History of Quebec French
Encyclopedia
Quebec French is substantially different in pronunciation and vocabulary to the French of Europe
and that of France
's Second Empire
colonies
in Africa
and Asia
.
Similar divergences took place in the Portuguese
, Spanish
and English language
of the Americas with respect to European dialects, but in the case of French the separation was increased by the reduction of cultural contacts with France
after the 1763 Treaty of Paris
in which France ceded Canada to Great Britain
.
Although Quebecisms like moé and toé are today considered substandard slang pronunciations (joual
), these were the pronunciations of Early Modern French used by the kings of France, the aristocracy and the common people in many provinces of France. After the French Revolution
, the standard pronunciation in France changed to that of the bourgeois class in Paris, but Quebec
retained many pronunciations and expressions shared with modern Oïl languages such as Norman
, Gallo
, Picard
, Poitevin
and Saintongeais
. Speakers of these languages of France predominated among the settlers of New France
. Quebec French was also influenced by the French spoken by the King's Daughters
who were of the petit-bourgeois class from the Paris area (Île-de-France
) and Normandy
.
Thus, whereas it was 18th century bourgeois Parisian French that eventually became the national, standardized language of France after the French Revolution
, the French of the Ancien Régime kept evolving on its own in Canada. Indeed, the French spoken in Canada is closer idiomatically and phonetically to Belgian French
despite their independent evolution and the relatively small number of Belgian immigrants to Quebec (although it is to be remembered that the influence of the Walloon language
in Belgium
has influenced the language in the same way as the presence of the Oïl speakers in Quebec).
There is also the undeniable fact that Canadian-French speakers have lived alongside and among English speakers for two and a half centuries ever since the beginning of British administration in 1763. Thus anglicism
s in Quebec French tend to be longstanding and part of a gradual, natural process of borrowing, whereas the often entirely different anglicisms in European French are nearly all much more recent and sometimes driven by fads and fashions.
Some people (for instance, Léandre Bergeron, author of the Dictionnaire de la langue québécoise) have referred to Quebec French as la langue québécoise (the Québécois language); most speakers, however, would reject or even take offence to the idea that they do not speak French.
by Samuel de Champlain
in 1608. However, it was after the creation of the Sovereign Council in 1663 that the colonies of New France
really started to develop.
Between 1627 and 1663, a few thousand colonists landed in New France, either in Acadia or Canada. The provinces that contributed the most to these migrations were those in the northern and western regions of France. The migrants came from Normandy
, Aunis
, Perche
, Brittany
, Paris
and Île-de-France
, Poitou
, Maine, Saintonge
, and Anjou
, most of those being regions where French was seldom spoken at the time (see article Languages of France). According to Philippe Barbaud (1984], the first colonists were therefore mostly non-francophone except for the immigrants from the Paris area, who most likely spoke a popular form of French; and the following dialect clash (choc des patois) brought about the linguistic unification of Quebec. Among the speakers of Norman
, Picard
, Aunis
, Poitevin, Saintongeais
and Breton
, many might have understood French as a second language. Gradually, a linguistic transfer towards French occurred, leading to the linguistic unification of all the ethnic groups coming from France.
According to Henri Wittmann
(1997) (based on earlier work of his), the overwhelming similarities between the different varieties of Colonial French clearly show that the linguistic unity triggering dialect clash occurred before the colonists exported their French into the colonies of the 17th and 18th centuries; and that the koine
-forming dialect clash must have occurred in Paris
and other related urban centers of France.
In any event, according to contemporary sources, the Canadians were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, long before France itself outside its large urban centers.
According to the terms of the 1760 Articles of Capitulation of Montreal
, the French army was to leave the conquered territory. The ruling elite — French nobles and leading merchants — also left. Ordinary people, the Roman Catholic clergy, lesser merchants, and some members of the civil administration, the majority born in Canada, stayed in the country. Those who stayed were to become British subjects. Shortly after the conquest, British general Jeffrey Amherst established a military government which was to last until 1763.
