Talk:French language in Canada

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Early discussions[edit]

No mention of the attitude of French speakers in France (particularly Paris) towards Canadian French ? I remember my wife being rather upset about the reception that her Montreal French received when we visited Paris in the late 1980s. She finally left the communication to me. My schoolboy French wasn't that great but at least it was acknowledged. Is that a general attitude or was she just unlucky ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:34, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

French peoples I have met (I'm from the east-end of montreal) have had reaction ranging from saying "I love you're accent" all the way to "what ? I can't understand a word you're saying !". In term of generality, I usualy get worst reaction from parisian then others and from older people then younger. However, because there is a bigger penetration of quebec culture in the francophony now then 20 years ago, people are bit more used to our speach pattern. In the end, as anything else, the reaction you get depend on who you speak to. --Marc pasquin 19:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Marc. I guess we were just unlucky. | Talk 05:16, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

A map of where french is spoken in Canada would be very helpful, but i tried to find one to no avail. Does anyone has or knows where is one? -- Renato Rocha 11:24, December 17, 2005 (UTC)

C'est ici: Francophones in Canada (pdf file) Dubhdara 16:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be called "French in Canada", which is not the same thing as Canadian French. Canadian French is the dialect specific to the Francophones of Québec, Ontario and the other western provinces. Canadian French is a synonym of Quebec French, since the adjectiv "Canadian" here refers to the former french colony of Canada which became later the province of Quebec, and not the actual federation of Canada. So Canadian French DOES NOT INCLUDE Acadian French and Newfoundland French which are also distinct dialects spoken in the actual territory of Canada.

The term "Quebec French" replaced "Canadian French" in the province of Québec following the rise of Quebec nationalism. So Francophones of Ontario and western Canada might still use "Canadian French", but the use is just a question of identity.

The links to "Canadian French" should instead link to "French in Canada", and "Canadian French" should redirect to "Quebec French". -- LeQuantum, March 9 2006

Deletion anyone?[edit]

I suggest this article be deleted and that the key term "Canadian French" lead to a disambiguation page for Quebec French, Acadian French, French in North America, Language Demographics in Canada, etc.

I have a few reasons for advocating deletion.

The first reason is that the article refers to French as an official language, i.e. its status, not its linguistic features.
The second reason is that "Canadian French" is a misnomer on two accounts: (a.) there is no such regional variety as Candian French and (b.) as an official language either on the federal or provincial level, there is no mention of regional variety in the status legislation. The hidden reality behind the adhoc(?) term "Candian French" is a group of varieties _in_ Canada: Quebec French, Acadian French and Prairies French.
The third reason is that Michif is not a variety of French - it's an interlanguage of its own.
Lastly, this article echos information from other articles, in particular, the "Language in Canada" article.

Let's nix this one, n'est-ce pas? (as we say in any variety of English)

CJ Withers 06:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or maybe we should rename the article as suggest by LeQuantum? It would make sense to have an article entitled French in Canada which would be some sort of an umbrella article for all subjects related to the French language in Canada. It is true that we have an article entitled Language in Canada, but the focus is on all languages in Canada, which is a big subject all to itself. If people don't agree than my second best choice is to nix the article. -- Mathieugp 18:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did rename the article a while ago, but for some unfathomable reason, the article was reverted (probably because the remaining redirect should be transformed into an article.) Circeus 19:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it can be renamed, although I think the issue lies more with a meta organization of related articles. The more I explore related articles, the more I find a mess in terms of structure both internally and externally. Luckily, the content of articles on French in Quebec, "Canadian French" and Quebec French are (very) good. The opposite is true of English when it comes to the dialects box/page. A true nightmare both in content and structre. Plus I completely re-wrote the Quebec English article (QC Eng. not being a dialect/variety when it's more a colection of phenomena). Back to our flock, hehehe, I suggest a lot of discussion and planning before moving/deletion/re-organizing. CJ Withers 22:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The german Wikipedia has a good structure from my point of view. "Kanadisches Französisch" is a disambiguation page explaining that it means Quebec French (but it gives also a link to French in Canada), and "Französisch in Kanada" shows briefly statistics, history and status of the French language in Canada and finally introduces the different varieties of French for more info. First, I think we should move the Canadian French text into French in Canada and write something like the german text that I find pertinent and even sufficient. Then we should redirect the links properly among the other pages. The importance here I think is to finally eliminate the confusion that it exists a kind of coast to coast Canadian French language that can be subdivided naively in Atlantic, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec French...
Secondly, we should maybe write something about "Canadian French", but I don't have a strong opinion about what to do. If it only redirects to Quebec French as it is a synonym, then nothing in Wikipedia would tell us explicitly about what speak Francophones in Ontario and the West. If Quebec French must be the article for what is also spoken in Ontario and the West, then we should mention it in that article. If we follow the logic "Canadian French"="Quebec French", then I like very much the german article "Quebecer Französisch" which start by clearing away any confusion: Als quebecer Französisch bezeichnet man die Variante des Französischen, die in Quebec, Ontario und den westlichen Provinzen Kanadas gesprochen wird. Die traditionelle Bezeichnung kanadisches Französisch wird heute immer mehr durch die Bezeichnung quebecer Französisch ersetzt, die allerdings unterschlägt, dass diese Variante des Französischen auch westlich der Provinz Quebec gesprochen wird (siehe Frankophone Kanadier, Französisch in Kanada). Klar vom kanadischen bzw. quebecer Französisch abgrenzen kann man das akadische Französisch, das in den Seeprovinzen Neu-Braunschweig, Neu-Schottland, Prince-Edward-Island und in einem kleine Teil der zu Quebec gehörenden Gaspésie gesprochen wird. It says Quebec French is spoken in Quebec and west from that province, Acadian French is in the Maritimes and Gaspésie; also that Quebec French is prefered to Canadian French although it is spoken elsewhere than just Quebec. LeQuantum 21:04, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Figures the German wikip. would be more organized! *chuckle* Anyway, I'll have a look there and thank goodness for multilingual diversity. BTW, I've been investigating the Qc English stuff and found that a page on mostly demographics and official status was filed under "Anglo-Quebeckers". Jeepers! We really need to go meta on everything and, yes, create a larger disambig. page for French in Canada. CJ Withers 21:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sprachraum Map[edit]

As for *plastic smile* "New! and Improved!" French in Canada / Quebec French articles, we desperately need a Sprachraum map with one color for QF and another for AF (Acadian French). Although Statistics Canada's got loads and loads of data, I find that this data is not always usable and they certainly do not give a true portrait of the country. If anything much of the data feeds into the bilingual-country myth.

I have a bunch of ideas on what and how to represent the salient info, but I remember that Mathieu also suggested a changing map or a video map to show how things have evolved. That idea is seriously needed to show historical changes in N.Am.

Oh, and I finally found a somewhat inspiring map from albeit not-so-useful articles on Latin Europe, Germanic Europe, and Slavic Europe. What I found interesting was the use of a gray political map over which a non-symbolic color was added. The maps show presence of an official language in one or two colors, and therefore are not true Sprachraum maps...anyway, it's a baby muse of inspiration. In fact, I think such gray political maps can be very useful to show Sprachraums (or Sprachräume ??) and phonetic variation. CJ Withers 21:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found this map showing the linguistic border between QF and AF (with disregard of english speaking population!). http://www.cyberacadie.com/images/dialect_acad.gif LeQuantum 16:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It looks cool, but I'm wondering what criteria were used. Was it a majority of En or Fr speakers in an area that put it into the respective Sprachraum? Personally, I'm not fond of isoglosses or other lines because, in general, they aren't very accurate. I checked out some of the articles for Languages of Canada and they have some wicked cool maps, especially for Scottish Gaelic in Canada and Bungee language. I guess the overall questions here are (1) representation of official languages per nearby province NB, ON (2) Sprachräume for QF and AF with overlap in Acadie, (3) actual human population of En / Fr (ratio per municipality?). I thought some the Amerindian language maps did a great job of the latter. Also, the Stats Canada maps play around with percentages too much and make the population of French speakers look beefier while boosting bilingual numbers visually. CJ Withers 18:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here are maps for English mother tongue, French mother tongue, English-French mother tongue, and Other languages mother tongue:
* The Atlas of Canada - Mother Tongue (you must click on the radio buttons to switch from one map to the other)
We see a great level of detail using the Zoom In feature. Maybe we can use a GFDL-licensed map of Canada and manually draw the Sprachraum of French and English on it using the Atlas data as reference. The Atlas' maps are copyrighted of course (http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/aboutus/important_notices.html). -- Mathieugp 22:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've checked those maps out before. However, they're quite deceptive for a few reasons. First, they do not show first/maternal language _still spoken_. Second, they color the map according to census/polling district, a practice that creates a visual trope leading people to believe that French speakers can be found in large numbers in very sparsely populated areas. Just compare the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region with Montreal Island. One could very easily believe there are more francophones in the former. Third, the distribution of percentages is misleading, and almost always is, with Stats Canada language maps. Not only are the colors too bright at the low end of the scale, they're also skewed. By having a bright pink to represent 5 percent or less makes it look like there's an abundance of francophones in the Toronto area. Oh, and notice how reds/violets are used for French - they stick out better.
It's for the above reasons that I believe we need another map. Linguistic reality first and not the perceptions or propaganda. -- CJ Withers 00:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am aware of the problems with the maps. That is why I suggested using them as a reference to create new ones. Naturally, there is no point in re-creating the bias in the new maps. Unfortunately, we are forced to live with the census data from StatsCan. I am not aware of another State providing alternative data. As far as I know, all linguistic research/studies in Canada use the census data as a starting point since there is nothing else. Am I correct on this? Is there an accurate and up to date alternative to the 2001 census data?
I agree. It's the maps I don't like, not the data, but in terms of the data, 1st lang. + if it's still spoken are what we need to know. We need a cartographer or a map-lover to do this once we have the data. I'd definitely be a labor of love. -- CJ Withers 03:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


