French is the mother tongue of approximately 7.8 million Canadians (19.6 percent of the Canadian population, second toEnglish at 54.9 percent) according to the2021 Canadian census.[1] Under the 1969Official Languages Act, French is recognized as an official language of Canada alongside English and both have equal status at thefederal government level.[2] Most nativefrancophones in Canada live inQuebec, the only province where French is the majority and the sole official language.[3] In 2016, 29.8 percent of Canadians reported being able to conduct a conversation in French; this number drops to 10.3 percent of Canadians when excluding Quebec, since most of Canada outside this territory isanglophone.[4]
In Quebec, 85 percent of residents are native francophones and 95 percent speak French as their first or second language.[5] About one million native francophones live in other provinces, most notably the neighbouring province ofNew Brunswick, where about a third of its residents are francophones; New Brunswick is Canada's only officiallybilingual province. There is also a large communityin Ontario, mainly concentrated in Quebec-bordering regions to the east ofOttawa and inNortheastern Ontario.[6] Elsewhere in Canada, there are pockets of smaller francophone communities throughout includingin Manitoba (notably theSt. Boniface neighbourhood),[7]Alberta,Saskatchewan, and theMaritime provinces ofNova Scotia andPrince Edward Island.[8][9]
The language is mainly spoken byCanadians of French descent (most notably theQuébécois and theAcadians, with varying dialects), a legacy of theFrench colonization of America, and these communities maintain a distinct society and culture from the mainly anglophone rest of Canada.[10][11] Outside of Quebec, where otherwise English is the de facto working language, francophone minority communities retain the right to French-language primary and secondary education as guaranteed bySection 23 of theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They also, in most territories, retain official rights for provincial level French-language services and institutions through constitutional provisions (Manitoba and New Brunswick) or statutory provisions in the legal system (Alberta, Ontario,Saskatchewan,Northwest Territories,Nunavut, andYukon).[12][13] French speakers in Canada have been the subject oflinguistic discrimination and have historically faced subjugation through laws such asRegulation 17.[14][15] This has led to sometimes uneasy relations with the anglophone Canadian majority.[16][17]
In 1524, the Florentine navigatorGiovanni da Verrazzano, working for Italian bankers in France, explored the American coast fromFlorida toCape Breton Island. In 1529, Verrazzano mapped a part of the coastal region of the North American continent under the name Nova Gallia (New France). In 1534, KingFrancis I of France sentJacques Cartier to explore previously unfamiliar lands. Cartier found theGulf of Saint Lawrence, sealed an alliance with the local people and obtained passage to go farther. During his second expedition (1535–1536), Cartier came upon theSaint Lawrence River, a path into the heart of the continent. However, Cartier failed to establish a permanent colony in the area, and war in Europe kept France from further colonization through the end of the 16th century.[18][19]
At the beginning of the 17th century, French settlements and private companies were established in the area that is now eastern Canada. In 1605,Pierre Dugua withSamuel de Champlain foundedPort Royal (Acadia),[20] and in 1608, Champlain foundedQuebec City. In 1642, the foundation of Ville Marie, the settlement that would eventually becomeMontreal, completed the occupation of the territory.
In 1634, Quebec contained 200 settlers who were principally involved in the fur trade. The trade was profit-making and the city was on the point of becoming more than a mere temporary trading post.
In 1635,Jesuits founded the secondary school of Quebec for the education of children. In 1645, the Compagnie des Habitants was created, uniting the political and economic leaders of the colony. French was the language of all the non-native people.
In 1685, the revocation of theEdict of Nantes byLouis XIV (1654–1715), which had legalized freedom of religion of theReformed Church, caused the emigration from France of 300,000Huguenots (French Calvinists) to other countries of Europe and to North America.[21]
With theTreaty of Utrecht in 1713, the British began their domination of eastern North America, some parts of which had been controlled by the French. The British took mainlandNova Scotia in 1713. Present-dayMaine fell to the British duringFather Rale's War, while present-dayNew Brunswick fell afterFather Le Loutre's War. In 1755 the majority of the French-speaking inhabitants of Nova Scotia were deported to theThirteen Colonies. After 1758, they were deported to England and France. TheTreaty of Paris (1763) completed the British takeover, removing France from Canadian territory, except forSaint Pierre and Miquelon at the entrance of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
The French language was relegated to second rank as far as trade and state communications were concerned. Out of necessity, the educated class learned the English language and became progressively bilingual, but the great majority of the French-speaking inhabitants continued to speak only French, and their population increased. Anglicization of the French population failed, and it became obvious that coexistence was required. In 1774,Parliament passed theQuebec Act, restoring French civil laws and abrogating theTest Act, which had been used to suppress Catholicism.[22]
In 1791, Parliament repealed the Quebec Act and gave the king authority to divide the Canadian colony into two new provinces:Upper Canada, which later became Ontario, andLower Canada, which became Quebec.
