Joual (French pronunciation:[ʒwal]) is an accepted name for the linguistic features ofQuebec French that are associated with the French-speakingworking class inMontreal which has become a symbol of national identity for some.Joual has historically beenstigmatized by some, and celebrated by others.^[1] WhileJoual is often considered asociolect of the Québécois working class,^[2] many feel that perception is outdated, withJoual becoming increasingly present in the arts.^[1]

Speakers of Quebec French from outside Montreal usually have other names to identify their speech, such asMagoua inTrois-Rivières, andChaouin south of Trois-Rivières. Linguists tend to eschew this term, but historically some have reserved the termJoual for the variant of Quebec French spoken in Montreal.^[3]

Both the upward socio-economic mobility among the Québécois, and a cultural renaissance aroundJoual connected to theQuiet Revolution in the Montreal East-End have resulted inJoual being spoken by people across the educational and economic spectrum. Today, manyQuébécois who were raised in Quebec during the 20th century (command of English notwithstanding) can understand and speak at least someJoual. Joual is also commonly spoken in a few Francophone communities in Ontario, such asHearst.

The creation ofJoual can be traced back to the "era of silence", the period from the 1840s to the 1960s and the start of theQuiet Revolution.^[4] The "era of silence" was marked with stark stigmatization of the common working man. Written documents were not shared with the typical working class man, and the very strict form of French that was used by elites excluded a majority of the population.^[4] The Quiet Revolution during the 1960s was a time of awakening, in which the Quebec working class demanded more respect in society, including wider use ofQuébécois in literature and the performing arts.Michel Tremblay is an example of a writer who deliberately usedJoual and Québécois to represent the working class populations of Quebec.^[5]Joual, a language of the working class, quickly became associated with slang and vulgar language.^{[citation needed]} Despite its continued use in Canada, there are still ideologies present which place a negative connotation on the use ofJoual.^{[citation needed]}

Although coinage of the namejoual is often attributed toFrench-Canadian journalistAndré Laurendeau, who in October 1959 wrote an article inLe Devoir criticizing the quality of the French language spoken by French Canadian students, the usage of this term throughout French-speaking Canada likely predates this text.^[6]

The actual wordJoual is the representation of how the wordcheval (Standard French:[ʃəval],'horse') is pronounced by those who speakJoual. ("Horse" is used in a variation of the phraseparler français comme une vache'to speak French like a cow', i.e. to speak French terribly; hence, a put-down of the Québécois dialect.) The weakschwa vowel[ə] disappeared. Then thevoiceless[ʃ] wasvoiced to[ʒ], thereby creating[ʒval]. Next, the[v] at the beginning of a syllable in some regional dialects of French or even in very rapid speech in general weakened to become thesemi-vowel[w] written⟨ou⟩. The end result is the word[ʒwal] transcribed asJoual.^{[citation needed]}

Diphthongs are normally present wherelong vowels would be present in standard French. There is also the usage ofsontaient, sonté (ils étaient, ils ont été).

Althoughmoé andtoé are today considered substandard slang pronunciations ofmoi andtoi, these were the original pronunciations ofancien régime French used in all provinces of Northern France, by the royalty, aristocracy, and common people. After the 1789French Revolution, the standard pronunciation in France changed to that of a previously-stigmatized form in the speech of Paris, but Quebec French continued to evolve from the historically older dialects, having become isolated from France following the 1760British conquest of New France.^[7]

Joual shares many features with modernOïl languages, such asNorman,Gallo,Picard,Poitevin andSaintongeais though its affinities are greatest with the 17th centurykoiné ofParis.^[8] Speakers of theselanguages of France predominated among settlers toNew France.

It could be argued that at least some aspects of more modernJoual are furtherlinguistic contractions of standard French.D'la (de la) is an example where the wordde has nearly fallen out of usage over time and has become contracted. This argument does apply to other words, and this phenomenon has become widespread throughout contemporary French language.

A defining characteristic of the sociolect is the deliberate use of the pronountu to indicate a question. The pronoun maintains its traditional usage, that of representing thesecond person singular, but is also used in conjunction with a verb, to indicate a question.^[9]Tu is used, for this purpose, regardless of the technically relevant grammatical person. This is becausetu, in thisuse-case, is a contraction of the antiquatedt-ilparticle originating from 13th century France,^[10] which was used to indicate a question.^[11] For example, in metropolitan french, a question may be asked as simply"Veut-il manger?" whereas in Joual, it may be asked as"Il veux-tu manger?"

Another significant characteristic ofJoual is the liberal use of profanities calledsacre in everyday speech.^[12]

There are a number of Englishloanwords inJoual, although they have been stigmatized since the 1960s,^[13] instead favoring alternative terms promoted by theOffice québécois de la langue française. The commonality of English loanwords inJoual is attributed to the unilingually anglophone nature of the factory owners, business higher-ups, and industrial supervisors which employed the majority of French-speaking blue-collar workers throughout 20th century.^[14] This need to use English in workplace environments, when referring to technical elements of the worker's labour, caused the gradual integration of English loanwords into French.^[15] These words would eventually come to be conjugated and integrated as though they were traditionally French words (such as "Check" becoming the verb "Chequer"). The usage ofdeprecated anglicisms varies both regionally and historically. In the table below are a few commonJoual words of English origin.

Some words were also previously thought to be of English origin, although modern research has shown them to be from regional French dialects:

• Pitoune (log, cute girl, loose girl): previously thought to come from "happy town" although the wordpitchoune exists in dialects from southern France (possibly coming from theOccitan wordpichona, "little girl"), now used to mean "cute girl".^[16]
• Poutine: was thought to come from "pudding", but some have drawn a parallel with the Occitan language (also called Provençal or Languedoc) termpodinga, a stew made of scraps, which was the previous use of the term in Montreal.^[17]

The two-act playLes Belles-sœurs by Canadian writerMichel Tremblay premiered in 1968 at theThéâtre du Rideau Vert in Montreal. Many consider it to have had a profound impact on Canadian culture, as it was one of the first timesJoual was seen on a national stage. The play follows a working-class woman named Germaine in Montréal. After winning a milliontrading stamps, she invites her friends over to help paste them into booklets to redeem them. But Germaine is unsuspecting of her jealous friends who are envious of her winnings.^[18] The fact that the play was originally written inJoual is very important to the socio-linguistic aspect of the women. The characters all come from the working class and for the most part, speak inJoual, which at the time was not seen on the main stage. The play was cited at the time as a "radical element among Quebec critics as the dawn of a new era of liberation, both political and aesthetic".^[19]

WhenLes Belles-sœurs premiered in Paris, France in 1973 as it was originally written, inJoual, it was met with some initial criticism. One critic described it as difficult to understand asancient Greek.^[20] Tremblay responded, "a culture should always start with speak to herself. The ancient Greeks spoke to each other".^[18][verify] The popularity of the play has since caused it to be translated into multiple languages,^{[citation needed]} raising controversies in the translation community over retaining the authenticity ofLes Belles-sœurs even when not performed in the original dialect ofJoual.^[21]

Writing inJoual gave Tremblay an opportunity to resist cultural and linguistic "imperialism" of France, while signifying the secularization of Québec culture.^[22]

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• Article onJoual at Canadian theatre
• Article onJoual inLa Linguistique journal
• A few excerpts of texts inJoual
• http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/1990h.html
• http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/1992.html
• http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/2004b.html

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