National language[edit]

Hey folks! I've written a lot on this page today so don't forget to read the stuff above.

I've used the term "national language" before and it's helped a lot for reorganizing the English dialect box/page (TBA). When we apply it to this article (Canadian French), it doesn't work. Think: Canadian French = the national language vs. official language. It does, however, describe Quebec French appropriately.

Oh, and we have to do something about getting rid of "Canadian French" from the French dialects box (both in E & F if it hasn't already been done in both). CJ Withers 22:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


French in Canada[edit]

I edited something in French in Canada. There is no big consequence on Wikipedia yet since nothing links to that page for the moment. It is a start in the purpose of eliminating the confusion between Canadian French vs. French in Canada. If you want to move more text from the Canadian French page to French in Canada, go ahead. We should then decide what to do with the Canadian French page: a disambiguation page or a page with appropriate text? LeQuantum 19:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but it definitely needs re-inforcement because the notions of official language, minority/majority language and dialect (i.e. a SUBlanguage of France-French or a deviant or non-standardized variety or any other inferior/subordinate relationship) lead to confusion. There definitely needs to be coordination with what is _already_ out there. That's why I mentioned the meta level of organization. And a map. Without a map or maps, it seems like conjecture and is opening itself to tons of disagreement due to federal myths and identity politics.
On that note, why must there be an article on French in Canada? or French in Quebec? Personally, I'm for Quebec French, Acadian French, Cajun French with their respective demolinguistic data in each of their article. Otherwise, French in Canada by virture of its title, through appropriately named, still gives the impression that there is only one variety; the comment on official languages only serves to galvanize this misconception. I think "French in North America" is enough and avoids the nationalism problem. That way, the detour around Canada can be made all the while giving a true portrait of the Sprachräume, history and greater presence of Quebec French. Again, I'm all for a "French in North America" page. Let's leave the official status to the "Canada" and "Quebec" state pages themselves.
I believe it make sense to have articles on the languages and the real language communities themselves, regardless of political borders. A quick look a various language/ethnic group pages indicate that this is the direction Wikipedia is taking right now. (See Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages and Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups). French in North America would make sense for many reasons, one being that everytime we use the Canadian federation as a territory, we always end up talking about Quebec French in Quebec, the other provinces and neglect to mention the presence of that language in the New England states, which was, historically-speaking, very significant. Same for the obvious link between Acadian French in the Maritimes and Cajun French in Louisiana.
Also, I think it's utterly important to stop the constant comparison with France-French. Even though it is commonly done, there is no true need to refer to France-French either in terms of structural differences or intelligibility, especially in an intro section or paragraph. Remember, French is pluricentric, the two poles being Paris and Montreal. User:CJ Withers/Quebec French -- CJ Withers 00:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That basically means we have to attack the French language article itself. -- Mathieugp 22:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. The French language article is fine concerning official language status, variety, standard language, etc. The only problem it has/had was how everyone and their mother were writing their own dialect, e.g. "Ontarian French", etc. The quality, in fact, the French phonology article is amazing. I was very suprised to see that the vowel inventory took into account Quebec differences. However, the reason why "in Quebec" is written is because Quebec has two norms: the Quebec national norm and the exogenous (foreign) norm from France. It's this relationship that makes things sticky. If they were truly separate, the author would have had to write "France" or something akin to "the rest of la Francophonie". Remember, in Quebec the exogenous norm was the only norm on television and in theater up until the late sixties. Even today most newscasters, save for Mongrain and Proulx, strive to duplicate this very stilted norm in Quebec. Heck, even Le Coeur a ses raisons uses (and mocks) the exogenous norm.
That's why I was saying we have to modify the French language article, so that it does not assume France French to be the norm to which all others must compare. On fr.wikipedia.org, there is a project dedicated to this very problem : too many articles are franco-centrés and are written as though what happens outside of France is peripherial. -- Mathieugp 03:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The remedy for our dilemma, I think, lies in establishing the answers to who-what-when-where-how-why questions concerning the linguistic reality and not what people perceive it to be. Those (false) perceptions as to what and where an article title should be can easily be handled by a redirect. A simple renaming of an article, on the other hand, only begets an additional content problem, that is, unless it's pure semantics, e.g. Quebec Literature vs. Literature of Quebec (same entity, different label). I suggest we look at the Languages of Canada page, clean that up and then think of how and where French should be. Personally, I don't think there are anywhere nearly enough articles on French or on Quebec French on the Languages of Canada page, a page that acts as a springboard for discovery/learning. -- CJ Withers 23:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article Languages of Canada was written by me, originally based on Language demographics of Canada, itself modeled on Language demographics of Quebec. Then it took a completely different direction and was utimately destroyed and even renamed when various people started to add "information" on official bilingualism. In short, it is a mess and I don't intend to do anything about it.
On the subject of meta organization, to avoid duplication and overlap, I should inform you (CJ and LeQuantum) that I am in the process of rewritting/completing/creating a number of articles on language in my drafts page here. I believe the titles make it clear what subject is going to be covered in the article. If you wish to contribute, you are more than welcomed. I guess I should first be finishing up the History of Quebec French since it is only half-complete and looks stupid with its empty headings. However, am I quite obsessed with the question of language statistics these days, so I am more likely to work on this even though I probably shouldn't. For a map of where and to what degree French is spoken in Canada, I am under the impression that we are going to have to produce a genuine map of our own, but maybe I am wrong and somebody did the job already and will be willing to lincense the work under a GFDL or public domain license. -- Mathieugp 03:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, cool and triple cool. I've got a question concerning nomenclature. Among my sandboxes I put a "Quebec French (sociopolitical history)" since it would in a way be a sub-article of a larger article that had the most basic information on the sociopolitical history, sociolinguistics issues, and linguistic features. What do you think about this naming with the subheading/Related article in parentheses?
I find the nomenclature to be good. Wikipedia suggests using this form for disambiguation purposes. For example, Assimilation (linguistics), Assimilation (biology) and Assimilation (Star Trek). However, reading the Wikipedia:Naming conventions, we see that they are doing exactly what you are doing for sub-articles, e.g., Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs), Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) etc. -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, although I know the sociopolitical history very well, I'm not up for contributing anything except to say that both maps and demographics help _a lot_. It's the social isssues part, such as language variation, language attitudes, analphabétisme, illettrisme, and all linguistic features that interest me and fall more specifically into my field. Right now I'm working on the section on pronouns from a phono-syntatic point of view. Anyway, yes, lets try to give birth to a map, but brainstorming on what and how the data need to be represented. Btw, do you happen to know anyone who's a superwhiz at wikipedia tables? -- CJ Withers 03:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a whiz, but I understand how they work and I have done a few. This tutorial is helpful: Help:Table -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think a page about "French in North America" is a good idea CJ. Originally, I just wanted to break the confusion made in Wikipedia between "Canadian French" and "French in Canada" since the first refers to one variety of french in Canada. The confusion is still there since we did not modify yet the Canadian French page. I would like now to move what is still pertinent in Canadian French into French in Canada, then rearange the links and finally make Canadian French a redirected page to Quebec French. I think this is relevant whatever you want to do as future reorganisation. LeQuantum 21:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I would certainly prefer simply redirecting Canadian French to Quebec French, however this is likely to confuse a lot of people and even be controversial. Many will think this is a mistake and ask why it is so. Others will think that Quebec nationalists have taken over Wikipedia and challenge this all the time. It will be considered by many visitors and contributors to be a POV that Quebec French = Canadian French. For all these reasons, I think we should have Canadian French redirect to French in Canada, where all will be able to learn of the varieties of French in Canada and continue reading whatever they wish from there. -- Mathieugp 01:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Quebec bias[edit]

This article assumes that Canadian French is Qubec Frech. I think it is more correct to call Canadian French an umbrella term for all the varieties of French used in Canada, which also includes Acadian French, for example.--Sonjaaa 03:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Canadian French" is a grave misnomer because what it actually refers to, i.e. Quebec French, excludes Acadian French. Moreover, it imposes a (false) notion of a unified dialect of French (see Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Language and thought articles). So-called "Canadian French" is neither a dialect or an umbrella term. At best it's a cognitive shortcut. For example, nobody who understands the dialect realities in Canada says or uses "Canadian French in Quebec" or "Canadian French in New Brunswick/British Colombia/the Maritimes, etc." simply because "Canadian French" makes no linguistic sense unless your talking purely about French terminology on the federal government and some vowels (usu. out of context). In fact, what distinguishes francophone Ontarians from francophone Quebecers is not dialect related at all -- it's the average degree of bilingualism (p. 525, O'Grady & Archibald, cited below). That's the case if we're not talking about Quebecers who've moved to British Columbia, where among francophones, both Quebecers and Quebec French are the majority.
More concrete proof of this comes from the THE Canadian bible Contemporary Linguistic Analysis (W. O'Grady & J.Archibald), which is approaching its 5th edition as the staple intro text in Linguistics in Canadian universities. When you locate all the instances of the key phrase "Canadian French", you will note that the examples, although cited as "Canadian French", describe ONLY Quebec French. There are 4 instances for Quebec French and one for Acadian French while most of what are mostly Quebec French termed "Canadian French" are 8 examples. In fact, virtually none of the transcriptions apply to Acadian French at all, that is if they don't specifically avoid dialect differences. What's even more ludicrous is that Canadian French is not once described in the entire book, no matter what the chapter/subject heading. In the first sentence of the first paragraph on Canada's national languages, the authors mention (the label) "Canadian French" just once only to continue describing Acadian and Quebec French respectively and then subsequently under separate headings.
The only thing that is obviously pan-"Canadian French" is a laxing of vowels in closed syllables, and some vocabulary (note Acadian Fr. vocab. is rapidly losing ground to Quebec Fr. and English vocab.) In other words, the laxing phenomenon in French dialects in Canada would be the French-language counterpart to the phenomenon of Canadian raising, which is also present in some areas of the U.S. and has its own article (note, it is not called "Canadian English"). No one in the States, including Americans, ever gets upset that the raising is called "Canadian Raising" due to the majority of its speakers being Canadian even when the phenomenon occurs as far as in Martha's Vineyard. So, why then should anyone be upset when "Quebec French" and "Acadian French" are used to describe just that? For that matter, it would be interesting to see, for French, an article on Canadian laxing for why should the "Canadian" in "Canadian Raising" only refer to Canadian English? Talk about exclusion. Since when did "Canadian" only mean pertaining to English? In this case, throwing around the label "Canadian", albeit easy, is disinformative and contradictory given Canada's bilingual context and public image.
The O'Grady/Archibald text also confuses "Franco-XXXer" with "francophone XXXX", which as we know from Canadian History and the reality of francophones' assimilation rate into English, are two different realities with an overlap in specific cases. That is obviously another cognitive shortcut/short-changing, esp. as per Stats Canada.
Despite the public misnomer and misconceptions, I did flesh out and rework the article to add both factual and NPOVs. CJ Withers 08:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Junk English Alert!!!!!!!![edit]

Just What Kind Of Word Is "Majoritarily"? Good Lord, Who ever wrote this article or had revised it recently stepped in the meadow muffin of bad, bloated english with that one! I suggest, "for the most part", despite it being four seperate words... Majoritarily, is a non word, along the lines of shpadoinkle. Whoever wrote the article should delete that word and add the phrase, "for the most part," if I don't... Michael 15:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not in the dictionary, but I wouldn't call it a "junk" word as it is a properly constructed and meaningful Anglicization from Latin/French vocabulary, and similar to the existing "majoritarian".
Looks like a new coining, from the French. And a useful one, as I can't come up with other phrasing to replace it that doesn't break up the sentence flow. Send the article to the OED for their clippings file!

Overly Belaboring Point on Different Canadian French Dialects[edit]

This article we may suspect has been written/edited by an oppressed Acadian French speaker!

By the 10th or 20th sentence explaining that Canadian French is not homogenous, we are all too well aware of this fact. The Labelling section is entirely too defensive, and the examples of British Islands English and Dutch are linguistically confused and obscure to a typical, for example, U.S. reader.

This can all be stripped down to a much simpler presentation, that the popular conception of a single "Canadian French" is inaccurate, and there are in reality several distinct dialects, and they are...

To make matters worse, after all this, we learn absolutely nothing about the mysterious other completely distinct -- and we surmise threatened -- less-spoken dialects, beyond Acadian.

But what the article really needs is some linguistic science: despite their differences, do all of the French dialects in Canada stem from a common source in early Canada, and thus represent a single branch of French language, distinct from that in France, which should legitimately be called the "French Canadian dialect group"; or, do the different dialects in Canada stem from settlers from different parts of France, and thus there really is no "Canadian French" in a phylogenic sense -- just New World members of dialect groups in France?

All that should be clarified as well with a lovely chart showing the dialect branches of French including the New World members.

I agree that the page has a lot of text just to say that "Canadian French" is inaccurate. In the french version of Wikipedia, it is simply a disambiguation page. But because of the bilingual nature of Canada, many think that if it exists a canadian english dialect, the same should apply to french. So some clarifications should remain to stay clear and avoid that someone rewrite the page with information that should be instead in Quebec French or in French in Canada.
When you ask about branching, Quebec and Acadian French differences has to do with the settlers coming from different parts of France (as you said). A greater part of acadian settlers originates from Poitou, while Quebec has a greater representation from Normandy and Brittany. I don't think that the two dialects influenced each other in North America until the use of radio and television. Quebec French includes most french regional variations in Quebec, Ontario and western Canada which can be branched all together with what is spoken in Montreal and Quebec City (french immigrants spread from those two cities); Cajun French in Louisiana takes instead its origin from Acadian French.LeQuantum 17:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Section needing beaucoup work[edit]

"The language across Canada" section needs a lot of work. Very little of the information therein is noteworthy or verifiable. --CJ Withers 06:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Origins[edit]

The idea that Quebec French primarily has its origins in Oïl dialects other than the Parisian one is a common misconception. Settlers in New France came from all over France, so their descendants needed to quickly adopt a common form that everyone would understand, and that form was the prestigious Parisian one spoken by administrators. Parisian travellers to New France sometimes remarked that it was easier understanding people in New France than 20 miles outside Paris. The differences between Quebec French and Parisian French that exist today are primarily the results of changes that have happened since the 1700's in Quebec and in France. Joeldl 06:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please re-read. There was nothing in the article excluding what might be labeled "Parisian French", i.e. the multiple Paris sociolects of the Juristes, the Court and Classical writers all being Oïl dialects. Note that the French of New France was certainly not a product of the Préciosité Movement, which is considered the Parisian French of its time. It would be more interesting and useful to explain how the Filles du Roy acquired a more unified French and how administrators in New France may have had an influence. --CJ Withers 15:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: The following response pertains in part to refactored comments found in this version of the talk page: [1]. Joeldl 23:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Their origins in Canada lie in the 17th and 18th century regional varieties of early Modern French, also known as Classical French, and of other Oïl languages (such as Norman and Picard) that French colonists brought to New France
First of all, this paragraph is just as unreferenced as what I wrote. This version gives too much emphasis to the other Oïl languages. Here is a quote from Jean Marcel Léard, Grammaire québécoise d'aujourd'hui, p. 8:
  • Les témoins venus de l'extérieur ont tous constaté que le français parlé au Québec au XVIIIe siècle se rapprochait fort de celui parlé à Paris et ne renfermait que très peu d'éléments tirés des dialectes d'origine: les Parisiens comprenaient le parler de la Nouvelle-France, mais non ceux de la France en dehors de Paris. Il est par conséquent difficile d'attribuer à des phénomènes dialectaux les particularités du québécois, en grammaire du moins.
The other main theory, besides the one I gave in my last comment above, was that the colonists had travelled quite a bit within France before going to Canada, and knew "le français populaire de Paris", even though they spoke "patois" as their first language. In any case, the main influence was Parisian French, whether "populaire" or not. Maybe you can give some quotes from your source if you don't believe this. Joeldl 15:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


