Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Canadian English combines British & American spellings. Canadian spells -or words with a u like the British do ("honour", "colour", "humour"); we also spell "centre" like the British; but for the words "tire" and "program" we spell them like the Americans.

UK: "The tyres on my car have a strange colour."
USA: "The tires on my car have a strange color".
Canada: "The tires on my car have a strange colour".

But for "defense/defence", Canada is actually inconsistent and doesn't demonstrate a clear preference. Official style guides in Canada state that "defence" should be preferred, but in practice many Canadians spell it "defense". (As opposed to "colour", for example, which very few Canadians would ever spell without the "u").

Interestingly enough the preference for British spellings is political. In the 19th century most Canadians spelt all words like the Americans; you can find old copies of Toronto newspapers from the 1890s where they spell "color" without the "u". But there was a strong push from the ruling class to adopt British spellings out of a sense of loyalty/affinity to the British Empire which led to it changing. There was also a push in the early 20th century for Canadians to speak more like the British; CBC newscasters in this era were often coached to speak with British-like accents.

I hate commercial signs that incorporate "center" into the name of the business/building. I don't know whether it is becoming more common, but it grates. Although that's a subject for a different thread.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Canadian English combines British & American spellings. Canadian spells -or words with a u like the British do ("honour", "colour", "humour"); we also spell "centre" like the British; but for the words "tire" and "program" we spell them like the Americans.

UK: "The tyres on my car have a strange colour."
USA: "The tires on my car have a strange color".
Canada: "The tires on my car have a strange colour".

But for "defense/defence", Canada is actually inconsistent and doesn't demonstrate a clear preference. Official style guides in Canada state that "defence" should be preferred, but in practice many Canadians spell it "defense". (As opposed to "colour", for example, which very few Canadians would ever spell without the "u").

Interestingly enough the preference for British spellings is political. In the 19th century most Canadians spelt all words like the Americans; you can find old copies of Toronto newspapers from the 1890s where they spell "color" without the "u". But there was a strong push from the ruling class to adopt British spellings out of a sense of loyalty/affinity to the British Empire which led to it changing. There was also a push in the early 20th century for Canadians to speak more like the British; CBC newscasters in this era were often coached to speak with British-like accents.

^^Which makes it even odder for a Francophone Canadian to spell it "defence", since it is "défense" in French.

In fact the entire "defence" spelling is wrong, since the word comes from French "défense", itself from Latin "defensa". I have no idea who, why, and when someone in England replaced the s with a crazy c.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^Which makes it even odder for a Francophone Canadian to spell it "defence", since it is "défense" in French.

In fact the entire "defence" spelling is wrong, since the word comes from French "défense", itself from Latin "defensa". I have no idea who, why, and when someone in England replaced the s with a crazy c.

I grew up in English Canada and went to school in English for many years so I was trained in Canadian English spelling.

My kids who grew up in Québec and went to school all in French would probably spell it "defense" in English.

[New Brisavoine]

^^He said both defence and defense were accepted in Anglophone Canada though.

As for French, I don't think there is any French Canadian spelling distinct from European French, is there?

On a side note, the former French ambassador in DC posted this on Twitter today (top page of the 1666 census of Canada). As you can see, the spelling was quite distinct back then. What's fascinating is French Canada followed all further European spelling reforms even after 1760, instead of keeping the old spellings.



Note this above is not some "odd" way of writing or the scribe not knowing the correct spelling. It was really how words were standardly spelled. Aage later became âge, mestier became métier, etc. French Canada followed those later changes, which shows there was never a complete break in relations between France and French Canada contrary to what many people imagine.

PS: That census is stored at the Archives of Overseas France in Aix-en-Provence. That's where they store all the archives from the former Ministry of Colonies, and before that from the Secretary of State of the Navy in the 18th century, under whose authority was placed Canada, like all French colonies.