In 1867, three colonies of British North America agreed to form a federal state, which was namedCanada. It was composed of four provinces:
In Quebec, French became again the official language; until then it was thevernacular language but with no legal status.[23][24][25]
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As a consequence of geographical seclusion and as a result of British conquest, the French language in Canada presents three different but related main dialects.[specify] They share certain features that distinguish them from European French.
All of these dialects mix, to varying degrees, elements from regional languages and folk dialects spoken in France at the time of colonization. For instance, the origins ofQuebec French lie in 17th- and 18th-century Parisian French, influenced by folk dialects of the earlymodern period and otherregional languages (such asNorman,Picard andPoitevin-Saintongeais) that French colonists had brought toNew France. The three dialects can also be historically and geographically associated with three of the five former colonies ofNew France –Canada,Acadia andTerre-Neuve (Newfoundland) – which were settled by people from different regions of France.[26]
In addition, there is amixed language known asMichif, which is based onCree and French. It is spoken byMétis communities inManitoba andSaskatchewan as well as within adjacent areas of the United States.
Immigration after World War II has brought francophone immigrants from around the world, and with them otherFrench dialects.
Francophone Canadians orFrench-speaking Canadians are citizens ofCanada who speakFrench, and sometimes refers only to those who speak it as their first language. In 2021, 10,669,575 people in Canada or 29.2% of the total population spoke French, including 7,651,360 people or 20.8% who declared French as their mother tongue.[27][28]
Six million French-speaking Canadians reside inQuebec, where they constitute the main linguistic group, and another one million reside in other Canadian regions. The largest portion ofFrancophones outside Quebec live inOntario, followed byNew Brunswick, but they can be found in all provinces and territories.[30] The presence of French in Canada comes mainly fromFrench colonization in America that occurred in the 16th to 18th centuries.
Francophones in Canada are not all ofFrench Canadian orFrench descent, particularly in the English-speaking provinces of Ontario andWestern Canada. A few Canadians of French Canadian or French origin are also not Francophone.
Unlike Francophones in Quebec, who generally identify simply as Québécois, Francophones outside Quebec generally identify as Francophone Canadians (e.g.Franco-Ontarians,Franco-Manitobans, etc.), the exception beingAcadians, who constitute their own cultural group and live inAcadia, in theMaritime provinces.New Brunswick is Canada's only officially-bilingual province.[31] All three territories (theYukon, theNorthwest Territories, andNunavut) include French among their official languages.[32][33][34]
Quebec is the only province whose sole official language is French. Today, 71.2 percent of Québécois people are first language francophones.[36] About 95 percent of Quebecers speak French.[5] However, many of the services the provincial government provides are available in English for the sizeableanglophone population of the province (notably inMontreal). For native French speakers, Quebec French is noticeably different in pronunciation and vocabulary from theFrench ofFrance, sometimes calledMetropolitan French, but they are easily mutually intelligible in their formal varieties, and after moderate exposure, in most of their informal ones as well. The differences are primarily due to changes that have occurred in Quebec French andParisian French since the 18th century, when Britain gained possession of Canada.
Different regions of Quebec have their own varieties:Gaspé Peninsula,Côte-Nord,Quebec City,Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean,Outaouais, andAbitibi-Témiscamingue have differences in pronunciation as well as in vocabulary. For example, depending on one's region, the ordinary word for "kettle" can bebouilloire, bombe, orcanard.
In Quebec, the French language is of paramount importance. For example, thestop signs on the roads are writtenARRÊT (which has the literal meaning of "stop" in French), even if other French-speaking countries, likeFrance, useSTOP. On a similar note, movies originally made in other languages than French (mostly movies originally made in English) are more literally named in Quebec than they are in France (e.g. The movieThe Love Guru is calledLove Gourou in France, but in Quebec it is calledLe Gourou de l'amour).
The colonists living in what are now the provinces ofNew Brunswick andNova Scotia were principally constituted ofBretons,Normans, andBasques. Conquered by the British, they sufferedmassive deportations to theUnited States andFrance. Others went into exile toCanada or to nearby islands. Those who stayed were persecuted. At the end of the 18th century, more liberal measures granted new lands to those who had stayed, and measures were taken to promote the return of numerous exiled people from Canada andMiquelon. The number of Acadians rose rapidly, to the point of gaining representation in theLegislative Assembly.
French is one of the official languages, with English, of the province ofNew Brunswick. Apart fromQuebec, this is the only other Canadian province that recognizes French as an official language. Approximately one-third of New Brunswickers are francophone,[36] by far the largestAcadian population in Canada.
