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New course: Le québécois en 10 leçons | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 137 of 167 14 November 2012 at 12:15am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I recently tried to modify to add Spanish to my profile but I could not figure see how to. It seems I could change everything else except for the languages. I'll have a look again. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 138 of 167 14 November 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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s_allard, I have greatly appreciated and enjoyed your very informative, well written and quite helpful posts over the years. Many of your votes are mine. I can definitely see where you are coming from on this and your point has been well made, and to your credit in a respectful and collegial manner. I'm hoping that you and arekkusu can simply agree to disagree. You are both excellent, highly knowledgeable and personable contributors to this forum.
Adding a new language or changing your languages' status isn't intuitive on this site at all. Most of us haven't changed our language information since we joined and don't know how to change it. If you want, here's how you can do it: 1) click on "My Profile" at the top of this page. 2) Under your username in the sort of orange colored (in my browser) section in the top left hand corner you will see the word "Languages" and a number in brackets. 3)Click on "Languages". 4)You will then be taken to a screen that shows your current languages and below them you'll see a link for "Add a new language". 5)Click on that and add, apparently, "Spanish"- et, voilà, Bob's your uncle! I agree with tommus, your long post on the state of French in Quebec is quite informative. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 139 of 167 14 November 2012 at 4:22am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I actually enjoyed your history of joual greatly, and I'm certainly not one to complain about long posts! My apologies if I was frustrated and harsh in my response. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 140 of 167 14 November 2012 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks, everybody, for the kind words and particularly to @iguamon who explained how to change the language profile. Quite a maze, indeed.
For those who may be interested in the sounds of contemporary popular Québécois, here is an interview with the rocker Bernard Adamus that @Arekkusu mentioned earlier. Bernard Adamus The program is Tout le monde en parle, a very popular talk show on Radio-Canada. The hosts of the program, Guy A. Lepage and Dany Turcotte, are speaking in what I would call standard media Québécois for Radio-Canada, maybe a bit on the casual side. Bernard Adamus is speaking in Québécois vernacular as befits the persona. What is interesting is that in this clip we see some other characters. There is an older gentleman, Bob Rae, the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, a major political party. Bob is English-speaking but also speaks French very well. And there is and Sonia LeBel (with dark hair), a very well-know prosecutor with the justice department. Mme Lebel has become something of a media star because she figured prominently in a previous public inquiry called the Commission Bastarache and now she has become the lead lawyer in a current commission called la Commission Charbonneau. She can be seen and heard on the site of the Commission.Commission Charbonneau Although we do not hear Bob Rae or Sonia LeBel in the excerpt, we could speculate on their speaking style. This is of course a rather casual environment. Not the House of Commons for Mr. Rae nor a courtroom for Mme LeBel. Here they are sitting next to an upcoming rock star. Bob Rae certainly doesn't want to appear like a stuffy old English-speaking politician. And Mme LeBel who will likely become a judge one day probably wants to come across as unpretentious and approachable. Here they are listening to Bernard Adamus. And maybe they like his music. But when they speak, what do they sound like? We can't tell from this excerpt, but I'm sure that no reader here thinks they speak like Bernard Adamus. They may enjoy the earthiness and authenticity of Mr Adamus's speaking style, but considering their jobs and social status, would they want to speak that way? In fact, if they were to speak like Adamus, it would probably appear incongruous or ridiculous, especially on the part of Bob Rae. What does this have to do with our discussion? This is what social varieties of language are about. And for me, it's all Québécois. Different varieties but they all fall under the same umbrella. Edit: I looked at the video clip again very quickly and I didn't seem to see Bob Rae this time around. So, I may be imagining things. But the principle is the same. Edited by s_allard on 14 November 2012 at 4:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 141 of 167 14 November 2012 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I often wonder if the native-English Canadian politicians and innumerable other Canadian public servants and other public figures who are obliged or feel obliged to speak French in public are contributing to yet another 'dialect' of Canadian French. There are probably very few other countries in the world where so many public figures speak and often struggle in a major second language. As you say, Bob Rae may not want to, or be capable of, speaking Québécois vernacular. Nor would Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister. However, the leader of the Opposition, Thomas Mulcair, although an anglophone, seems to speak a much more natural Québécois, having been born, raised and having worked most of his life in Quebec. Do you think Mr. Mulcair could make a good attempt at speaking Québécois vernacular? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 142 of 167 14 November 2012 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't think that the English-speaking politicians speaking French would constitute a dialect as such, but what I think is happening is that the French language is being impacted by the influx of all these more or less bilingual speakers of English. In other words, a sort of Trojan horse effect. À suivre. As for Thomas Mulcair, I'm sure he could do a good imitation or rendition of the Québécois vernacular. I'm pretty sure he does modulate his speech according to the audience but generally speaking his language is very standard. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 143 of 167 14 November 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You're probably right. I don't really know the definition of dialect. But a couple of characteristics would probably be: - an identifiable group that speaks a language differently from the mainstream language. - a variation of a language that immediately identifies the group of speakers from which it comes. - a variation of a language that uses some different words and expressions, and in this case, a subset of the mainstream language. - a variation of a language whose speakers have difficulty understanding the mainstream language, and have difficulty being understood by mainstream language speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 144 of 167 14 November 2012 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I happen to know some people who know Thomas Mulcair personally. I learned that his mother is actually from Trois-Rivières. Despite his slight accent, I'm told he definitely uses joual in his everyday life.
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