little connection to Canada so seem unlikely to immigrate.

If we had EU like freedom of movement we would see an exponentially larger number move to Canada. Of course the drain south would be worse.

The main reason is climate. You don't see very many Canadians moving to Alaska yet it is a place where people can make high incomes and the populated parts have climates that many Canadians could tolerate. The other big thing is that an American would likely feel much more out of place in Canada than a Canadian in the U.S..

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Loco101

The main reason is climate. You don't see very many Canadians moving to Alaska yet it is a place where people can make high incomes and the populated parts have climates that many Canadians could tolerate. The other big thing is that an American would likely feel much more out of place in Canada than a Canadian in the U.S..

None of the U.S. citizens living in Canada that I've met seemed in any way "out of place".