Quebec French (, ) is the predominant variety of the French language spoken in Canada. It is the dominant language of the province of Quebec, used in everyday communication, in education, the media, and government.
Canadian French is a common umbrella term to describe all varieties of French used in Canada, including Quebec French. Formerly it was used to refer solely to Quebec French and the closely related dialects spoken in Ontario and Western Canada, in contrast with Acadian French, which is spoken in some areas of eastern Quebec (Gaspé Peninsula), New Brunswick, and in other parts of Atlantic Canada, as well as Métis French, which is found generally across the Prairie provinces.
The term is commonly used to refer to Quebec working class French (when considered a basilect), characterized by certain features often perceived as phased out, "old world" or "incorrect" in standard French. , in particular, exhibits strong Norman influences largely owing to Norman immigration during the Ancien 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 of is called Chiac.
History
The origins of Quebec French lie in the 17th- and 18th-century regional varieties (dialects) of early modern French, also known as Classical French, and of other (especially Poitevin dialect, Saintongeais dialect, Norman and Picard) that French colonists brought to New 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 a koiné, or common language shared by the people speaking it.
New France Unlike the language of France in the 17th and 18th centuries, French in New France was fairly well unified. It acquired loan words, especially place names such as Québec, Canada and Hochelaga, and words to describe the flora and fauna such as (cranberry) and (largemouth bass), from First Nations languages.
The importance of the rivers and ocean as the main routes of transportation also left its imprint on Quebec French. Whereas European varieties of French use the verbs and for "to get in" and "to get out" of a vehicle (, as one does with a horse or a carriage), the variety in its informal register tends to use and , a result of Quebec's navigational heritage.
British rule With the onset of British rule in 1760, the French of Canada became isolated from that of Europe. This led to a retention of older pronunciations, such as for () and expressions that later died out in France. In 1774, the Quebec Act guaranteed French settlers as British subjects rights to French law, the Roman 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 the American Revolution.
1840 to 1960 In the period between the Act of Union of 1840 and 1960, roughly 900,000 French Canadians left Canada to emigrate to the United States to seek employment. The ones that returned, brought with them new words taken from their experiences in the New England textile mills and the northern lumber camps. As a result, Quebec French began to borrow from both Canadian and American English to fill accidental gaps in the lexical fields of government, law, manufacturing, business and trade.
1960 to 1982 From the Quiet Revolution to the passing of the Charter 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. The was established to play an essential role of support in language planning. Protective laws and distaste towards anglicisms arose at the same time to preserve the integrity of Quebec French, while Metropolitan 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.
Social perception and language policy
Mutual intelligibility with other varieties of French 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. The differences between both varieties are analogous to those between American and British English even if differences in phonology and prosody for the latter are greater.
Quebec's culture has only recently gained exposure in Europe, especially since the Quiet Revolution (). 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, notably Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Céline Dion, and Garou. Some television series from Quebec such as and are also known in France. 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 like France 24 and a francophone channel based in France, TV5 Québec Canada, are broadcast in Quebec. Nevertheless, Metropolitan French series such as The Adventures of Tintin and are broadcast and known in Quebec. 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).
Relation to European French Historically speaking, the closest relative of Quebec French is the 17th and 18th-century koiné of Paris.
Formal Quebec French uses essentially the same orthography and grammar as the French of France, with few exceptions, 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 all registers. 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 , while others are perceived negatively.
Perceptions Sociolinguistic studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s showed that 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. The researchers were surprised by the greater friendliness rating for Europeans, 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 the "to impose a standard as French as possible" as one of the reasons for the negative view had of their language variety.
Since the 1970s, the official position on language has shifted dramatically. An oft-cited turning point was the 1977 declaration of the defining thus the language to be taught in classrooms: "Standard Quebec French [, literally, 'the Standard French of here'] is the socially favoured variety of French which the majority of Francophone tend to use in situations of formal communication."
Ostiguy and Tousignant doubt whether 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. Some characteristics of European French are even judged negatively when imitated by .
Typography Quebec French has some typographical differences from European French. For example, in Quebec French a full non-breaking space is not used before the semicolon, exclamation mark, or question mark. Instead, a thin space (which according to Le Ramat de la typographie normally measures a quarter of an em) 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.
Spelling and grammar Formal language 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. In Quebec, one writes nearly universally or Grand dictionnaire terminologique, "chercheuse", "a researcher", whereas in France, and, more recently, and are used. Feminine forms in as in are still strongly criticized in France by institutions like the , but are commonly used in Canada and Switzerland.
There are other, sporadic spelling differences. For example, the formerly recommended the spelling for what is in France "tofu". This recommendation was repealed in 2013. In grammar, the adjective "Inuit" is invariable in France but, according to official recommendations in Quebec, has regular feminine and plural forms.
Informal language Grammatical differences between informal spoken Quebec French and the formal language abound. Some of these, such as omission of the negative particle , are also present in the informal language of speakers of standard European French, while other features, such as use of the interrogative particle , are either peculiar to Quebec or Canadian French or restricted to nonstandard varieties of European French.
Lexis
Distinctive features 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. The influences on Quebec French from English and Native American can be reflected in any of these five: lexically specific items (), which do not exist in other varieties of French; semantic differences (), in which a word has a different meaning in Quebec French than in other French varieties; grammatical differences in lexical items (), in which a word has different morpho-syntactic behaviour in Quebec French than in other varieties; differences in multi-word or fixed expressions (); contextual differences (roughly, ), 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 of each of the first four categories, along with the Metropolitan French equivalent and an English gloss. Contextual differences, along with individual explanations, are then discussed.
Examples of lexically specific items:
Quebec French Metropolitan French English gloss to cover now (m) (m) friend (m) or boyfriend (f) (f)friend (f) to go shopping/do errands to chat/chatter to catch, grab
Examples of semantic differences:
Lexical item Quebec French meaning Metropolitan French meaning (f) girlfriend blonde-haired woman (m) car tank to drive (a vehicle) to heat to complain to bawl, blubber (m) convenience store (and also repairer) mechanic (fem pl): balls (testicles) (masc sg): child/kid (m) lollipop hickey/love bite (f) hickey/love bite lollipop eventually possibly
Examples of grammatical differences: