Quebec French (French:français du Québec), also known asQuebecer French orQuebecker French (French:français québécois,pronounced[fʁãsɛkebekwa]), is the predominantvariety of theFrench language spoken inCanada. It is the dominant language of the province ofQuebec, used in everyday communication, in education, the media, and government.
Maxime, a speaker of Québecois French, recorded inSlovenia.
The termjoual[2] is commonly used to refer to Quebec working class French (when considered abasilect), characterized by certain features often perceived as phased out, "old world" or "incorrect" instandard French.[note 2]Joual, in particular, exhibits strong Norman influences largely owing to Norman immigration during theAncien Régime; people from Normandy were perceived as true Catholics and allowed to emigrate to the new world as an example of ideal French settlers. The Acadian French equivalent ofjoual is calledChiac.
The origins of Quebec French lie in the 17th- and 18th-century regional varieties (dialects) of early modern French, also known asClassical French, and of otherlangues d'oïl (especiallyPoitevin dialect,Saintongeais dialect,Norman andPicard) that French colonists brought toNew France. Quebec French either evolved from this language base and was shaped by the following influences (arranged according to historical period) or was imported from Paris and other urban centres of France as akoiné, or common language shared by the people speaking it.
With the onset ofBritish rule in 1760, the French of Canada became isolated from that of Europe. This led to a retention of older pronunciations, such asmoé formoi (audio comparisonⓘ) and expressions that later died out in France. In 1774, theQuebec Act guaranteed French settlers as British subjects rights toFrench law, theRoman Catholic faith and the French language to appease them at a moment when the English-speaking colonies to the south were on the verge of revolting in theAmerican Revolution.
From theQuiet Revolution to the passing of theCharter of the French Language, the French language in Quebec saw a period of validation in its varieties associated with the working class while the percentage of literate and university-educated francophones grew. Laws concerning the status of French were passed both on the federal and provincial levels. TheOffice québécois de la langue française was established to play an essential role of support inlanguage planning.[5] Protective laws and distaste towardsanglicisms arose at the same time to preserve the integrity of Quebec French, whileMetropolitan French on the other hand does not have that same protective attitude and in recent decades has been more influenced by English, causing Quebec French not to borrow recent English loanwords that are now used in Metropolitan French.[6][7]
There is a continuum of intelligibility between Quebec and European French; the two are most intelligible in their more standardized forms and pose more difficulties in their dialectal forms.[8][9] The differences between both varieties are analogous to those betweenAmerican andBritish English even if differences in phonology andprosody for the latter are greater.[9]
Quebec's culture has only recently gained exposure in Europe, especially since theQuiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille). The difference in dialects and culture is large enough that speakers of Quebec French overwhelmingly prefer their own local television dramas or sitcoms to shows from Europe or the United States. Conversely, certain singers from Quebec have become very famous even in France, notablyFélix Leclerc,Gilles Vigneault,Kate and Anna McGarrigle,Céline Dion, andGarou. Some television series from Quebec such asTêtes à claques andL'Été indien are also known in France.[10] The number of such shows from France shown on Quebec television is about the same as the number of British shows on American television even though French news channels likeFrance 24 and a francophone channel based in France,TV5 Québec Canada, are broadcast in Quebec.[11][12] Nevertheless, Metropolitan French series such asThe Adventures of Tintin andLes Gens de Mogador are broadcast and known in Quebec.[13] In certain cases, on French TV, subtitles can be added when barbarisms, rural speech and slang are used, not unlike cases in the US of a number of British programmes being shown with subtitles (notably those from Scotland).
Historically speaking, the closest relative of Quebec French is the 17th and 18th-centurykoiné ofParis.[14]
Formal Quebec French uses essentially the sameorthography andgrammar as the French of France, with few exceptions,[15] and exhibits moderate lexical differences. Differences in grammar and lexicon become more marked as language becomes more informal.
While phonetic differences also decrease with greater formality, Quebec and European accents are readily distinguishable in allregisters. Over time, European French has exerted a strong influence on Quebec French. The phonological features traditionally distinguishing informal Quebec French and formal European French have gradually acquired varying sociolinguistic status, so that certain traits of Quebec French are perceived neutrally or positively by Quebecois, while others are perceived negatively.[citation needed]
Sociolinguistic studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s showed that Quebecois generally rated speakers of European French heard in recordings higher than speakers of Quebec French in many positive traits, including expected intelligence, education, ambition, friendliness and physical strength.[16] The researchers were surprised by the greater friendliness rating for Europeans,[17] since one of the primary reasons usually advanced to explain the retention of low-status language varieties is social solidarity with members of one's linguistic group. François Labelle cites the efforts at that time by theOffice québécois de la langue française "to impose a French as standard as possible"[17] as one of the reasons for the negative view Quebecois had of their language variety.
Since the 1970s, the official position on Québécois language has shifted dramatically. An oft-cited turning point was the 1977 declaration of theAssociation québécoise des professeurs de français defining thus the language to be taught in classrooms: "Standard Quebec French [le français standard d'ici, literally, "the Standard French of here"] is the socially favoured variety of French which the majority of Francophone Québécois tend to use in situations of formal communication."[18][note 3]
Ostiguy and Tousignant doubt whether Quebecois today would still have the same negative attitudes towards their own variety of French that they did in the 1970s. They argue that negative social attitudes have focused instead on a subset of the characteristics of Quebec French relative to European French, and particularly some traits of informal Quebec French.[16] Some characteristics of European French are even judged negatively when imitated by Quebecois.[note 4]
Quebec French has some typographical differences from European French. For example, in Quebec French a full non-breaking space is not used before thesemicolon,exclamation mark, orquestion mark. Instead, athin space (which according toLe Ramat de la typographie normally measures a quarter of anem[20]) is used; this thin space can be omitted in word-processing situations where the thin space is assumed to be unavailable, or when careful typography is not required.[21][22]
A notable difference in grammar which received considerable attention in France during the 1990s is the feminine form of many professions that traditionally did not have a feminine form.[note 5] In Quebec, one writes nearly universallyune chercheuse orune chercheure[24] "a researcher", whereas in France,un chercheur and, more recently,un chercheur andune chercheuse are used. Feminine forms in-eure as iningénieure are still strongly criticized in France by institutions like theAcadémie française, but are commonly used in Canada and Switzerland.
There are other, sporadic spelling differences. For example, theOffice québécois de la langue française formerly recommended the spellingtofou for what is in Francetofu "tofu". This recommendation was repealed in 2013.[25] In grammar, the adjectiveinuit "Inuit" is invariable in France but, according to official recommendations in Quebec, has regular feminine and plural forms.[26]
Grammatical differences between informal spoken Quebec French and the formal language abound. Some of these, such as omission of the negative particlene, are also present in the informal language of speakers of standard European French, while other features, such as use of the interrogative particle-tu, are either peculiar to Quebec or Canadian French or restricted to nonstandard varieties of European French.
While the overwhelming majority of lexical items in Quebec French exist in other dialects of French, many words and expressions are unique to Quebec, much like some are specific to American and British varieties of English. The differences can be classified into the following five categories.[27] The influences on Quebec French from English and Native American can be reflected in any of these five:
lexically specific items (québécismes lexématiques), which do not exist in other varieties of French;
semantic differences (québécismes sémantiques), in which a word has a different meaning in Quebec French than in other French varieties;
grammatical differences in lexical items (québécismes grammaticaux), in which a word has different morpho-syntactic behaviour in Quebec French than in other varieties;
differences in multi-word or fixed expressions (québécismes phraséologiques);
contextual differences (roughly,québécisme de statut), in which the lexical item has a similar form and meaning in Quebec French as in other varieties, but the context in which the item is used is different.
The following tables give examples[28] of each of the first four categories, along with theMetropolitan French equivalent and an English gloss. Contextual differences, along with individual explanations, are then discussed.
Examples multi-word or fixed expressions unique to Quebec:
Quebec French expression
Metropolitan French gloss
English gloss
avoir de la misère
avoir de la difficulté
to have difficulty, trouble
avoir le flu
avoir la diarrhée
to have diarrhea
avoir le goût dérangé
gouter une saveur étrange
to taste something strange, unexpected
en arracher
en baver
to have a rough time
prendre une marche
faire une promenade
to take a walk
se faire passer un sapin
se faire duper
to be tricked
parler à travers son chapeau
parler à tort et à travers
to talk through one's hat
Some Quebec French lexical items have the same general meaning in Metropolitan French but are used in different contexts. English translations are given in parentheses.
arrêt (stop): In Quebec, moststop signs sayarrêt. Some Quebec stop signs saystop and older signs use both words. However, in France, all such signs saystop, which is the standard in Europe.
condom, pronounced[kɔ̃dɔ̃] (condom): In Quebec French, this term has neutral connotations, whereas in Metropolitan French, it is used in more technical contexts. The neutral term in Metropolitan French ispréservatif.
In addition, Quebec French has its own set of swear words, orsacres, distinct from other varieties of French.
One characteristic of major sociological importance distinguishing Quebec from European French is the relatively greater number of borrowings from English, especially in the informal spoken language, but that notion is often exaggerated.[29] The Québécois have been found to show a stronger aversion to the use of anglicisms in formal contexts than do European francophones, largely because of what the influence of English on their language is held to reveal about the historically superior position of anglophones in Canadian society.[29] According to Cajolet-Laganière and Martel,[30] out of 4,216 "criticized borrowings from English" in Quebec French that they were able to identify, some 93% have "extremely low frequency" and 60% are obsolete.[note 6] Despite this, the prevalence of anglicisms in Quebec French has often been exaggerated.
Various anglicisms commonly used in European French informal language are mostly not used by Quebec French speakers. While words such asshopping, parking, escalator, ticket, email andweek-end are commonly spoken in Europe, Quebec tends to favour French equivalents, namely:magasinage, stationnement, escalier roulant, billet, courriel andfin de semaine, respectively. As such, the perception of exaggerated anglicism use in Quebec French could be attributed, in part, simply to the fact that the anglicisms used are different, and thus more noticeable by European speakers.
French spoken with a large number of anglicisms may be disparagingly termedfranglais. According to Chantal Bouchard, "While the language spoken in Quebec did indeed gradually accumulate borrowings from English [between 1850 and 1960], it did not change to such an extent as to justify the extraordinarily negative discourse about it between 1940 and 1960. It is instead in the loss of social position suffered by a large proportion of Francophones since the end of the 19th century that one must seek the principal source of this degrading perception."[32][note 7]
This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(March 2015)
Ouaouaron, the Canadian French word forbullfrog, a frog species native to North America, originates from anIroquois word.[33]
Maringouin, the word for mosquito, originates fromTupi-guarani, that used to be spoken on the northern coasts of Brazil.[34] It is thought that early French colonists adopted this word in the late 1600s after exchanges with explorers returning from South America.[35]
Atoca, a synonym forCranberry, also originates from Iroquois.[36]
The following are areas in which the lexicon of Quebec French is found to be distinct from those of other varieties of French:
lexical items formerly common to both France and New France but are today unique to Quebec French (this includes expressions and word forms that have the same form elsewhere inLa Francophonie but have a different denotation or connotation);
manyloanwords,calques, and other borrowings from English in the 19th and 20th centuries, whether or not such borrowings are considered Standard French;
starting in the latter half of the 20th century, an enormous store of Frenchneologisms (coinages) and re-introduced words via terminological work by professionals, translators, and theOLF; some of this terminology is "exported" to the rest of la Francophonie;
Some recent Quebec Frenchlexical innovations have spread, at least partially, to other varieties of French, for example:
clavardage, "chat", a contraction ofclavier (keyboard) andbavardage (chat). Verb:clavarder[37]
courriel, "e-mail", a contraction ofcourrier électronique (electronic mail)[38]
pourriel, "spam e-mail", is a contraction ofpoubelle (garbage) andcourriel (email),[39] whose popularity may also be influenced by the wordpourri (rotten).
baladodiffusion (may be abbreviated tobalado), "podcasting", a contraction ofbaladeur (walkman) andradiodiffusion.[40]
On Twitter, supporters of the Quebec separatist partyBloc Québécois used hashtags that align with the syntactic pattern found in hashtags used inFrench political discourse, rather than adopting the hashtags commonly used by other Canadian parties with similar political positions.[41]
/ɑ/,/ɛː/,/œ̃/ and/ə/ as phonemes distinct from/a/,/ɛ/,/ɛ̃/ and/ø/ respectively
[ɪ],[ʏ],[ʊ] arelax allophones of/i/,/y/,/u/ in closed syllables
Nasal vowels are similar to the traditional Parisian French:/ɛ̃/ is diphthongized to[ẽɪ̯̃],/ɔ̃/ is diphthongized to[õʊ̯̃],/ɑ̃/ is fronted to[ã], and/œ̃/ is generally pronounced[œ̃˞]
/a/ is pronounced[ɑ] in final open syllables (avocat /avɔka/ → [avɔkɑ])
/a/ is pronounced[ɑː] before/ʁ/ in final closed syllables (dollar /dɔlaʁ/ → [dɔlɑːʁ])
Long vowels are diphthongized in final closed syllables (tête /tɛːt/ → [tɛɪ̯t] ~ [taɪ̯t], the first one is considered as formal, because the diphthong is weak)
Standard French/a/ is pronounced[ɔ] in final open syllable (avocat /avɔka/ → [avɔkɔ])[clarification needed]
These examples are intended not exhaustive but illustrate the complex influence that European French has had on Quebec French pronunciation and the range of sociolinguistic statuses that individual phonetic variables can possess.
The most entrenched features of Quebec pronunciation are such that their absence, even in the most formal registers, is considered an indication of foreign origin of the speaker. That is the case, for example, for the affrication of/t/ and/d/ before/i/,/y/,/j/ and/ɥ/.[42] (This particular feature of Quebec French is, however, sometimes avoided in singing.)[43]
The use of the lax Quebec allophones of/i/,/y/,/u/ (in the appropriate phonetic contexts) occurs in all but highly formal styles, and even then, their use predominates. Use of the tense allophones where the lax ones would be expected can be perceived as "pedantic".[19]
The Quebec variant of nasal vowels[ã],[ẽɪ̯̃],[õʊ̯̃] and[œ̃˞] corresponding to the Parisian[ɒ̃] (traditionally pronounced[ɑ̃]),[æ̃] (traditionally pronounced[ɛ̃]),[õ] (traditionally pronounced[ɔ̃]) and[æ̃] (traditionally pronounced[œ̃]) are not subject to a significant negative sociolinguistic evaluation and are used by most speakers and of educated speakers in all circumstances. However, Parisian variants also appear occasionally in formal speech among a few speakers, especially speakers who were often watchingcartoons when they were a child, because the dubbing affected them and it is not considered as a Quebec accent. Some speakers use them inRadio-Canada, but they never havebrin-brun merger[44] (The preceding discussion applies to stressed syllables. For reasons unrelated to their social standing, some allophones close to the European variants appear frequently in unstressed syllables.)
To pronounce[ɔː] instead of[ɑː] in such words asgâteau clearly predominates in informal speech and, according to Ostiguy and Tousignant, is likely not to be perceived negatively in informal situations. However, sociolinguistic research has shown that not to be the case in formal speech, when the standard[ɑː] is more common. However, many speakers use[ɔː] systematically in all situations, and Ostiguy and Tousignant hypothesize that such speakers tend to be less educated.[45] It must be mentioned that a third vowel[a], though infrequent, also occurs and is the vowel that has emerged with/a/ as a new European standard in the last several decades for words in this category.[note 8] According to Ostiguy and Tousignant, this pronunciation is seen as "affected",[46] and Dumas writes that speakers using this pronunciation "run the risk of being accused of snobbery."[47] Entirely analogous considerations apply to the two pronunciations of such words aschat, which can be pronounced[ʃɑ] or[ʃɔ].[48]
The diphthonged variants of such words asfête (e.g.[faɪ̯t] instead of[fɛːt]), are rarely used in formal speech. They have been explicitly and extensively stigmatized and were, according to the official Quebec educational curricula of 1959 and 1969, among the pronunciation habits to be "standardized" in pupils. In informal speech, however, most speakers use generally such forms to some extent, but they are viewed negatively and are more frequent among uneducated speakers.[49] However, many Québécois teachers use the diphthongization.
