Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Oh it’s definitely used. It just sounds very franchouillard to us. Not a problem of course.

[New Brisavoine]

Talking of 'franchouillard' things, only last week I've found out your ministry of justice still used the term "plumitif", a word which has been unused in France since 1790. I found that super odd and antiquated. In parenthesis, it shows that some terms and concepts were passed over the generations despite the British conquest. This is certainly not a French term that would have been re-introduced in Québec from France when French Canada affirmed itself more in the 19th and 20th centuries, as it had stopped being used in France since the French Revolution.

[harls]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What's the wrong answer?

You wanted to know what it was called in Québec, this is the answer.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

People in Quebec are familiar with the French term “portable” but it sounds out of place here like “mobile (phone)” sounds out of place and Britishy in Anglo North America.

I still hear people refer to them as "mobile"s now and again, though usually it's when filling out some kind of form that wants your cell number.

[MonctonRad]

I think our resident agitateur et agent provocateur metropolitain would appreciate this video.

• Video Link

It points out that English is nothing more than poorly pronounced French (and how we all should be grateful for this fact).

It would appear that all those conquering Norman warlords were just as insufferable as the apocryphal fat English salesladies were in downtown Montreal department stores.

[kool maudit]

English is such a shaggy mutt.

We are in the stage where animals and their names are a big aspect of parenting, and one thing I have noticed is that where the Swedish word isn't cognate with the English one, like katt-cat, it's often cognate with either a slightly older word (hund-hound) or an archaic one, as in kanin-coney (rabbit) or valp-whelp (puppy).

[kool maudit]

(and of course, the Normans, while French in one sense, were Norsemen in another)

[kool maudit]

I will always have enormous respect for those Count St-Germain types who can move flawlessly from English to French to German to Spanish to Italian. But while I will never join their ranks, I do realize now that I have some fluency in two Germanic languages and a Romance one that there are links and shortcuts littered throughout the European tongues.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

(and of course, the Normans, while French in one sense, were Norsemen in another)

Yes, the presenter made this point quite clearly, and how this influenced Norman French pronunciation as apposed to the pronunciation found in isle de France. This in turn made English pronunciation of words of French origin quite different from standard french.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

English is such a shaggy mutt.

Yes, the bastard tongue that rules the world.

No wonder the French hate the English language so much. Just the sound of the language must be quite jarring to their delicate ears. And, it must rot their gut that this ill conceived child could have risen to such global dominance.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

English is such a shaggy mutt.

We are in the stage where animals and their names are a big aspect of parenting, and one thing I have noticed is that where the Swedish word isn't cognate with the English one, like katt-cat, it's often cognate with either a slightly older word (hund-hound) or an archaic one, as in kanin-coney (rabbit) or valp-whelp (puppy).

And, like other mutts, much healthier than many purebreds.

[MolsonExport]

double post

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

And, like other mutts, much healthier than many purebreds.

[kool maudit]

I didn't mean shaggy mutt in a bad way! My digression seems to have triggered a sort of defensive swagger, but I love my mother tongue. It was a great language before the rise of the British Empire, and it will still be one after the fall of the US sequel. It doesn't remotely need its current hegemony to be fascinating.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I didn't mean shaggy mutt in a bad way! My digression seems to have triggered a sort of defensive swagger, but I love my mother tongue. It was a great language before the rise of the British Empire, and it will still be one after the fall of the US sequel. It doesn't remotely need its current hegemony to be fascinating.

To paraphrase the immortal Forrest Gump - "English is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."

It borrows widely and copiously, has a loosey-goosey syntax and structure and is highly malleable, meaning the English language from the 1940s sounds noticeably different than the language today, and today's English will be considerably different in the year 2100.

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

It would appear that all those conquering Norman warlords were just as insufferable as the apocryphal fat English salesladies were in downtown Montreal department stores.

Not apocryphal at all, even they may or may not have been fat. Now that departments stores are mostly gone, the sales people only speaking English to French speaking customers have moved to other stores.

I know it is a thing among certain people in the ROC to banalized, or even deny the fact that French services is still difficult to obtain in Montréal, but it is in the end blatant disinformation.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

Not apocryphal at all, even they may or may not have been fat. Now that departments stores are mostly gone, the sales people only speaking English to French speaking customers have moved to other stores.

I know it is a thing among certain people in the ROC to banalized, or even deny the fact that French services is still difficult to obtain in Montréal, but it is in the end blatant disinformation.

Many others in MOC don't actually care, considering it fine to speak only English in Montreal despite all the Kool aid.

[MolsonExport]

Working at McDonald's in Beaconsfield during the 1980s, we only interacted with customers in French, unless they replied to us in English. This was in the 80s. In Beaconsfield. Few places in the province are as English as Beaconsfield. The situation is not so dire, I reckon.

[MonctonRad]

Of course, with the recent influx of JT era allophones to the province, there might have been some recent deterioration in the situation (at least as far as fast food employees is concerned).

Of course, the situation is similar here in Moncton too (in terms of concerns that the fast food worker understood you well enough to get your order right).

Not a solely Quebec problem.

[Acajack]

One of my kids recently moved to the heart of downtown Montreal. Literally two blocks away from the main section of Ste-Catherine.

It's not really true that it's "hard" to get served in French there, and being able to be served in French is the norm throughout the area. Though there are sporadic instances where staff don't speak French. And even if only sporadic, the number of these instances has increased quite a bit in just a few years.