French in Canada (2)[edit]

I would like to change the title to French in Canada, as that seems to be the main focus of the article, and only give light treatment of linguistic issues. I think Canadian French should become a very short page akin to a disambiguation page, with an additional link to French in Canada. I don't think it should redirect to Quebec French. Of course, there is a good deal that is common to Acadian French and Quebec French, and one could adopt the point of view that one should first describe everything that is common to both, in Canadian French, and then have separate pages for things that are specific to only one of the two. But in practice, Quebec French is much better described in reference works and is likely well known to people interested in Acadian French, so it is more practical to have a page on Quebec French and then have the Acadian French article focus on the differences between it and Quebec French. (This is analogous to the situation with the article Quebec French, which focuses on differences with Continental French.) Joeldl 12:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so: Canadian French is a referenced and accepted term (well, maybe not by some editors here), with volumes dedicated to it and almost 1 million online hits, while French in Canada is a nebulous affair with no authority and which (in comparison) actually may have mild anti-federalist connotations to it. Despite the prevalence and influence of Quebec French (already addressed in the article), I'm unsure why editors continue to try to deprecate a legitimate term while trying to rationalize the use of a vague title. Corticopia 19:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Canadian French and Quebec French are both legitimate terms. "Canadian French", it appears, is more common in English and "français québécois" is more common in French, but neither is rare in either language. (Ordinarily, one would just use the most common term in English. But because the divide is likely ideological, it's best not to grant special status to English usage in this case.) In German they decided on de:Französisch in Kanada. This is what they say on the German page de:Quebecer Französisch:
  • Als Quebecer Französisch (fr. le français québécois) bezeichnet man die Variante des Französischen, die in Québec, Ontario und den westlichen Provinzen Kanadas gesprochen wird. Die traditionelle Bezeichnung kanadisches Französisch (fr. le canayen) wird heute immer mehr durch die Bezeichnung Quebecer Französisch ersetzt, die allerdings unterschlägt, dass diese Variante des Französischen auch westlich der Provinz Québec gesprochen wird (siehe Frankophone Kanadier, Französisch in Kanada).
Personally, I have no preference, but since 95% of francophone Canadians speak Quebec French or a closely related (i.e., non-Acadian) variety, the linguistic content is going to be substantially similar, with the exception of any material about Acadian French, which could also be covered at Acadian French. So having both Canadian French and Quebec French amounts to a POV fork, unless Canadian French were to concentrate solely on similarities between Quebec and Acadian French. As it stands, most of the linguistic facts are covered at Quebec French and Acadian French. This article hardly deals with linguistic facts at all, except at a very general level. It's mostly legal status, demographics and so on. (The words vowel and consonant don't appear once, there's not a single phonetic symbol, and there's not even a single example of a word or sentence in French.) And if it did deal with linguistic facts, that would duplicate Quebec French. The content corresponds to "French in Canada" much more closely than to "Canadian French". If you want to argue that the article Quebec French should be renamed Canadian French and modified slightly to reflect its new title, that's certainly possible. But even then, it would make sense to have an article called French in Canada with precisely the kind of information this article has. Of course, it would be appropriate for the article French in Canada to have some linguistic information about Canadian French at a very general level (as Canadian French currently does). Joeldl 21:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While some of the notions regarding the niceties and distinctions of the various dialects may be true, your argument in support of French in Canada is unconvincing. This is analogous to creating an article called English in Canada, souping it up, and redirecting Canadian English to it while retaining, say, Newfoundland English -- this makes no sense. Amid all the insistence on having (some) content at French in Canada, while ignoring references and citations which clearly indicate the currency and authority of the moniker Canadian French, NO ONE has yet reliably demonstrated the utility or authority of FiC and why it should be an encyclopedic title in lieu of the current one. Even conduct some simple online searches (in Google): Canadian French : Quebec French : French in Canada = 888K : 158K : 86K. Given this, arguably, French in Canada would constitute the POV fork, which is probably why it was redirected here earlier. And to have both would be redundant. And if this or any article is lacking in facts, one must build it -- that is the nature of the beast. Corticopia 21:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is denying that "Canadian French" is a legitimate term. So is "Quebec French". My point is that the bulk of the linguistic facts should only be covered at one of those two locations, because they are so similar. There is definitely a political element to the choice between "Canadian French" and "Quebec French". I don't think that the number of hits for a title is that important in all cases. A title like Monarchy in Canada covers a number of realities, about the Queen, the Governor General, Lieutenant Governors, and the relations between them, for example. But the phrase "Monarchy in Canada" might itself be quite rare. That doesn't matter. There is an article called French in the United States. Presumably, it would cover demographics, legal status, social issues, etc., without in-depth linguistic coverage. You might find that at Cajun French. Here is a book with the title "The French language in Canada":
  • Wolf, Lothar (1987): Französische Sprache in Kanada. München, 417 S.
It seems difficult to argue that it would be an inappropriate title for an article when it's been the title of a book. As I said above, the solution in German was to have Quebec French cover linguistic facts, French in Canada give an overview, and Canadian French be a disambiguation page. That is also what was done in French, if I'm not mistaken. An alternative would be to have Canadian French cover both Quebec French and Acadian French, and have them redirect there. I'm afraid I really don't see why "French in Canada" sounds anti-federalist to you. It's not a different way of saying "Canadian French". It's something different, and I think it's more or less what this article covers as it is now. If you want to make "Canadian French" the title for the linguistic content of what is now at Quebec French, then that is a separate issue. For example, the following paragraph fits "French in Canada" much better than "Canadian French":
  • While French, with no specification as to dialect or variety, has the status as one of Canada's two official languages at the federal government level, English is the native language of the majority of Canadians. The federal government provides services and operates in both languages. French is the sole official language in Quebec at the provincial level and is co-official with English in New Brunswick. The provincial governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba are required to provide services in French where justified by the number of francophones (french-language speakers). However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires all provinces to provide primary and secondary education to their official-language minorities at public expense. Joeldl 22:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]
You are being polemic for not what. There's no reason why the 'facts' cannot co-exist in both Canadian French and Quebec French (and elswhere) -- the focus of each will vary. You continue to advocate for a vague title while deprecating one that is more prevalent and accurate (e.g., entry in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, referred to in the Canadian Encyclopedia). In the former (p. 220), CF is defined as "the French language as it is spoken and written by francophone Canadians" -- what's the problem? (Three entries above, Canadian English is defined almost exactly the same, except substitute in 'English' and 'anglophone'.) Given the above, I can only assume that continued insistence on this is 'ideological' -- that is what is giving rise to my concern about 'how it sounds' (also see moribund chat about this above). The comparison of the monarchy is not quite the same (since it covers a number of items/entities which may not effectively be covered through another moniker, unlike here), and I'm unconcerned with how the topic is dealt with in the German wiki. An article about 'French in the US' is more apt, given its minor status and localisation in Louisiana and the northeast ... but not in this instance (i.e., I do not believe 'American French' is a noteworthy term, but I could be wrong). Moreover, the book you cite i germane but not precisely the same, and (again) there are a number of volumes dedicated to Canadian French too. The number of web hits for this and that does not demonstrate anything in and of itself, but neither have you. French in Canada is as it should be: a redirect to this article. And beyond that I can't comment further. Corticopia 02:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I argued above that one would expect different content in Canadian French and French in Canada, the former being more specifically linguistic, the latter demographic, social, etc., with a few general linguistic comments, which is what Canadian French currently is. You have rejected this saying that they're the same, and that since "Canadian French" is more common, it should be used. You write that Canadian French is "the French language as it is spoken and written by francophone Canadians". Agreed. But this clearly makes reference to a variety of French. A statement about the educational rights of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec simply has to do with when and where French is spoken in Canada, not how or what kind. I don't see why you don't care how other wikis have dealt with this. It can be instructive to see how others have solved the same problem, without being bound by their decisions. I agree that there is some ideology involved in deciding whether to give the main treatment of linguistic issues at Canadian French or Quebec French, but I see nothing like that between Canadian French and French in Canada. I am sure that there are many books that talk about "Canadian French", but I'm willing to bet that their coverage of demographics, etc., is more marginal, whereas "French in Canada" would deal with those issues more explicitly. Joeldl 10:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More on Acadian French[edit]

