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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Canadian French?
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Date: Sun, 5 May 1996 22:52:15 GMT
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In article <rharmsen.1237.0001BADA@knoware.nl>,
Ruud Harmsen <rharmsen@knoware.nl> wrote:
>While watching TV5 tonight (a European French-language satelite channel, with 
>some Quebecois programs) it struck me that Canadian French sounds quite 
>different than French French. The difference is as least as great I think as 
>between British and US English, or Brasilian and Portuguese Portuguese. 

This is not at all surprising given the history:  French has been implanted
in Quebec since the beginning of the 17th century; the linguistic influ-
ence of France was severely diminished by the loss of political control 
in 1763.  Personally, I'm surprised the varieties aren't more different 
than they are.

>To 
>give but one example, French i is very closed, almost like an approximant or 
>even fricative, but I heard Canadian "musique" with a very open i, like it 
>could be written in the German spelling as Mueseek. Also "besoin" sounded 
>quite strangely different, in a way that is hard to describe phonetically.

The laxing of vowels in closed syllables (my favourite example is "v^ite",
which most Americans would transcribe as "vit") and the tendancy of /~a/
towards /~%/ ('maman' in Quebecois speech is sometimes jocularly
transcribed as 'mimin') are two of the more distinctive features of "joual", 
or broad Quebecois.  (The name comes from the local pronunciation of 
'cheval'.)  Curiously, a New Englander I know whose father was a French 
Canadian reverses the latter tendancy and tends to give a more back 
pronunciation to <in>.  Her pronunciation is divergent from Quebecois in 
many ways and we've speculated that her father's ancestors were Acadian
speakers, but we don't know enough about his background or the features of
Acadian to be sure.

This does underline the hazards of equating "Canadian French" with
"Quebecois" or "joual", though.
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