Traditional pronunciations such as[pwɛl] forpoil (also[pwal], as in France. Words in this category includeavoine,(ils) reçoivent,noirci, etc. ) and[mwe] formoi (now usually[mwa], as in France; this category consists ofmoi,toi, and verb forms such as(je) bois and(on) reçoit but excludesquébécois andtoit, which have had only the pronunciation[wa]), are no longer used by many speakers, and are virtually absent from formal speech.[50] They have long been the object of condemnation.[50] Dumas writes that the[we] pronunciations of words in themoi category have "even become the symbol and the scapegoat of bad taste, lack of education, vulgarity, etc., no doubt because they differ quite a bit from the accepted pronunciation, which ends in[wa], [...]"[51] On the other hand, writing in 1987, he considers[wɛ] in words in thepoil group "the most common pronunciation."
One of the most striking changes that has affected Quebec French in recent decades is the displacement of the alveolar trillr[r] by the uvular trillr[ʀ], originally from Northern France, and similar acoustically to the Parisian uvularr[ʁ]. Historically, the alveolarr predominated in western Quebec, including Montreal, and the uvularr in eastern Quebec, including Quebec City, with an isogloss near Trois-Rivières. (More precisely, the isogloss runs through Yamachiche and then between Sherbrooke and La Patrie, near the American border. With only a few exceptions, the alveolar variant predominates in Canada outside Quebec.[52]) Elocution teachers and the clergy traditionally favoured the trilledr, which was nearly universal in Montreal until the 1950s and was perceived positively. However, massive migration from eastern Quebec beginning in the 1930s with the Great Depression, the participation of soldiers in the Second World War, travel to Europe after the war, and especially the use of the uvularr in radio and then television broadcasts all quickly reversed perceptions and favoured the spread of the uvularr. The trilledr is now rapidly declining. According to Ostiguy and Tousignant, the change occurred within a single generation.[53] The Parisian uvularr is also present in Quebec, and its use is positively correlated with socioeconomic status.[54]
Like other varieties, Quebec French is characterized by increasingly wide gaps between its formal and informal forms.[55] Notable differences include the generalized use ofon (informal fornous), the use of single negations as opposed to double negations:J'ai pas (informal) vsJe n'ai pas (formal) etc.[56][57] There are increasing differences between thesyntax used in spoken Quebec French and that of otherregional dialects of French.[58] However, the characteristic differences of Quebec French syntax are not considered standard despite their high-frequency in everyday, relaxed speech.
One far-reaching difference is the weakening of the syntactic role of thespecifiers (both verbal and nominal), which results in many syntactic changes:
La plupart du monde sonttannés des taxes. (La plupart du monde est tanné des taxes.) "Most people are fed up with taxes."
A phenomenon throughout the Francophonie, dropping thene of the double negative is accompanied, in Quebec French, by a change in word order (1), and (2)postcliticisation of direct pronouns (3) along with euphonic insertion of [z]liaisons to avoid vowelhiatus. This word order is also found in non-standard European French.
Donne-moi-le pas. (Ne me le donne pas.) "Don't give it to me."
Dis-moi pas de m'en aller! (Ne me dis pas de m'en aller) "Don't tell me to go away!"
Donne-moi-z-en pas ! (Ne m'en donne pas!) "Don't give me any!"
Other notable syntactic changes in Quebec French include the following:
Use of non-standard verbalperiphrasis, (many of them archaisms):
J'étais pourte le dire. (J'allais te le dire. / J'étais sur le point de te le dire.) "I was going to/about to tell you about it." (old European French but still used in e.g.Haiti)
Avoir su,j'aurais... (Si j'avais su, j'aurais...) "Had I known, I would have..."
Mais quel'hiver finisse, je vais partir. (Dès que l'hiver finira, je partirai.) "As soon as winter ends, I will leave."
Particle-tu used (1) to formtag questions, (2) sometimes to express exclamative sentences and (3) at other times it is used with excess, for instance (note that this is common throughout European French via the addition of -t'y or -tu):
C'est-tu prêt? (Est-ce prêt? / C'est prêt? / Est-ce que c'est prêt?) "Is it ready?"
Vous voulez-tu manger? (Vous voulez manger?) "Do you want to eat?"
On a-tu bien mangé! (Qu'est-ce qu'on a bien mangé!) "We ate well, didn't we?"
T'as-tu pris tes pilules? (Est-ce que tu as pris tes médicaments?) "Have you taken your medications?"