The military occupation led to the establishment of a provisional administration. Because the fate of the country was still uncertain, no political actions were really undertaken to transform. The status quo prevailed. Because the population was unable to understand English, it was decided that ordinances would be published in French. To accomplish this, numerous Canadians were permitted to participate to the administration of justice.
In 1763, France ceded Canada to Great Britain through the Treaty of Paris
. Rapidly, the new ruling elite determined the future of the French-speaking colonists: they were to be assimilated, that is to say, they were to be absorbed in the English-speaking and Protestant society of British North America
.
On October 7, the British Royal Proclamation of 1763
set the new political conditions of Canada. The territory of the colony, renamed the Province of Quebec, was reduced to the inhabited area along the St. Lawrence River. James Murray
was appointed governor and became responsible for enforcing the new policy concerning the colony. His tasks were to encourage English immigration, establish the official religion, Anglicanism
, and the administrative and legal structures of England. Time brought the gradual establishment of anglophone British officials and colonists. Trade quickly passed on to British and British-American merchants who migrated to Quebec City
, Trois-Rivières
, and Montreal
.
French, up until then the lingua franca
in all aspects of social life, was quickly relegated to second rank in trade and government. The educated classes began to practice French-English bilingualism by necessity.
The Quebec Act
of 1774 granted many of the requests of the Canadians, who up until then, had been petitioning the British crown for the restoration of French civil law
s and guarantees as to the usage of their language and faith.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and that of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
's Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
colonies
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
.
Similar divergences took place in the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
of the Americas with respect to European dialects, but in the case of French the separation was increased by the reduction of cultural contacts with France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
after the 1763 Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
in which France ceded Canada to Great Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Although Quebecisms like moé and toé are today considered substandard slang pronunciations (joual
Joual
Joual is the common name for the linguistic features of basilectal Quebec French that are associated with the French-speaking working class in Montreal which has become a symbol of national identity for a large number of artists from that area...
), these were the pronunciations of Early Modern French used by the kings of France, the aristocracy and the common people in many provinces of France. After the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, the standard pronunciation in France changed to that of the bourgeois class in Paris, but Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
retained many pronunciations and expressions shared with modern Oïl languages such as Norman
Norman language
Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. Norman can be classified as one of the northern Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon...
, Gallo
Gallo language
Gallo is a regional language of France. Gallo is a Romance language, one of the Oïl languages. It is the historic language of the region of Upper Brittany and some neighboring portions of Normandy, but today is spoken by only a small minority of the population, having been largely superseded by...
, Picard
Picard language
Picard is a language closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in two regions in the far north of France – Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy – and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai and a part of...
, Poitevin
Poitevin language
Poitevin is a language spoken by the people in Poitou. It is one of the regional languages of France. It is now classified as one of the langues d'oïl but is distinguished by certain features of the langue d'oc...
and Saintongeais
Saintongeais
Saintongeais is a dialect spoken halfway down the western coast of France in the former provinces of Saintonge, Aunis and Angoumois, all of which have been incorporated into the current départements of Charente and Charente-Maritime as well as in parts of their neighbouring départements of...
. Speakers of these languages of France predominated among the settlers of New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
. Quebec French was also influenced by the French spoken by the King's Daughters
King's Daughters
The King's Daughters were between 700 and 900 Frenchwomen who immigrated to New France between 1663 and 1673 under the monetary sponsorship of Louis XIV. The government sponsored them so settlers in the colony could marry and start families to populate New France...
who were of the petit-bourgeois class from the Paris area (Île-de-France
Île-de-France (province)
The province of Île-de-France or Isle de France is an historical province of France, and the one at the centre of power during most of French history...
) and Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
.
Thus, whereas it was 18th century bourgeois Parisian French that eventually became the national, standardized language of France after the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, the French of the Ancien Régime kept evolving on its own in Canada. Indeed, the French spoken in Canada is closer idiomatically and phonetically to Belgian French
Belgian French
Belgian French is the variety of French spoken mainly in the French Community of Belgium, alongside related minority regional languages such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois and Gaumais. The French spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, which were formerly Belgian...
despite their independent evolution and the relatively small number of Belgian immigrants to Quebec (although it is to be remembered that the influence of the Walloon language
Walloon language
Walloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
has influenced the language in the same way as the presence of the Oïl speakers in Quebec).