[New Brisavoine]

And this is the first page from Montréal (in that 1666 census). The first household listed is Louis Artus, écuyer (i.e. squire, which was a title meaning "nobleman" back then in France), sieur de Sailly (i.e. "seigneur" of Sailly), 40 y/o, royal judge of Montréal, his wife, his 3 daughters, and his 2 male servants.

The fact that the first household of Montréal listed in the 1666 census would be the royal judge (and the 2nd household is the royal attorney of Montréal) is so typical of pre-1789 France! Justice was everything in ancient France. Above even the clergy and the army. I'm quite amazed in fact that they had already set up a royal court in Montréal in 1666! In France you had to be a city of at least subprefecture size (like 4,000 inhabitants at least, when the large cities of Europe like Munich or Bristol had barely 50,000 inhabitants) to have a royal court.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Note this above is not some "odd" way of writing or the scribe not knowing the correct spelling. It was really how words were standardly spelled. Aage later became âge, mestier became métier, etc. French Canada followed those later changes, which shows there was never a complete break in relations between France and French Canada contrary to what many people imagine.

PS: That census is stored at the Archives of Overseas France in Aix-en-Provence. That's where they store all the archives from the former Ministry of Colonies, and before that from the Secretary of State of the Navy in the 18th century, under whose authority was placed Canada, like all French colonies.

That's actually quite interesting - I wonder how Quebec & France kept in sync over all those centuries? I guess lots of correspondance.

[Acajack]

Speech diverged a whole lot though.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That's actually quite interesting - I wonder how Quebec & France kept in sync over all those centuries? I guess lots of correspondance.

I think the clergy played a big role. A lot of the Catholic priests kept coming from France, and of course they used material coming from France.

Also, the small educated top part of the Québécois society made a point of keeping in touch with French literature and French magazines from across the Atlantic. Americans did that to a much smaller extent, because they had their large homegrown culture and literature market, so they needed Britain less.

As Acajack says, the oral language diverged (the pronunciation especially), because there was no radio or television back then, and the Québécois were too poor to travel to Europe (and too few Francophone Europeans came to these remote corners of French Canada). So the French Canadians were aware of the written language used in Europe in the 19th century, but they just didn't realize how it had diverged from theirs in terms of pronunciation.

Until 1760, all French travelers in Canada agree that the Canadians have the same accent as the Parisians. All are surprised by that in general (because in France, when you traveled away from Paris, you quickly entered provinces where people had very different accents, or even different regional languages).

By the 19th century, however, the few European travelers visiting Lower Canada all notice the strange pronunciation of the French Canadians. That's because the French of Paris changed a lot during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, so it diverged a lot from the French as spoken in Canada. Also, the French of Canada became very corrupted with English words (I remember some French travelers around 1860 witnessing a trial in Montréal or Québec City, and commenting how the French Canadian lawyers spoke a sort of pidgin that was neither French nor English, which they thought was greatly comical, and sad, because they concluded that that's what awaits a people who are conquered and vanquished). This was later corrected in the 20th century with conscious efforts by the educated classes of Québec to remove as many English words as possible, and adopt the French words coined in Europe (the same visitors in a law court of Québec today would find the Québécois lawyers speaking much more "correct" French, albeit with a strange pronunciation).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That's actually quite interesting - I wonder how Quebec & France kept in sync over all those centuries? I guess lots of correspondance.

The Church in good part, one would think.

[Acajack]

Yes there was still some correspondence with France during the post-Conquest period but there were some ups and downs. At certain times the British did not allow books and other written materials to enter Canada from France and they had to be smuggled up the Hudson River route to Montreal from the Port of New York. (There were no restrictions on them entering the US.)

And Catholic religious personnel (mostly priests) were just about the only people from France allowed to enter Canada for a century or a century and a half after the Conquest.

[Acajack]

There wasn't a single French ship in Canadian (Quebec) waters for almost a century after the Conquest, with the first ones coming in the mid 1850s.

[New Brisavoine]

^^That's why it's called a "conquest", and not "joyfully joining the large, merry family of the British Empire".

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^That's why it's called a "conquest", and not "joyfully joining the large, merry family of the British Empire".