This particle is-ti (from Standard French-t-il, often rendered as [t͡si]) in most varieties of North American French outside Quebec as well as in European varieties offrançais populaire as already noted by Gaston Paris.[59] It is also found in the non-creole speech on the island ofSaint-Barthelemy in the Caribbean.
Extensive use oflitotes (also common in informal European French):
Il fait pas chaud! (Il fait frais!) "It is not all too warm out!"
C'est pas laid pantoute! (Ce n'est pas laid du tout!) "Isn't this nice!" (literally: "This is not ugly at all.")
Comment vas-tu? – Pas pire, pas pire. "How are you? – Not bad. Not bad at all"
However, these features are common to all the basilectal varieties offrançais populaire descended from the 17th century koiné of Paris.
Use of diminutives (also very common in European French):
Tu prendrais-tu un p'tit café? Une p'tite bière? "Would you like to have a coffee? A beer?"
In common with the rest of theFrancophonie, there is a shift fromnous toon in all registers. In post-Quiet Revolution Quebec, the use of informaltu has become widespread in many situations that had previously called for a semantically singularvous. While some schools are trying to re-introduce this use ofvous, which is absent from most youths' speech, the shift fromnous toon has not been similarly discouraged.[citation needed]
The traditional use ofon, in turn, is usually replaced by different uses of pronouns or paraphrases, like in the rest of theFrancophonie. The second person (tu,t') is usually used by speakers when referring to experiences that can happen in one's life:
Quand t'es ben tranquille chez vous, à te mêler de tes affaires ...
Other paraphrases usingle monde,les gens are more employed when referring to overgeneralisations:
Le monde aime pas voyager dans un autobus plein.
As in the rest of la Francophonie, the sound [l] is disappearing inil, ils among informal registers and rapid speech. More particular to Quebec is the transformation ofelle to [a], sometimes written "a" or "à" ineye dialect or al [al], and less often[ɛ],[e], sometimes written "è."Elle est may transform to 'est, pronounced[e:].
Absence ofelles – For a majority of Quebec French speakers,elles is not used for the third person plural pronoun, at least in thenominative case; it is replaced with the subject pronounils [i] or the stress/tonic pronouneux(-autres). However,elles is still used in other cases (ce sont elles qui vont payer le prix).
-autres In informal registers, the stress/tonic pronouns for the plural subject pronouns have the suffix–autres, pronounced[ou̯t] and written–aut’ ineye dialect.Nous-autres,vous-autres, andeux-autres, also found inLouisiana French, are comparable to theSpanish formsnosotros/as andvosotros/as, though with different usage and meanings.
In their syntax andmorphology, Quebec Frenchverbs differ very little from the verbs of other regional dialects of French, both formal and informal. The distinctive characteristics of Quebec French verbs are restricted mainly to:
In the presentindicative, the forms ofaller (to go) are regularized as[vɔ] in all singular persons:jevas, tu vas, il/elle va. Note that in 17th century French, what is today's international standard/vɛ/ inje vais was considered substandard whileje vas was the prestige form.
In the presentsubjunctive ofaller, the root is regularized asall- /al/ for all persons. Examples:que j'alle, que tualles, qu'ilsallent, etc. The majority of French verbs, regardless of dialect or standardization, display the same regularization. They therefore use the same root for both theimperfect and the present subjunctive:que je finisse vs.je finissais.
Colloquially, inhaïr (to hate), in the presentindicativesingular forms, thehiatus is found between two different vowels instead of at theonset of the verb's first syllable. This results in the forms:j'haïs,tu haïs,il/elle haït, written with adiaeresis (tréma) and all pronounced with two syllables:/a.i/. The "h" in these forms is silent and does not indicate a hiatus; as a result,jeelides withhaïs formingj'haïs. All the other forms, tenses, and moods ofhaïr contain the same hiatus regardless of register. However, inMetropolitan French and in more formal Quebec French, especially in the media, the present indicative singular forms are pronounced as one syllable/ɛ/ and written without adiaeresis:je hais,tu hais,il/elle hait.
Differentiation
In the present indicative of both formal and informal Quebec French,(s')asseoir (to sit/seat) only uses the vowel/wa/ instressed roots and/e/ in unstressed roots:je m'assois, tu t'assois, il s'assoit, ils s'assoient butnous nous asseyons, vous vous asseyez. InMetropolitan French, stressed /wa/ and /je/ are infree variation as are unstressed /wa/ and /e/. Note that in informal Quebec French,(s')asseoir is often said as(s')assire.