The article currently states that "Acadian French shares many traits with Quebec French." While there is some truth to it it ignores their distinction, almost suggesting that there are no noteworthy differences. It seems that perhaps only the Acadian French of New Brunswick is taken into consideration. Acadians in Nova Scotia (in Par-en-Bas and Par-en-Haut at least) have little exposure to spoken Canadian French/Québec French/whatever one wants to call it and thus speak in ancestral Acadian accents. We and the Cajuns sound alike, whereas the better known variety of Acadian French sounds most like Canadian French. Spoken, our variety is mutually unintelligible with Canadian French. I would suggest such a difference merits some elaboration. One can hear Par-en-Haut Acadian radio online at http://www.cifafm.ca/ to get some idea of Nova Scotian Acadian French.

I added the point about Acadian French and Quebec French sharing many traits, and it does not refer to Quebec-influenced Acadian French. Traditional Acadian French and Quebec French are closer to each other than either is to European French. Even people in Louisiana who have only heard Cajun French find Quebec French less "foreign" than French French. I don't have appropriate references for the moment (and won't have a library available for a couple of months), but this fact is definitely sourceable. If you're unhappy about it being unsourced for that long, comment it out and I'll source it this fall. [Please sign your posts with ~~~~ ] Joeldl 22:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion from User talk:Soulscanner[edit]

Soulscanner has evidently reproduced here a discussion from his talk page in which I was reacting to these edits: [2]. Joeldl 20:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I noticed your edit of Canadian French. Unfortunately, the word Canadian French is ambiguous. In some cases it means Quebec French (even if spoken in Ontario or western Canada, but not by Acadians), and in other cases it means "the French of Canada", including Acadia. The meaning of Canadian French excluding Acadian French tends to be restricted to linguists, and most of them nevertheless use Quebec French these days. It is likely to cause confusion in some cases to use the ambiguous Canadian French when "Quebec French" is meant. I think Quebec French should be kept in at least some instances , and the article's title should be changed to "French in Canada", which more accrately describes the content of the article. Sentences like this: Canadian French is so dominant in Canada that it is considered one and the same with Acadian and Newfoundland French are extremely difficult to understand, even for me. Joeldl 07:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only valid encyclopedic reference given in the article refers to Canadian French, and does not mention Quebec French. It clearly refers to Canadian French as that spoken by French Candians. So do dictionaries of Candian French. They all refer to it as such.
I agree that there should be an umbrella article describing French in Canada, but there should be an article on Canadian French too, with Quebec French redirected to that page. The fabrication of the term Quebec French seems to be mostly politicized.
Quebec French is ambiguous too, as Acadian French is spoken in parts of Quebec too, as is Newfoundland French (in the Lower North Shore). Since this is an article on a specific dialect, it is the linguistic term that should be used. --Soulscanner 08:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that Acadian French is also spoken in Quebec is a minor point that muddies the waters here. Even authors who generally use "Canadian French" to refer to Quebec-style French, (which I will call Quebec French), use Quebec French when not doing so would be confusing. The fact that the phrase "Quebec French" is commonly used is beyond doubt. For example, here are a couple of article titles:
*Dumas, D. 1976. "Quebec French high vowel harmony: the progression of a phonological rule."
*Kemp, W. and M. Yaeger-Dror. 1981. Between [----] and [----]: changes in the realization of -ation in Quebec French. Paper presented at the 10th NWAVE Conference, Philadelphia (phonetic characters omitted).

