Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

The main movement of French Canadians to the US was in the late 1800s and early 1900s when Quebec and Canada's economy was much smaller, poorer and limited than that of the US at the time. And even in Quebec itself most economic opportunity was effectively reserved for anglos.

Almost 1 million people migrated at the time, which was close to half of the entire French Canadian population. Every page I turn in my family genealogy turns up new people I had no idea were born in or lived in the US.

[suburbanite]

I agree with someone123 that until closer to the industrial revolution, population growth was pretty much hard-capped by a few key variables, mostly arable land, of which Quebec and all of Canada were not very favourable at the time. Haiti could support significantly more people both agriculturally and economically, as a thousand acres of sugar cane plantations were likely more productive than a hundred thousand acres of timberland. I wouldn't imagine French Quebec's population deviating too much from the actual history between the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and somewhere around 1830. If they remained independent for that long, than are all of the Scottish immigrants replaced by French ones, vaunting Montreal to a position as a massive French colonial city? The French historically weren't the prolific emmigraters that the Northern Europeans were. Maybe that's because there was a feeling of more opportunity at home or a relative lack of religious persecution compared to protestant areas. Maybe they just didn't have attractive destinations where people spoke their language and were at least somewhat culturally similar like a theoretical independent Quebec could have offered. That never stopped the Germans from partaking in a mass migration to the New World though.

Also, would Montreal have even become as wealthy as it did without that crucial secret sauce of Scottish Presbyterian work ethic?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I agree with someone123 that until closer to the industrial revolution, population growth was pretty much hard-capped by a few key variables, mostly arable land, of which Quebec and all of Canada were not very favourable at the time. Haiti could support significantly more people both agriculturally and economically, as a thousand acres of sugar cane plantations were likely more productive than a hundred thousand acres of timberland. I wouldn't imagine French Quebec's population deviating too much from the actual history between the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and somewhere around 1830. If they remained independent for that long, than are all of the Scottish immigrants replaced by French ones, vaunting Montreal to a position as a massive French colonial city? The French historically weren't the prolific emmigraters that the Northern Europeans were. Maybe that's because there was a feeling of more opportunity at home or a relative lack of religious persecution compared to protestant areas. Maybe they just didn't have attractive destinations where people spoke their language and were at least somewhat culturally similar like a theoretical independent Quebec could have offered. That never stopped the Germans from partaking in a mass migration to the New World though.

Also, would Montreal have even become as wealthy as it did without that crucial secret sauce of Scottish Presbyterian work ethic?

Montreal was never really a place of wealth for most of its people (i.e. francophones) until it slowly started to become one in the late 1960s.

Before that it was mostly a place of basic proletarian survival.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

By simultaneously tolerating religious dissidents in the colonies while persecuting them at home, the English/British created incredibly strong push/pull factors that encouraged migration to its North American territories (particularly the migration of whole families rather than single men looking to make a buck). Conversely, the French largely restricted access to its colonies to members of the official religion. Had the French allowed for a Huguenot analog to the non-conformist colonies in New England or Catholic Maryland, there likely would have been much greater migration to its colonies and less to elsewhere in Europe.

That's very true. That's one of the big reasons for the better success of British colonization of North America. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, there was a potential for 200,000 French Calvinists migrating to New France (instead they went to Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, England, and a few even to the British American colonies). That would have changed everything. But then New France would have become a Protestant majority area, and who knows where things would have gone from there...

Note that there was actually one attempt of French Protestant colonization of North America, in the 16th century, when the French authorities were more mixed Catholic-Protestant and not yet fervently anti-Protestant as they became in the end of the 17th century. They founded a colony at the border of today's Florida and South Carolina, with Fort Caroline and Charlesfort as its main settlements (named after French king Charles IX), but the colony was destroyed by the Spaniards, who could not accept a colony from another European power so close to their empire, let alone a Protestant colony. The English were luckier in that they founded their colonies more to the north, further away from the Spanish empire, and in the 17th century, when the Spaniards were weaker than a century earlier.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Also, would Montreal have even become as wealthy as it did without that crucial secret sauce of Scottish Presbyterian work ethic?