Quebec French has retained the/ɛ/ ending forje/tu/il-elle/ils in theimperfect (the ending is written as-ais, -ait, -aient). In most other dialects, the ending is pronounced, instead, as a neutralized sound between/e/ and/ɛ/.
Informalilsjousent (they play) is sometimes heard forils jouent and is most likely due to an analogy withils cousent (they sew). Because of the stigma attached to "ils jousent," most people now use the normativeils jouent, which is free of stigma.
^Source: A 2006 Census of Canada. Includes multiple responses. The simplifying assumption has been made that there are no native speakers of Quebec French in Atlantic Canada (seeAcadian French) but that all native speakers of French in the rest of Canada are speakers of Quebec French.[1]
^Entry forjoual inDictionnaire du français Plus. "Variété de français québécois qui est caractérisée par un ensemble de traits (surtout phonétiques et lexicaux) considérés comme incorrects ou mauvais et qui est identifiée au parler des classes populaires."[citation needed]
^Original text: "Le français standard d'ici est la variété de français socialement valorisée que la majorité des Québécois francophones tendent à utiliser dans les situations de communication formelle."[18]
^See for example Ostiguy & Tousignant, p. 68, on the perception as "pedantic" of the use of the tense allophones[i],[y],[u], where[ɪ],[ʏ],[ʊ] would be expected in Quebec French. "En effet, l'utilisation des voyelles tendues peut avoir allure de pédanterie à l'oreille d'une majorité de Québécois."[19]
^TheAcadémie française has taken strong positions opposing the officialization of feminine forms in these cases.[23]Lionel Jospin's female cabinet ministers were the first to be referred to asMadamela ministre instead ofMadamele ministre, whereas this had been common practice in Canada for decades.[citation needed]
^That very low frequency was confirmed in a corpus of two million words of spoken French corpus from the Ottawa-Hull region by Poplacket al. (1988).[31]
^Original text: "En effet, si la langue parlée au Québec s'est peu à peu chargée d'emprunts à l'anglais au cours de cette période, elle ne s'est pas transformée au point de justifier le discours extraordinairement négatif qu'on tient à son sujet de 1940 à 1960. C'est bien plutôt dans le déclassement subi par une forte proportion des francophones depuis la fin du XIXe siècle qu'il faut chercher la source de cette perception dépréciative.[32]
^For example, whileThe New Cassell's French dictionary (1962) recordsgâteau as[ɡɑto] andLe Nouveau Petit Robert (1993) gives the pronunciation[ɡato].
Larose, Karim (2004).La langue de papier : Spéculations linguistiques au Québec (1957-1977) (in French). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal.ISBN978-2-7606-1953-1.
Ostiguy, Luc; Tousignant, Claude (1993).Le français québécois: normes et usages (in French). Montreal: Guérin Universitaire.ISBN2-7601-3330-3. [Analysis of some particularities of pronunciations in regard to Quebec and European norms and language markers.]
Plourde, Michel, ed. (2008) [First published 2000].Le français au Québec : 400 ans d'histoire et de vie (in French) (3rd expanded ed.). Montréal: Éditions Fides/Publications du Québec.ISBN978-2-7621-2813-0.
Bouchard, Chantal (2008). "8:28 Anglicisation et 0autodépréciation".Le français au Québec : 400 ans d'histoire et de vie. Montreal: Éditions Fides/Publications du Québec. pp. 255–264.ISBN978-2-7621-2813-0.
Martel, Pierre; Cajolet-Laganière, Hélène (2008). "13:52 Le français au Québec : un standard à décrire et des usages à hierarchiser".Le français au Québec : 400 ans d'histoire et de vie. Montreal: Éditions Fides/Publications du Québec. pp. 459–474.ISBN978-2-7621-2813-0.
Meyer, Paul; Paris, Gaston (1877)."IV. Ti, signe de l'interrogation".Romania : Recueil trimestriel consacré à l'étude des langues et des littératures romanes. Paris: F. Vieweg. pp. 438–442.
