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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 49 of 82 14 September 2012 at 12:31am | IP Logged | |||||
Here are some accents you might encounter in Montreal, if you speak relatively "standard" French to strangers: A relatively strong accent (but not the strongest I've heard): Interview with Benny Lewis A nice cross-section of accents, mostly milder (but listen to the interviews, too): News from Quebec Entirely "standard" French on children's television: Caillou You might encounter any of these in Montreal. With a little bit of practice, it's not too bad. If you're like me, you may find that you lose a CEFR level of comprehension with the stronger accents. You'll also run into a noticeable number of bilinguals who are native or near-native in English, who will be strongly tempted to switch and help you out. But in my experience, nobody has ever been nasty or condescending about switching to English. Overall, I'm a fan of Montreal. I find that it's easy to keep my French "online" in a predominantly francophone city, and there are lots of friendly people, interesting bookstores and good bakeries. Edited by emk on 14 September 2012 at 12:31am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 50 of 82 14 September 2012 at 4:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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To come back to the question of whether or not Québécois French is a distinct language, I think the argument has to be made not so much on linguistic criteria as political and cultural criteria.
If you look solely at linguistic criteria, one could say that there is basically only one English language, one Spanish and one French language spoken around the world with some local phonetic variations. The written language is nearly identical and it only takes days for a native speaker to become accustomed to a different variant if it's not too deep. On the other hand, I would argue that when a national variant has developed a significant mass of distinctive reference works, a body of literature and a massive cultural output, that variety can warrant being called a distinct language. For that reason I believe that American English is a distinct language. H. L. Mencken wrote a book called the American Language using this sort of argument. American English is the English of the United States. There's Canadian English, British English, Australian English, etc. And within these different countries there are regional variants. Now, one could argue that Québécois doesn't qualify yet as a distinct language because all the criteria are not yet met. A lot has changed in terms of cultural output and literature, but what is sorely lacking is a distinctive body of reference works, e.g. dictionaries and grammars. It's changing but very slowly because there is a very significant part of the population that still believes that Québécois French is inferior to that of France and must not be allowed to deviate from some supposedly international standard by the development of local reference materials. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 51 of 82 14 September 2012 at 4:55am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you. This is also reflected in the teaching of the language. It's common for students to bring some expression to their teacher only to be met with something like "yes, people say that but it's not correct". So the spoken language differs from the standard language, that doesn't make the spoken language wrong, inferior or less valid, it's simply different. It's also reflected in the type of publications that are published on the subject. Most books that deal with Québécois treat it as if it were exotic or humourous. Can you name a book that teaches the grammar and the vocabulary of spoken Québécois from a serious didactic standpoint? French teachers tend to have a backgroung in literature, not in linguistics, and to them, the spoken language is not the real language. But if you move to Colombo tomorrow and you need to take a taxi, you won't care whether the language the driver uses matches the standard variety or not, you need to be able to communicate in the real word, not in a book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4775 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 52 of 82 14 September 2012 at 5:33am | IP Logged | |||||
But you see, each one of those differences is a regular one that an SF speaker can pick up on and henceforth understand without issue. You've just covered about a third of what you need to know to understand just about any Quebecker you'll ever meet. Someone who speaks SF can be initiated into QF in a few hours. You need to learn about the interrogative 'tu', assibilation of D and Z after slender vowels, that "je vais" becomes "j'va" or "m'a", the several definitions of "pogner", the basic rules of swearing and POOF ! You're almost done. The rest is all commentary. We don't see separate tags for UK and US English even if a speaker from a small town in Texas and one from a small town in Noerthern Eangland often use very different pronunciation and vocabulary. The reason is that despite the existence of those two extremes, the vast majority of speakers in both countries use an everyday language that is much the same and mutually intelligible. I've known people from Paris, Brussels, Kinshasa, Fort-de-France et beyond arrive in Chicoutimi and from day 1 have absolutely no problem getting around and, within a couple weeks, their ears are already perfectly accustomed to Quebec vernacular speech. There are obciously differences, but they aren't all that dramatic. I am reticent to "separate" SF and QF so formally because I think that it delegitimizes the French spoken here and that it contributes to the oft-quipped, slanderous stereotype that QF is not "real" French, but simply a patois, which is simply not true. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 53 of 82 14 September 2012 at 6:47am | IP Logged | |||||