I don't see why it wouldn't have been. Montréal and Québec City in 1759 were just as wealthy as cities of equal size in the British American colonies.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I agree with someone123 that until closer to the industrial revolution, population growth was pretty much hard-capped by a few key variables, mostly arable land, of which Quebec and all of Canada were not very favourable at the time. Haiti could support significantly more people both agriculturally and economically, as a thousand acres of sugar cane plantations were likely more productive than a hundred thousand acres of timberland. I wouldn't imagine French Quebec's population deviating too much from the actual history between the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and somewhere around 1830. If they remained independent for that long, than are all of the Scottish immigrants replaced by French ones, vaunting Montreal to a position as a massive French colonial city? The French historically weren't the prolific emmigraters that the Northern Europeans were. Maybe that's because there was a feeling of more opportunity at home or a relative lack of religious persecution compared to protestant areas. Maybe they just didn't have attractive destinations where people spoke their language and were at least somewhat culturally similar like a theoretical independent Quebec could have offered. That never stopped the Germans from partaking in a mass migration to the New World though.

:

Scotland never topped 5 million people in the 1800s whereas France was over 30 million.

Granted as has been said France and the French were never big on populating Canada when they controlled it but they would have had a substantial population base to mount a much bigger colonization effort. Had they decided to.

[someone123]

The guys who led the founding of Acadia were Huguenots and the Catholic church didn't have much presence there for long periods of time. Some people argue that the idea of Acadians being staunchly Catholic was a sort of "retcon" done by the Catholic church in the 1800's and later. Not sure how true that is. Partly this is woven into the idea that the deportation was a mistake or motivated land grab with a few British and American authorities exaggerating the incompatibility of the Acadian population with their neighbours. The idea that a bunch of Huguenot or nominally Catholic farmers and merchants who sold their goods in Boston were going to rise up and fight to restore French colonial rule might have been very far fetched.

A lot of NS settlers in the 1700's were "foreign protestants" and a portion of them were French. They became anglicized. They have names like Bezanson (Besançon).

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I don't see why it wouldn't have been. Montréal and Québec City in 1759 were just as wealthy as cities of equal size in the British American colonies.

I was being facetious. I don't think the Anglo merchant class had a certain je ne sais quoi that made them wealthier than a theoretical francophone dominated business community would have been. I tend to believe that people rise to the limits that are set on them, regardless of country, ethnicity, or language.

[RiverandRoute1]

Originally Posted by someone123

The guys who led the founding of Acadia were Huguenots and the Catholic church didn't have much presence there for long periods of time.

Haven’t ever seen that story in any reliable research - Chief Membertou was converted to Roman Catholicism, not to a Huguenot faith, and Protestants were always freer in the nearby British colonies in New England. Had Acadians been predominantly Protestant there would have been less of an issue with the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and thus no Great Deportation… RC priests accompanied the Acadians who fled north.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I was being facetious. I don't think the Anglo merchant class had a certain je ne sais quoi that made them wealthier than a theoretical francophone dominated business community would have been. I tend to believe that people rise to the limits that are set on them, regardless of country, ethnicity, or language.

A lot of the "first ___ in Canada" relating to commerce, the press, democracy, etc. come out of Halifax and not Montreal or Quebec because the French colonies didn't develop as much along that axis. For example Halifax had the first democratically elected assembly, they implemented democratic public works projects first, it had the first newspaper, the first printing press. And it was far ahead of Canada in freedom of the press for years.

I'm not saying this as a cheerleader thing, but I think there's often tunnel vision with NS not factoring into Canadian history much at all when it played a pretty big role during earlier periods or at least is probably the best contrast with Quebec in a lot of ways.

[Acajack]

The two main dudes associated with the foundation of Acadia, Samuel de Champlain and Pierre de Mons, were Protestants.

Some Protestant Huguenot settlers did come but the vast majority of settlers were Catholic.

It didn't take that long for them to intermarry with Catholics and for Protestantism to mostly disappear from the colony.

The same thing happened with the equally small numver of Huguenots that went to Canada (today's Québec).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by someone123

For example Halifax had the first democratically elected assembly, they implemented democratic public works projects first, it had the first newspaper, the first printing press.

There were no print shops in New France because the royal government in France refused it. The Sulpicians requested the establishment of a printing press in Québec City as early as 1683, but the royal authorities refused. So it was more a case of political decisions than economic backwardness.

On the other hand, Québec City had the oldest school for girls in all of North America. It was founded in 1639 by an aristocratic lady from Normandy who, when she became a widow, decided to brave her family and migrate to Canada (against the wishes of her family) in order to found a convent with her fortune and teach the daughters of native Amerindians. She went to meet the queen of France and received her support, as well as the support of the archbishop of Tours, which is why she could overrule her family.