There is also the undeniable fact that Canadian-French speakers have lived alongside and among English speakers for two and a half centuries ever since the beginning of British administration in 1763. Thus anglicism
Anglicism
An Anglicism, as most often defined, is a word borrowed from English into another language. "Anglicism" also describes English syntax, grammar, meaning, and structure used in another language with varying degrees of corruption.-Anglicisms in Chinese:...
s in Quebec French tend to be longstanding and part of a gradual, natural process of borrowing, whereas the often entirely different anglicisms in European French are nearly all much more recent and sometimes driven by fads and fashions.
Some people (for instance, Léandre Bergeron, author of the Dictionnaire de la langue québécoise) have referred to Quebec French as la langue québécoise (the Québécois language); most speakers, however, would reject or even take offence to the idea that they do not speak French.
New France
The French language established itself permanently on the North America continent with the foundation of Quebec CityQuebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
by Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain , "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608....
in 1608. However, it was after the creation of the Sovereign Council in 1663 that the colonies of New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
really started to develop.
Between 1627 and 1663, a few thousand colonists landed in New France, either in Acadia or Canada. The provinces that contributed the most to these migrations were those in the northern and western regions of France. The migrants came from Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, Aunis
Aunis
Aunis is a historical province of France, situated in the north-west of the department of Charente-Maritime. Its historic capital is La Rochelle, which took over from Castrum Allionis the historic capital which gives its name to the province....
, Perche
Perche
Perche is a former province of northern France extending over the départements of Orne, Eure, Eure-et-Loir and Sarthe, which were created from Perche during the French Revolution.-Geography:...
, Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Île-de-France
Île-de-France (province)
The province of Île-de-France or Isle de France is an historical province of France, and the one at the centre of power during most of French history...
, Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
, Maine, Saintonge
Saintonge
Saintonge is a small region on the Atlantic coast of France within the département Charente-Maritime, west and south of Charente in the administrative region of Poitou-Charentes....
, and Anjou
Anjou
Anjou is a former county , duchy and province centred on the city of Angers in the lower Loire Valley of western France. It corresponds largely to the present-day département of Maine-et-Loire...
, most of those being regions where French was seldom spoken at the time (see article Languages of France). According to Philippe Barbaud (1984], the first colonists were therefore mostly non-francophone except for the immigrants from the Paris area, who most likely spoke a popular form of French; and the following dialect clash (choc des patois) brought about the linguistic unification of Quebec. Among the speakers of Norman
Norman language
Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. Norman can be classified as one of the northern Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon...
, Picard
Picard language
Picard is a language closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in two regions in the far north of France – Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy – and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai and a part of...
, Aunis
Aunis
Aunis is a historical province of France, situated in the north-west of the department of Charente-Maritime. Its historic capital is La Rochelle, which took over from Castrum Allionis the historic capital which gives its name to the province....
, Poitevin, Saintongeais
Saintongeais
Saintongeais is a dialect spoken halfway down the western coast of France in the former provinces of Saintonge, Aunis and Angoumois, all of which have been incorporated into the current départements of Charente and Charente-Maritime as well as in parts of their neighbouring départements of...
and Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
, many might have understood French as a second language. Gradually, a linguistic transfer towards French occurred, leading to the linguistic unification of all the ethnic groups coming from France.
According to Henri Wittmann
Henri Wittmann
Henri Wittmann is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. He is best known for his work on Quebec French.-Biography:Henri Wittmann was born in Alsace in 1937...
(1997) (based on earlier work of his), the overwhelming similarities between the different varieties of Colonial French clearly show that the linguistic unity triggering dialect clash occurred before the colonists exported their French into the colonies of the 17th and 18th centuries; and that the koine
Koine language
In linguistics, a koiné language is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. Since the speakers have understood one another from before the advent of the koiné, the koineization process is not as rapid...