And yet there was no real attempt to extirpate the French language, the Catholic church was left largely alone, and French institutions, including the French civil justice system were institutionalized.

If this is oppression, it is certainly one of the most benign examples of such in human history.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Speech diverged a whole lot though.

Just as in Quebec, the English language in North America closely parallels how English was spoken in England at the time of Shakespeare. Where divergence happened, it was more a matter of the language in the home country evolving, while colonial English, being isolated, became entrenched.

Early Modern English of the 1600s was very definitely rhotic, and, all early colonists very definitely spoke like pirates. This was reinforced by the fact that many colonists were from the English west country.

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

And yet there was no real attempt to extirpate the French language, the Catholic church was left largely alone, and French institutions, including the French civil justice system were institutionalized.

If this is oppression, it is certainly one of the most benign examples of such in human history.

Except flooding the territory with English speakers to drown French in a sea of English...

Keeping the Catholic Church wasn't an act of great generosity, to was to avoid a rebellion (at least until the drowning of French-Canadian is complete). The deal was basically: keep the French docile and quiet and you can save their immortal souls...

[thewave46]

Which Empire was nicer? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Answer: The Empire that most reflects my upbringing/cultural lineage was the nicer one, obviously.

I look forward to at least 3 pages of trite argumentation. French Empire, British Empire, Spanish Empire, Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, whatever.

They obviously all favoured the people most like them, and to varying degrees had disdain for the people not like them. The more alien, the more hostility.

But the other guy is worse!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Which Empire was nicer? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Answer: The Empire that most reflects my upbringing/cultural lineage was the nicer one, obviously.

I look forward to at least 3 pages of trite argumentation. French Empire, British Empire, Spanish Empire, Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, whatever.

They obviously all favoured the people most like them, and to varying degrees had disdain for the people not like them. The more alien, the more hostility.

But the other guy is worse!

This is all pointless, because in the real world it is the British Empire that conquered French Canada, and not the French Empire that conquered British Canada. This is at the heart of the Québec-Canada relationship, and explains why this thread has more than 300 pages, and why a party openly calling for leaving Canada is currently polling #1 in Québec. Whether the French Empire was better or worse than the British Empire in Africa is totally irrelevant to this issue.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

Except flooding the territory with English speakers to drown French in a sea of English...

Keeping the Catholic Church wasn't an act of great generosity, to was to avoid a rebellion (at least until the drowning of French-Canadian is complete). The deal was basically: keep the French docile and quiet and you can save their immortal souls...

Yeah. Basically the French population of the St Lawrence valley was too large to do another "Grand Dérangement" considering the logistical constraints of the time (plus even a non-democratic oligarchy like England would have found it hard to deport 80,000 people with respect to how English public opinion would have reacted back home). This is what the first British governor James Murray tried to explain to London (80,000 French Catholics, not the same as 10,000 Acadians, you can't ignore them, so better give them some sort of compromise settlement).

[MonctonRad]

You have to keep in mind that the Acadian deportation was never official British government policy. It was Governor Lawrence in Nova Scotia being opportunistic (during a time of active warfare) after the fall of Fort Beausejour.

The Acadian population of NS was non compliant and, along with their Micmac allies had been harassing English settlements in NS for 40 years. After Fort Beausejour fell, there was an expeditionary force of New Englanders in the region who were under contract for at least another year, not otherwise engaged. Governor Lawrence issued an order demanding an Acadian oath of allegiance to the crown, fully realizing they would not comply. He used this as a pretext for the expulsion, thus solving the "Acadian problem." Given the distance from England, this all happened without the direct knowledge of the British crown.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Given the distance from England, this all happened without the direct knowledge of the British crown.

The Acadians remained for years on those infamous prison-boats moored in Boston and other US cities. The British government could have freed them and repatriated them to Acadia. They didn't. Even in non-democratic 18th century Europe, the fate of the Acadians imprisoned on boats for years was considered a disgrace for England in the eyes of European public opinion.