The convent still exists today:



Her name was Marie Madeleine de la Peltrie. She had an extraordinary life: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Madeleine_de_la_Peltrie

On a side note, I discovered in French archives that her estate in Normandy (a farm), which she had given to the convent as a grant to bring revenues to the convent, incredibly kept sending revenues to the convent in Québec City even after British conquest in 1759 (which shows that ties with France were far from severed by the British conquest), and it was seized by the French revolutionaries in 1790 as church property (didn't matter to them if it was now a foreign church under British sovereignty). My family then bought it at a cheap discount in 1798 during a public auction, which is how I discovered the incredible history of that woman.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The two main dudes associated with the foundation of Acadia, Samuel de Champlain and Pierre de Mons, were Protestants.

Some Protestant Huguenot settlers did come but the vast majority of settlers were Catholic.

It didn't take that long for them to intermarry with Catholics and for Protestantism to mostly disappear from the colony.

The same thing happened with the equally small numver of Huguenots that went to Canada (today's Québec).

Did the Huguenots just intermarry or were they obliged to convert? Is it now fully accepted that Champlain was Huguenot? I thought there was still some doubt.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Vorkuta

Remind me of what the original intent of this was? That Montreal would have more population than Toronto if France had given a darn 400 years ago?

Be darned if I know...

[Kilgore Trout]

Speaking of history in the making... Le Devoir has a good series right now on how the French language is evolving in Quebec.

Creole and Maghreb Arabic influencing the language in Montreal to create a new « français montréalais » spoken by young people of various cultural origins:

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

Slang words and common expressions from France are becoming common in Quebec thanks to TV, rap music and YouTube. (No doubt the huge number of French immigrants/expats is helping things along in Montreal particularly...):

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Creole and Maghreb Arabic influencing the language in Montreal to create a new « français montréalais » spoken by young people of various cultural origins:

A lot of this can be seen on tiktok and other social media platforms, similar to how Toronto Mans has evolved in the youth in the GTA.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Speaking of history in the making... Le Devoir has a good series right now on how the French language is evolving in Quebec.

Creole and Maghreb Arabic influencing the language in Montreal to create a new « français montréalais » spoken by young people of various cultural origins:

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

Slang words and common expressions from France are becoming common in Quebec thanks to TV, rap music and YouTube. (No doubt the huge number of French immigrants/expats is helping things along in Montreal particularly...):

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

I'll always recall my best friend's "exposure to French French" back when we were teens; he had registered to be the equivalent of an Uber driver back then, drove a French dude to the airport in Montreal, and when the guy took his luggage, a piece fell off the car (it was a Lada, so, unsurprising) and he apologetically exclaimed "j'ai niqué ton truc!" (with a thick French accent, obviously). My buddy burst in laughter at the obvious foreignness of the words chosen.

(... one would say, in "proper" speech, something like "j'ai fucké ta patante"...)



Nowadays, it's different. Not as surprising nor as exotic!

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Speaking of history in the making... Le Devoir has a good series right now on how the French language is evolving in Quebec.

Creole and Maghreb Arabic influencing the language in Montreal to create a new « français montréalais » spoken by young people of various cultural origins:

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

Slang words and common expressions from France are becoming common in Quebec thanks to TV, rap music and YouTube. (No doubt the huge number of French immigrants/expats is helping things along in Montreal particularly...):

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

I definitely noticed this. Heck, even my French is sort of “modern”. My 3 years in France probably have to do it though. I often have to adapt whenever I go to some rural part of Quebec - depending on the generation involved it can sometimes feel like an entirely different dialect is spoken.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Speaking of history in the making... Le Devoir has a good series right now on how the French language is evolving in Quebec.

Creole and Maghreb Arabic influencing the language in Montreal to create a new « français montréalais » spoken by young people of various cultural origins:

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/746046/...opulaire-francaise-flirte-avec-la-langue

Pinard and canner are pretty old fashioned, especially canner. Young people using that seriously?

"Du coup", on the other hand, is a pretty current slang. Some young professionals abuse it the same way American graduates and undergrads abuse "like".

But the worst, not mentioned in this article, is "frèrot", which in a matter of just 5 years has become ubiquitous in Paris (and is so very annoying). Even women use it to address each other now, which I find super ridiculous. Even the children of the Parisian bourgeoisie use it, which is utterly ridiculous, like children of WASP upper-class using ghetto English slang.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by lio45

he apologetically exclaimed "j'ai niqué ton truc!" (with a thick French accent, obviously).

That sounds quite 1990s. People wouldn't speak like that nowadays. More like "oh putain j'ai pété ta caisse" today. Even "niquer" in the sense of "to fuck" has because old-fashioned now. In the banlieue they use a verlan version of niquer now, which is "ken" (as in "J'ai bien ken hier"). Non banlieue types would just say "baiser".