Joeldl 08:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are somewhat obscure references. Here are some links to linguistic departments at major Canadian Universities. You will note that all refer to studies of Canadian, and not Quebec, French. This indicates that the overall consensus in Canada is to refer to the dialect of French Canadians as Canadian French.
* Simon Fraser University [3]
* University of Ottawa [4]
So when refering to the dialect of French spoken by French Canadians and most Quebecois, the consensus term is Canadian French.
I do agree though that this page could be renamed "French in Canada"; however, Quebec French should be referred to as "Canadian French". As I said, Quebec French is just as ambiguous since Canadian French, Metropolitain french, Newfoundland French and Acadian French are all spoken in Quebec. Similarly, Franco-Ontarians would not refer to their language as Quebec French.--Soulscanner 09:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I don't want to get into a discussion about "Canadian French" versus "Quebec French" in general, but it is absolutely wrong to say that the phrase Quebec French is rare. Google scholar gives 2,490 hits for "Canadian French", 1,290 for "Quebec French", 251 for "français canadien", and 549 for "français québécois". In any case, I think that was settled when it was decided to give the linguistic coverage of what you call "Canadian French" in the article Quebec French, as the vast majority of what is there applies to all non-Acadian French in Canada.
What I am saying is that even those who generally write "Canadian French" usually only do it when they are not specifically talking about it in opposition to Acadian French. A phrase like "the dominance of Canadian French in Canada" is extremely confusing. "Quebec French" would be better here and in similar cases. When the distinction is not particularly important, which one you choose is a matter of taste. (Many people make statements about American English, even when they could say the same thing about North American English.) What's more, even those who prefer "Canadian French" will use "Quebec French" occasionally where either would do. For example, Douglas Walker writes this in The Pronunciation of Canadian French: "To an exemplification and a discussion of such regularities in Quebec French phonology, we now cast our attention, following a brief survey of the Standard French background." Here he is not referring to anything more specific than in the title, since he is referring to the following chapters of the book in general. Joeldl 09:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Saying that Franco-Ontarians speak Quebec French is just as confusing. Moreover, no francophone outside Quebec would refer to their mother tongue as such. Again, your google hits clearly show that Canadian French is used five times more than Quebec French. Usually, Quebec French is used when refering to the French spoken in Quebec, and Canadian French when refered to outside of the province.
In that vein, I also think you are misrepresenting the context in your reference [5] (see p. 16). Walker is refuting value judgements passed on french as it is spoken in Quebec in a La Presse article and a TV show (“La langue au Québec”). Clearly he is refering to French as it is spoken in the province.
Indeed, he refers to Quebec French only in this geographical context. I will list the instances:
- p. 14 "But Canadian French is no less immune to the diversification that touches every speech community. Even leaving aside the speech of Western Canada or of the Maritimes, it is evident that the French of Quebec is highly diversified. (Dulong and Bergeron 1980 indicate this in geographical terms, while much of the work dealing with the Sankoff-Cedergren corpus demonstrates the social stratification of Quebec French.)"
- p.109 "In the present context, it is worth nothing that there is not unanimity of opinion regarding the intonational structure of CF. In part, this diversity may be traced to differences of style in the samples studied (formal - popular, written - spoken) or even to regional differences within Canada (Ontario versus Quebec French27)."
- p.135 "joual: a spoken variety of Quebec French, often stigmatized, identified with the lower-classspeech of urban areas (especially Montreal) and characterized by a great extent of phonetic reduction."
- p.141 Deshaies-Lafontaine, D. 1974. A Socio-phonetic Study of a Quebec French Community: Trois-Rivieres. Ph.D. Thesis, U. of London.
So for clarity sake, Walker uses Quebec French to distinquish between how Canadian French is used in different provinces. So you are citing a source that in fact refutes your claim. You will need to find a reference that refers to the French spoken outside Quebec as Quebec French to back up your claim. --Soulscanner 07:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Canadian French" is used twice (not five times) as often in English according to the Google Scholar search I did, and half as often in French, demonstrating that the language of the author strongly influences the choice. There is no consensus one way or the other, as Wikipedia should not reflect the biases of either Anglophone or Francophone authors. There are two issues here:
1. Whether to use "Quebec French" or "Canadian French" in cases where either would be correct. I have argued that there is no consensus here. A Briton might well write, "In American English, the word for "lift" is elevator," instead of "in North American English". Either one is correct, and the choice will be based on matters of emphasis, taste, and perhaps politics. I no more need to demonstrate that "Quebec French" can be used to refer to French as spoken in Alberta than you need to demonstrate that the phrase "American English" can be used to refer to the English spoken there, because the question is what the most relevant territorial unit is. However, because Franco-Albertans are descendants of immigrants from Quebec (contrary to Acadians), it is not strictly speaking incorrect to refer to their French as "Quebec French", though this would of course be absurd if a specific comparison to the French of Quebec were being made.
By the way, I am not misrepresenting waht Walker says. There are occasions when he specifically compares Quebec French to the French of other provinces, and in those cases he correctly refers to "Quebec French". However, the citation I gave was not in that context, because the sentence was intended as a presentation of the rest of the book. Even if the foregoing discussion had related to French in Ottawa, and then he had turned to a presentation of the rest of the book, he would not have referred to the rest of the book as a "discussion of such regularities in Ontario French phonology", because Ontario French is not prototypical of Canadian French the way Quebec French is. Since joual refers to a variety of Montreal French, one could in any case decide to call it "Quebec French" or "Canadian French", and to the extent that the text does not deal solely with joual, there is nothing specific to the French of Quebec to make one think that he means something different than what's in the title of the book. The context was this:
  • These judgements, moreover, are often more symptomatic of the attitude of the evaluator than of any inherent property of the language in question. In other contexts, however, certain pronouncements about the nature of Canadian French demonstrate a profound ignorance of the inherent properties of language. Such is the case with claims that “Le soi-disant québécois est un langage sans vocabulaire arrêté, sans règles grammaticales, sans syntaxe, sans exigences d’aucune sorte” (“Manifeste contre le joual,” La Presse, Feb. 9, 1973) or “Parler joual c’est parler franglais, c’est parler un français qui ne se tient pas, qui est sans syntaxe, sans phonétique, sans grammaire, sans règles” (Television broadcast “La langue au Québec”). Such statements mistake differences in rules for absence of rules, and ignore the incredibly rich structures, processes and relations that are part and parcel of Quebec French, as they are of any language. In fact, the spontaneous, unmonitored level of speech may be more regular than formal styles, as Labov et al. 1972 note in their major study of sound change in progress: “this vernacular [the linguistic style or register in which the minimum degree of attention is paid to speech] is the most systematic form of language, and… more formal styles produce in most speakers irregular and unpredictable distributions…” (1972:3). To an exemplification and a discussion of such regularities in Quebec French phonology, we now cast our attention, following a brief survey of the Standard French background.
Since there is no consensus on this politically charged issue, it should have been anticipated that changes had to be discussed on the talk page of the article.
2. Whether it is appropriate to compare "Canadian French" and "Acadian French". I maintain that explicitly opposing these varieties under these names is nowadays a marginal usage, and is at best confusing. Here is what Le régionalisme lexical by Francard and Latin says:
  • Le français du Québec a rayonné en Ontario et dans l'ouest du Canada, de même qu'en Nouvelle-Angleterre. [...] Le français québécois et le français acadien peuvent être regroupés sous l'appellation plus large de français canadien², laquelle englobe aussi le français ontarien et le français de l'Ouest canadien. Ces deux derniers possèdent des traits caractéristiques qui leur sont propres aujourd'hui dans l'ensemble canadien et qui s'expliquent surtout par un phénomène de conservatisme, mais il s'agit de variétés qui sont historiquement des prolongements du français québécois.
  • (Footnote) ² Il faut noter ici que le terme de français canadien avait autrefois un sens plus restreint, désignant le français du Québec et les variétés qui s'y rattachent directement, d'où l'emploi à cette époque de canadianisme pour parler d'un trait caractéristique du français du Québec. (Emphasis added.) Joeldl 11:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Unbelievable. There is no such consensus like the one SoulScanner is literally making up. Now references to Web pages of universities outisde Quebec are less "obscure" and judged the proof of a consensus because SoulScanner decides so. After pretending to be a physicist, are you now a linguist SoulScanner? Do you know what happens to Wikipedia users who claim to be academic authorities when they are not? Do you want me to list all references to Quebec French that exist if one is not so closed-minded as to limit himself to English language material? -- Mathieugp 14:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Canadian french is just used more often. You jut don;t like the word "Canadian" for political reasons. Quebec French is generally used in a territorial, and not ethnic French. Linguists use Quebec French as a Variety of Candian French to contrast certain regional usages between other provinces. If you can find an instance of a linguist describing Quebec French being used by, say, franco-Albertans, I would love to see it. --Soulscanner 07:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was

Moved to French language in Canada Teke 03:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have also moved the history from French in Canada to the above page as well. This is the last revision of Canadian French, and this is the last revision for French in Canada before the redirect. I'm restoring the last revision for Canadian French as the present article. Sort out the mess as you will.