The Acadian community is concentrated in primarily rural areas along the border with Quebec and the eastern coast of the province. Francophones in theMadawaska area may also be identified asBrayon, although sociologists have disputed whether the Brayons represent a distinct francophone community, a subgroup of the Acadians or an extraprovincial community ofQuébécois people. The only major Acadian population centre isMoncton, home to the main campus of theUniversité de Moncton. Francophones are, however, in the minority in Moncton.
In addition to New Brunswick, Acadian French has speakers in portions of mainland Quebec and in the Atlantic provinces ofNova Scotia,Prince Edward Island, andNewfoundland. In these provinces, the percentage of francophones is much smaller than in New Brunswick. In some communities, French is anendangered language.
Linguists do not agree about the origin of Acadian French. Acadian French is influenced by thelangues d'oïl. The dialect contains, among other features, thealveolarr and the pronunciation of the final syllable in the plural form of the verb in the third person. Acadia is the only place outsideJersey (aChannel Island close to mainland Normandy) whereJèrriais speakers can be found.[37]
French is the native language of over 500,000 persons inOntario, representing 4.7 percent of the province's population. They are concentrated primarily in theEastern Ontario andNortheastern Ontario regions, near the border withQuebec, although they are also present in smaller numbers throughout the province. Francophone Ontarians form part of a larger cultural group known asFranco-Ontarians, of whom only 60 percent still speak the language at home. The city ofOttawa counts the greatest number of Franco-Ontarians in the province. Franco-Ontarians are originally from a first wave of immigration fromFrance, from a second wave from Quebec. The third wave comes from Quebec, but also from Haiti, Morocco, and Africa.
The province has no official language defined in law, although it is a largely English-speaking province. Ontario law requires that the provincialLegislative Assembly operate in both English and French (individuals can speak in the Assembly in the official language of their choice), and requires that all provincial statutes and bills be made available in both English and French. Furthermore, under theFrench Language Services Act, individuals are entitled to communicate with the head or central office of any provincial government department or agency in French, as well as to receive all government services in French in 25 designated areas in the province, selected according to minority population criteria. The provincial government of Ontario's website is bilingual. Residents ofOttawa,Toronto,Windsor,Sudbury andTimmins can receive services from their municipal government in the official language of their choice.
There are also several French-speaking communities on military bases in Ontario, such as the one atCFB Trenton. These communities have been founded by francophone Canadians in theCanadian Forces who live together in military residences.[38][39]
The termFranco-Ontarian accepts two interpretations. According to the first one, it includes all French speakers of Ontario, wherever they come from. According to second one, it includes allFrench Canadians born in Ontario, whatever their level of French is.[40] The use of French among Franco-Ontarians is in decline due to the omnipresence of the English language in a lot of fields.
The island was discovered by European powers byJohn Cabot in 1497.Newfoundland was annexed by England in 1583. It is the first British possession inNorth America.
In 1610, the Frenchmen became established in thepeninsula of Avalon and went to war against the Englishmen. In 1713, theTreaty of Utrecht acknowledged the sovereignty of Great Britain.
The origin ofFranco-Newfoundlanders is double: the first ones to arrive are especially ofBreton origin, attracted by the fishing possibilities. Then, from the 19th century, the Acadians who came from theCape Breton Island and from theMagdalen Islands, an archipelago of nine small islands belonging to Quebec, become established.
Up to the middle of the 20th century, Breton fishers, who had Breton as their mother tongue, but who had been educated in French came to settle. This Breton presence can explain differences between the Newfoundland French and the Acadian French.
In the 1970s, the French language appears in the school of Cape St. George in the form of a bilingual education. In the 1980s, classes of French for native French speakers are organized there.[18][41]
Manitoba also has a significantFranco-Manitoban community, centred especially in theSt. Boniface area ofWinnipeg, but also in numerous surrounding towns. The provincial government ofManitoba boasts the only bilingual website of the Prairies; the Canadian constitution makes French an official language in Manitoba for the legislature and courts. Saskatchewan also has aFransaskois community, as does Alberta with itsFranco-Albertans, and British Columbia hosts theFranco-Columbians.
Michif, a dialect of French originating in Western Canada, is a uniquemixed language derived fromCree and French. It is spoken by a small number ofMétis living mostly inManitoba and inNorth Dakota.
French is an official language in each of the three northern territories:Yukon, theNorthwest Territories, andNunavut. Francophones in Yukon are calledFranco-Yukonnais, those from the Northwest Territories,Franco-Ténois (from the French acronym for the Northwest Territories,TN-O orTerritoires du Nord-Ouest), and those in Nunavut,Franco-Nunavois.