Poirier, Claude[in French] (1995). "Les variantes topolectales du lexique français: Propositions de classement à partir d'exemples québécois". In Michel Francard & Danièle Latin (ed.).Le Régionalisme Lexical (in French). Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: De Boeck Université Duculot. pp. 13–56.ISBN978-2-8011-1091-1.
Ramat, Aurel (2012) [First published 1982]. Benoit, Anne-Marie (ed.).Le Ramat de la typographie (in French) (10e ed.). Diffusion Dimedia.ISBN978-2-9813513-0-2.
Bélanger, Claude (23 August 2000a) [1999]."Rapatriement". Quebec History. Westmount: Marianopolis College. Archived fromthe original on 13 February 2007. Retrieved14 September 2024.
"La modernisation du Québec (1960–1981)". Histoire du français au Québec.www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca (in French). Québec: Université Laval. Section 4. Retrieved14 September 2024.
Bouchard, Chantal (2011).Méchante langue: la légitimité linguistique du français parlé au Québec (in French). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal.ISBN978-2-7606-2284-5.
— (2020) [1st pub. 1998].La langue et le nombril: Une histoire sociolinguistique du Québec (in French). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal.ISBN978-2-7606-4241-6.
Bouthillier, Guy; Meynaud, Jean, eds. (1972).Le Choc des langues au Québec 1760–1970 (in French). Montréal: Presses de l'Université du Québec.ISBN978-0-7770-0069-4.
Clermont, Jean; Cedergren, Henrietta (1979). "Les 'R' de ma mère sont perdus dans l'air". In P. Thibault (ed.).Le français parlé: études sociolinguistiques. Edmonton, Alta.: Linguistic Research. pp. 13–28.
Cossette, André (1970).Le R apical montréalais: étude de phonétique expérimentale. Université Laval: Thèse de D.E.S.
DesRuisseaux, Pierre (1974).Le livre des proverbes québécois (in French) (1st ed.). Montréal: L'Aurore.
DesRuisseaux, Pierre (2009) [First published 1974].Dictionnaire des proverbes, dictons et adages québécois (in French) (2nd expanded ed.). Bibliothèque québécoise.ISBN978-2-8940-6300-2.
Dulong, Gaston (1973). "Histoire du français en Amérique du Nord". In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.).Current trends in linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, 10.407-421 (bibliographie, 10.441-463).
Dulong, Gaston; Bergeron, Gaston (1980).Le Parler populaire du Québec et de ses regions voisines: Atlas linguistique de l'Est du Canada. Quebec: Éditeur officiel du Gouvernement du Québec (10 vol.).
Gertler, Maynard. (2020). "French-English Translation in Canada."Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada / Cahiers de La Société Bibliographique Du Canada 58 (1): 155–72.
Haden, Ernest F (1973). "French dialect geography in North America". In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.).Current trends in linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, 10.422-439 (bibliographie, 10.441-463).
Juneau, Marcel (1977).Problèmes de Lexicologie Québécoise (in French). Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.ISBN978-0-7746-6819-4.
Lavoie, Thomas; Bergeron, Gaston; Côté, Michelle (1985).Les parlers français de Charlevoix, du Saguenay, du Lac Saint-Jean et de la Côte Nord. Quebec: Éditeur officiel du Gouvernement du Québec. 5 vol.
Léard, Jean-Marcel (1995).Grammaire québécoise d'aujourd'hui: Comprendre les québécismes (in French). Montreal: Guérin Universitaire.ISBN2-7601-3930-1. [A detailed analysis of some grammatical differences between French and Quebec French.]
Meney, Lionel (1999).Dictionnaire Québécois Français (in French). Montreal: Guérin Editeur.ISBN2-7601-5482-3. [A comprehensive reference dictionary defining Québécois French usage for speakers of European French.]
Mougeon, Raymond; Beniak, Édouard (1994).Les Origines du français québécois (in French). Quebec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.ISBN2-7637-7354-0.
—, ed. (1998).Dictionnaire Historique du français Québécois (in French). Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.ISBN978-2-7637-7557-9.
Wittmann, Henri (1995). "Grammaire comparée des variétés coloniales du français populaire de Paris du 17e siècle et origines du français québécois". In Fournier, Robert; Henri Wittmann (eds.).Le français des Amériques. Trois-Rivières: Presses universitaires de Trois-Rivières. pp. 281–334.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg)
.svg)