Now, it seems that the French language article is a name that everyone is unhappy to live with, the mark of a good compromise. There is plausible reasoning as to why "Canadian French" did not work since there is no one dialect, and the comments about linguistics are persuasive. On the other hand, "French in Canada" is too expansive for the scope of dialects- that would involve cultural sections too. So, what we now have is a parent article that is ripe for sub-articles and has potential for GA or FA in the future if you put the work into it. Teke 03:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I will reproduce here the reasons from WP:RM. See also the arguments above in the section "French in Canada (2)" Joeldl 12:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Canadian French → French in Canada —(Discuss)— The current content of the article is mostly about demographics, legal issues, social issues, etc., and only has very light, general coverage of the linguistic features of Canadian French (there isn't a single example in French). Since the current content of Canadian French is primarily non-linguistic, I feel French in Canada would be the best title for it, as has been suggested by previous editors.
    — Currently, there is extensive coverage of linguistic features in a series of articles centred around Quebec French. Canadian French is an umbrella term for Quebec French and Acadian French, and a number of solutions are possible for the division of linguistic material between these three articles. Politics is likely to intervene in the choice among these possibilities. However, an attempt to maintain the title Canadian French as an eventual home for material duplicating what is now at Quebec French amounts to a POV split.
    — I suggest we adopt, at least initially, the system used by the German Wikipedia: 1. an article French in Canada with virtually the entire content of what is now at Canadian French (excluding the parts devoted to the use of the term Canadian French, but retaining most of the very general material about dialects; 2. A brief article at Canadian French with links to French in Canada, Quebec French and Acadian French. Then if somebody wanted to expand Canadian French to a discussion of the relations between the dialects, that would be fine. But if they wanted to get into linguistic material already at Quebec French it would have to be worked out on the Quebec French page. Joeldl 12:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC) —Joeldl 12:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I'm mistaken, there is one example I added some time ago about the different regional words for "kettle" in Quebec French. Joeldl 12:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Per own nomination. Joeldl 14:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose for a variety of reasons stated above, including non-notability of the proposed title. The current title is an accepted and referenced term used in a variety of publications to refer 'to the French language as used in Canada', e.g., in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Such a move, the reasons for which have not been clearly demonstrated, would constitute a point-of-view fork. If one feels that content needs to be enhanced in this or any article, edit it. Corticopia 13:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Corticopia says the title is non-notable. However, the article de:Französisch in Kanada has precisely this title in German, the article French in the United States exists, and in the section above I gave the example of a book in German with the title "The French language in Canada". Corticopia says that the move would be a POV fork, but I am concerned that if someone endeavoured to add detailed linguistic information, the article would itself become a POV fork with Quebec French, despite the slightly different meanings of Quebec French and Canadian French. Corticopia says that Canadian French is "the French language as it is used in Canada". Agreed. But this article has minimal information about the language itself (i.e., how it is used), and a lot about when, where, and by whom. What linguistic information there is is actually suitable for an article giving an overview of the situation of a language in a country. Joeldl 14:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, I am not suggesting deleting Canadian French, but making it into a brief article linking to detailed information elsewhere, and possibly being expanded later, but in a way that is coordinated with Quebec French and Acadian French. Joeldl 14:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Self-reference to other wikis is NO indication of authority or validity of a term, nor is a titular work translated from German ... all the while deprecating a bona fide English term describing the same thing? There is NO reason why content from that volume or others cannot be equitably dealt with here -- this remains unaddressed by prior commentators (excessively argued and with little/no cited basis) or currently. There may be a number of reasons why 'French in the United States' exists: the US is not bilingual and French is a minor language limited to Louisiana and regions bordering Atlantic Canada, with French not having the entrenchment as it does here. I think concerns about this article becoming/constituting a fork are wholly unjustified: again, if an editor believes an article to be lacking in content, be bold and edit it instead of proposing a move to a vague, non-notable term. All the while, cited reasons justifying such a move go to the very heart of what a point-of-view fork is: "a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines" and "arising when ... contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page, and instead of resolving that disagreement, someone creates another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) to be developed according to their personal views rather than according to consensus." Need I say more? Corticopia 14:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • The reference to the German wikipedia was not an appeal to them as an authority such as an academic publication, but rather as an example of how they dealt with the same issue, in the same way that precedents from Wikipedia have some value. I don't understand the objection to citing the title of a book Die Französische Sprache in Kanada. Phrases corresponding to "Canadian French" and "Quebec French" exist in German as well. I am establishing that it "French in Canada" is a notable topic. The fact that it is distinct from the subject "Canadian French", or at least broader, is something on which I must appeal to editors' common sense. Joeldl 16:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment Your actions are apparently contradictory (i.e., you say this is not a move, yet you listed it as a requested move): if you are not advocating for a move, then, remove this from the RM listings and consensually edit articles to address your concerns. Otherwise ... Corticopia
            • I am saying that the article here is virtually exactly what is needed for the subject French in Canada, and the current content of this article doesn't fit the subject Canadian French. Canadian French should initially be a brief article with appropriate links to information elsewhere. After that, either it could become an article like North American English or a discussion with the editors of Quebec French could take place to determine what belongs in each article. I don't think that when an article is moved, that means that the original title can't be restarted but in a way that adheres better to the subject expressed in the title. Joeldl 19:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If moved, I would like to see the page moved to "French XYZ in Canada" (culture, language, people, anything) to avoid ambiguity. Dekimasuよ! 14:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Allow me to iterate the definition for Canadian French in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (p. 220): "the French language as it is spoken and written by francophone Canadians" -- that is unambiguous. Corticopia 15:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Someone added a support tag to the front of my comment, but I did not say that I supported this move. I agree that the current title is unlikely to be misunderstood. Dekimasuよ! 15:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • French language in Canada would be acceptable. Joeldl 16:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can be compelled otherwise, but not yet; see below. Corticopia 20:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support: This seem pure common sense. The article Canadian French already includes contents suggesting that French in Canada would be a better name for it. In French, the article Français canadien is simply a disambiguation to Quebec French and Acadian French. In the German Wikipedia, the organization suggested by Joeldl is already in place. The arguments put forward by Corticopia, all suggesting POVness, do not hold: as Joeldl pointed out, both terms are accepted terms and adding linguistic contents to Canadian French would amount to a POV split of Quebec French. It should also be pointed out that French is an official language in Louisiana and there are more French speakers in the USA than in Canada outside Quebec (1.6 million over the age of five speak the language at home in the USA vs some 600 000 in the ROC). Not to mention the place of the language had historically, with some 13 million Americans claiming French ancestry! Thereby, any argument implying the unimportance of this language in the USA does not make much sense. However, to address Corticopia's concern that the visibility of the Canadian French term be "diminished", we could have the Quebec French article state: "Québec French, sometimes Canadian French, and less often Québécois French, is bla bla bla" in the first line. This would give the term more visibility than it currently has, all the while allowing for a more sensible organization of the articles related to French in North America. -- Mathieugp 15:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment It is your arguments that do not hold water. I see excessive argumentation, but where are the sources that support such a move and deprecation of notable terms? You seem to misunderstand part of the point: Quebec French is a considerable element of Canadian French and is far more entrenched in Canada than Cajun French or variants in the US, hence the 'French in the US' article; if American French or similar were an accepted term, this discussion might be moot.
      • And, I'm sorry, but your conciliation may be insufficient. You suggest that Canadian French IS Quebec French -- given the definition of the former provided, this may be incorrect. (Roughly defined) Canadian French includes Quebec French, Acadian French, and other variants of the French language used in Canada. Crack is cocaine, but the reverse isn't true. This may stem from a difference of opinion, prior synonymity of the two, or a simple misunderstanding, but the definition provided is clear and unambiguous. Nothing argued and sourced to date has changed this. Mind you: I'm not challenging the influence of the former on the latter and sources may differ, but the suggested approach sucks. Apropos, you suggest to effectively swap and give undue weight to QF over CF, when it has been clearly demonstrated (at least online) that CF as a term is far more prevalent in English, and counterarguments remain unsourced. (Also, your edit rendering 'support' where it was not indicated by the editor also gives me pause.) Anyhow, if this is not an example of placing undue weight on or skewing content, predicated on groupthink, I don't know what is. What next: shall we merge and swap cocaine with crack, and throw in or bastardise drug addiction or psychoactive drug while we're at it? Corticopia 18:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • The meaning of Canadian French is different than Quebec French, but there is so much overlap between the two that a decision would have to be made about how to divide the coverage between the two. Joeldl 19:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • You and M. may differ on this point, which is part of the problem. I'm in between: they may or may not differ, but the Cdn Oxf implies that one (CF) is valid and has a more extended meaning than the other. And, again, no sensible reason has been cited as to why the current article can't be enhanced to further clarify this ambiguity. Corticopia 04:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • The current article contains so little linguistic information that little will be lost if we start over, initially as a very brief article. What superficial linguistic information there is is actually appropriate to the subject French in Canada.Joeldl 11:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • To state that Canadian "Frenches" include Quebec French, Acadian French and Newfoundland French as distinct varieties, would be unambiguous. "Canadian French" suggest one type of French specific to Canada, but that is not the case, and that is not what it usually refers to either. Most of the time, as far as I know, it describe what is otherwise known as Quebec French and neglects to even mention the other varieties or gives it far less importance. Quebec French is named that way not because it is spoken in Quebec, but because it originated from Quebec. The population that speaks it today is to be found, in order of population size, in Quebec, New England, Ontario and other Canadian provinces. The reason Quebec French was named Français canadien for so long is because Quebec was formerly known as le Canada. What is today called "Canada" is a federal State that kept on expanding from 1867 to 1949. Since 1867, Canada, modern sense, includes Quebec, former French Canada, and Nova Scotia, which includes former Acadia, as two of the founding provinces. No province or State being called "Acadia" today, there is no ambiguity between what is named "Acadia" now and what was named such in the past: it is the same entity. The population that speaks Acadian French today lives almost entirely outside the historical Acadian country in Nova Scotia: yet we still call it Acadian. The French of Quebec is spoken in communities that are not limited to Quebec, nor Canada.