-forming dialect clash must have occurred in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and other related urban centers of France.
In any event, according to contemporary sources, the Canadians were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, long before France itself outside its large urban centers.
British regime
On September 13, 1759, Quebec City, then the political capital of New France, was taken by the British army. New France (Canada) fell a year later.According to the terms of the 1760 Articles of Capitulation of Montreal
Articles of Capitulation of Montreal
The Articles of Capitulation of Montreal were agreed upon between the Governor General of New France, Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, and Major-General Jeffrey Amherst on behalf of the French and British crowns...
, the French army was to leave the conquered territory. The ruling elite — French nobles and leading merchants — also left. Ordinary people, the Roman Catholic clergy, lesser merchants, and some members of the civil administration, the majority born in Canada, stayed in the country. Those who stayed were to become British subjects. Shortly after the conquest, British general Jeffrey Amherst established a military government which was to last until 1763.
The military occupation led to the establishment of a provisional administration. Because the fate of the country was still uncertain, no political actions were really undertaken to transform. The status quo prevailed. Because the population was unable to understand English, it was decided that ordinances would be published in French. To accomplish this, numerous Canadians were permitted to participate to the administration of justice.
In 1763, France ceded Canada to Great Britain through the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
. Rapidly, the new ruling elite determined the future of the French-speaking colonists: they were to be assimilated, that is to say, they were to be absorbed in the English-speaking and Protestant society of British North America
British North America
British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...
.
On October 7, the British Royal Proclamation of 1763
Royal Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
set the new political conditions of Canada. The territory of the colony, renamed the Province of Quebec, was reduced to the inhabited area along the St. Lawrence River. James Murray
James Murray (military officer)
James Murray FRS was a British soldier, whose lengthy career included service as colonial administrator and governor of the Province of Quebec and later as Governor of Minorca from 1778 to 1782.-Early life:He was a younger son of Alexander Murray, 4th Lord Elibank, and his wife Elizabeth...
was appointed governor and became responsible for enforcing the new policy concerning the colony. His tasks were to encourage English immigration, establish the official religion, Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
, and the administrative and legal structures of England. Time brought the gradual establishment of anglophone British officials and colonists. Trade quickly passed on to British and British-American merchants who migrated to Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
, Trois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières, Quebec
Trois-Rivières is a city in the Mauricie region of Quebec, Canada, located at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence Rivers. It is situated in the Mauricie administrative region, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River across from the city of Bécancour...
, and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
French, up until then the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
in all aspects of social life, was quickly relegated to second rank in trade and government. The educated classes began to practice French-English bilingualism by necessity.
The Quebec Act
Quebec Act
The Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec...
of 1774 granted many of the requests of the Canadians, who up until then, had been petitioning the British crown for the restoration of French civil law
Civil law (legal system)
Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...
s and guarantees as to the usage of their language and faith.
Quebec French Today
The only notable differences today between the French of Canada and France is the dialect. The spelling and grammar are identical but the pronunciation is different as well as the slang terms.In English
- Plourde, Michel and Pierre Georgeault, ed. (2008). The French Language in Quebec: 400 Years of History and Life (ISBN 978-2-550-53631-4) [Translated by Abigail Ratcliffe]
In French
- Leclerc, Jacques (2005). "Histoire du français au Québec" in L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde, Quebec, TLFQ, Université Laval, January 22, 2005, http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/histfrnqc.htm, (August 18, 2005)
- Wittmann, Henri (1997). "Le français de Paris dans le français des Amériques." in Proceedings of the International Congress of Linguists 16.0416 (Paris, 20–25 July 1997). Oxford: Pergamon (CD edition). http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1998a-fpparis.pdf
- Barbaud, Philippe (1984). Le choc des patois en Nouvelle-France, Sillery: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 204 p.
- Dulong, Gaston (1966). Bibliographie linguistique du Canada français. Paris: Klincksieck, 168 p.