People come here to learn languages. This is about providing yet another tool to enable people to study as they please. It will not affect, in any way, the validity or legitimacy of the French spoken in Québec. I understand where you are coming from though, and I used to share that view, which is mostly fueled by our sense of inadequacy and this constant idea that we have to change the way we speak so it's "correct". I come from a Linguistics backgroung where the words dialect, patois, language variety, etc., do not have a negative connotation. In Québec, even the word dialect is seen as an insult -- it's high time we learned to call a spade a spade and deal with reality. I also think that this unwillingness to embrace the spoken language as a valid form of language hinders the integration efforts of many new comers to the province. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 54 of 82 14 September 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is the very problem. I think that by recognizing Québécois French as a national language, i.e. the Québécois language, we would eliminate much of the prejudices and negative attitudes that people have today. In fact, this is exactly what is happening today. If you look at the language of movies, theatre, television and songs, we are seeing the legitimization of Québécois as the vernacular is taking its rightful place as a legitimate form of national expression. In the past purists have always asserted that Québécois French was not good French because of differences from European French. This is why we still have today on Radio-Canada the "capsules linguistiques" that attempt to teach people how to speak properly. In fact, what is happening is that the particularities of Québécois French are not dying out; quite the contrary, they are more present than ever and are being recognized and accepted. The next step is simply to say that we have our own national variety of French. About the American and British examples, of course, we can say that it's all English, but it's very clear that there are two (or more) distinct national varieties of English. So much so that teaching materials will say American English explicitly (I find the British publications usually say just English). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4608 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 55 of 82 14 September 2012 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
I believe Benny Lewis has a blog entry about how much easier it was for him to learn French in Canada than in France. I think he found Montrealers to be much more open to speaking French with him than Parisians. Obviously it is just his experience but for what it's worth... http://www.fluentin3months.com/quebecois / 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4775 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 56 of 82 15 September 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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I myself am not uninitiated to the field of linguistics, though by no means a linguist.
I studied phonetics and lexicography in my undergrad at the Université du Québec à Chioutimi. I have personally met and discussed the norm debate with the people working on the Dictionnaire Franqus (notably Hélène Cajolet-Laganière who is a professor at the Université de Sherbrooke where I currently attend), and I agree with much of their position. However, there is still an ongoing debate about the linguistic norm in Quebec. The issue is not settled and I find myself in the middle of the two extremes. I do not think that the Quebec norm should follow the European norm to the letter, but nor do I think we should stray too far from it. I think that would alienate us even more, isolate Quebec even further to where not only would we be estranged from the North American majority, but also from the Francophonie. If we want to really render our language useless and to exacerbate our dependence on the English language in order to communicate with the outside world, creating a Québécois "language" is the quickest way to get there. The "aménagement linguistique" which has been taking place in Quebec for over 50 years has changed the spoken language immensely and will continue to. It has effectively brought QF into the international fold. It has changed our pronunciation, our vocabulary, our grammar... everything. Before then, most Québécois would not have been able to easily conversse with someone from France or Africa without training. Now it happens spontaneously without issue. I'm not sure if you have ever attended francisation classes intended for immigrants (I did every night for almost a year), but they are very much anchored in a practical approach. They teach you what you need to get by in everyday situations, they teach you the standard rules of the language and they also expose you to the vernacular concepts you will need to succeed. And that's all anyone needs to understand and speak QF. They need a good grasp on how the standard language works and then practical lessons on the differences between that standard language and the vernacular. Edited by lecavaleur on 15 September 2012 at 1:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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