      • To make abstraction of the differences between Quebec/Canadian French, Acadian French and Newfoundland French, and name all varieties of French inside Canada as "Canadian French" can be done and it is sometimes the definition of the term. This is however somewhat equivalent to "European French", which puts one label over the French of France (itself a label over many regional varieties), Belgium and Switzerland or UK English, or African French. You will note that the last two are disambiguation pages. No surprise there: it is common sense. Naturally, all those labels are ultimately all a question of POV: Quebec, Acadian, Canadian, Metropolitan French, Cajun etc. may or may not be preferable depending on the context. Naming is a matter of perspective and that is why we need conventions like dictionaries otherwise we would never agree on anything. The point of the move is to give a better name to the current article, based on its current contents.
      • In addition, since "Canadian French" is, in English, still quite common to refer to what is most of the time, especially in recent academic works, called Français québécois and not as often it seems but quite commonly nonetheless Quebec French, I suggested to workaround a potential and useless naming issue by putting both Quebec French and Canadian French as names for what is being discussed in Quebec French right now. Using your definition, this is not at all necessary: but your definition is not the only one, which is what Joeldl and I are trying to point out.
      • Also, if you believe that Dekimasuよ! did not mean to support, as I guessed it from his message, we can ask him to clarify and change it if I guessed wrong. -- Mathieugp 20:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Please provide these other definitions. You have continually referred to academia, yet you nor others have sourced these assertions reliably. A definition of what Canadian French is has been produced (which may counter your reckoning, which I may not necessarily disagree with) which is quite clear as to what it refers to: the French language as used by Canadian francophones (compare with parallel Cdn Oxf definition of Canadian English (see above); also compare with other dic def). Consider that this may refer to numerous variants of French spoken among Canadians; for example, the Oxf Concise Companion to the English Language indicates the following (pp. 96-7):
          • Canadian English ... this national variety [of the English language] has existed for some 230 years with Canadian French, which is almost a century older ...
        • it then goes on to note the co-official nature of CF as a key factor in shaping CE, and vice versa. (And, curiously, the Cdn Oxf Dict has no entry for Quebec French, so infer from that what you will.) Anyhow, it may be because QF is so dominant that it and CF are sometimes considered one and the same -- the article already indicates this, so I don't know what the problem is. Also, the fact (stated above) that the two are often not synonymous can't be cast aside either; c.f. crack/cocaine. (I am also very familiar with the Canadian history and that of Canadian French, thank you.) Also, evidence has been provided that the term is not as rare as implied and also current (e.g., consult NTC's Dictionary of Canadian French; see Oxf refs). You also refer to 'common sense' about structure, but only default to how other wikis deal with the topic, which is NOT authoritative. If these are matters of perspective (I admit this may be the case), I maintain that the proposed move is overwhelmingly predicated on that, and (without being able to corroborate your assertions) may constitute or lad to forking. I maintain that all viewpoints can be embraced in the relevant articles, and I don't think this has been dealt with adequately before or since the proposed move. Edit the articles, or (if necessary) start French language in Canada anew, whatever! Even with the following hierarchy to articles:
  • French language
  • (perhaps) French language in Canada
  • Canadian French
  • Quebec French
  • Acadian French
  • et al.
        • which seems 'common sense' to me, and I see little sense (common or otherwise) in moving this article, only to recreate it here afterward and modify it. So, again, is there a reason why this article cannot and should not deal with this ambiguity more? Until this can be explained or until this position can be sourced, however, little to date has justified to me the proposed moving of this article. As it stands now, I believe it should be that one article exist alone -- this one, though modified -- not a doppelgänger with a non-notable name. But two only if necessary. Corticopia 01:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • As well, regarding assumptions of K's editorial intent, you know what they say about that -- solicit, or allow the editor to clarify or not. It's not for you or me to say, as K. may have since indicated the opposite. Otherwise, inserting support where it wasn't explicitly indicated may be (falsely?) interpreted to be an attempt to skew support in favour of a proposed move. Corticopia 01:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • You seem to be saying that there is a principle that an article should not be moved if the current title is a possible title for an article, even if its content corresponds essentially to a different title. This seems counterproductive since it imposes more work on Wikipedia editors, and destroys the continuity of the edit history. In order to turn this article into what "Canadian French" should be, we would have to delete all but a couple of paragraphs. For a definition of "Canadian French", see the quote at the bottom of the article from Francard and Latin who specifically address the changing definition of the expression, from one that originally excluded Acadian French to one that includes it. Currently, there are three Wikipedias with material on the subject, and it can be of interest to see what the German Wikipedia has done because they are not subject to the same political biases as English and French Wikipedians, at least not to the same degree. I agree that they are not the be-all and end-all of the matter, but it is useful to see what others have done. As for the German language book title, that is purely because that was what I knew about. It was intended to address your claim that "French in Canada" was not a notable subject, and I do not believe that the fact that the title is in German affects its value in illustrating this point.Joeldl 16:08, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • Well, there is the Wikipedia common naming convention, so that's as good a principle as any, and the proposed move bucks that. After all: Cdn French is defined as the 'French language as used by francophone Canadians.' The definition from Francard and Latin merely corroborates this or clarifies the matter. French (language) in Canada is unquestionably a worthy subject, but I contend the relevant content can be included in this article and with this title. As a parallel, there is no similar article about the English language in Canada, eh, I believe the Canadian English article is a better model to emulate in this instance -- e.g., observe how intranational varieties are dealt with (e.g., Newfoundland English). (I'm surprised you didn't invoke that obvious comparison.) You seem to be saying that CF is relatively ambiguous, but renaming this article won't rectify any shortcomings, and retrofitting this article to address them can only be a productive exercise -- that's why Wp is an encyclopedia, not an exercise in simplification. Corticopia 16:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
              • I'm not sure I understand your arguments. I think a person looking at Canadian French expects to find primarily linguistic information. Joeldl 18:22, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                • I'm not sure I understand yours: I would expect a person looking at Canadian French to, well, want to know all about the French language as it is used in Canada and spoken by Cdn francophones, relevant variants, et al. I also suggest that this article be structured a la Canadian English, where these many things -- including distinct variants like Newfoundland English -- are dealt with. Corticopia 18:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                  • There is limited information in this article about the history of the dialects. But apart from three French words I added a few weeks ago, there's not a single example of actual French. Joeldl 11:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
                    • For god's sake, then, (as I've maintained) editors can edit the article as needed. Moving this article is not a panacea. 00:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Lukewarm support - while French in Canada probably is a better name for this article than Canadian French, Canadian French as a disambig seems sketchy at best. With several dialects of French spoken in Canada, none really bearing the name Canadian French, it is different from English, where English from Montreal to Vancouver is known as Canadian English. Canadian French might properly serve as a disambig, I guess, if a redirect here isn't more appropriate. WilyD 15:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Initially, Canadian French should contain cursory information on the varieties of French in Canada. It could change later, but only in a way that was coordinated with Quebec French. Given that only 5% of francophone Canadians are Acadian, it is clear that if Canadian French were to become a full-blown article on linguistic topics, it would be concerned primarily with Quebec French (which is practically identical linguistically to Ontario French, etc.). So there is a definite danger there. Joeldl 16:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC) By the way, the most detailed information about the pronunciation of Canadian English (from Montreal to Vancouver) is at West/Central Canadian English. Joeldl 16:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are ~9 million French Speakers in Canada (1st & 2nd langue, per the 2001 census). Quebec French is the most common, but it may not be overwhelming - I certainly hear a strong difference between a Quebec French speaker and a francophone from Sudbury. WilyD 18:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think an article such as Canadian French would deal essentially with first-language speakers. I'm surprised that a francophone from Sudbury would sound markedly different than a Quebecer. What are the differences? If a serious attempt had to be made to find a common name for Quebec, Ontario and Prairies French, that would have to be "Laurentian French", but that term is seldom used. I suppose there would be a question as to the appropriate place for a discussion of what differences do exist between Quebec, Ontario and Prairies French. Since Quebec French is the best known variant it wouldn't be unreasonable to confine the bulk of that discussion to articles such as Ontario French, with brief mention of their existence at both Canadian French and Quebec French. In any case, this is a separate issue from the fact that the content of this article is more accurately described by the title French in Canada. What little there is here about dialect differences doesn't go into extreme detail and is relevant to the subject of French in Canada. Joeldl 19:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • If there were no agreement with the editors of Quebec French, the article Canadian French could still be expanded along the lines of the current version of North American English. Joeldl 17:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am still unconvinced that the proposed move is anything but a fork. If we are discussing the prospect of morphing one article or even both (perhaps as Mathieugp has suggested), that may be fine ... but a proposed move from here to there is hasty and precipitous -- and again harks of what WP:POVFORK describes plainly. Corticopia 20:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As the talk page shows, editors here have been considering a move to French in Canada since March 2006. Joeldl 20:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The talk page exhibits excessive discussions amongst a few, providing few -- if any -- supporting citations and otherwise insinuating opinion and pedantry -- that is being argumentative. And if that is the 'common sense' you prevail upon, which is not a basis for encyclopedic content, I am getting off this bus right now. Corticopia 02:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - per nom, the article is not about the linguistics of the language. -- Jeff3000 14:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment And Canadian English doesn't deal with the 'linguistics of the language'? Corticopia 16:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - It does so very much more that this page does; the Canadian English article discusses terminology, and pronunciation that is different from other Englishes. -- Jeff3000 18:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I realise that, which is partially why I contend this article can be expanded along similar lines. Canadian English yet (per move request) French (language) in Canada? Seems imbalanced and confused. Corticopia 18:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Canadian French refers mostly to French spoken by French Canadians all across Canada and the U.S. (see references [6][7][8]) This is distinct from Acadian French. One caveat:I think it should be called French language in Canada. Also, I think a similar change should be made be made at Quebec French to avoid the Quebec POV inherent in the renaming of Canadian French. --Soulscanner 20:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nowadays, it is uncommon to say that Canadian French excludes Acadian French. Francard and Latin specifically address this question. See the note at the bottom of the article. I don't know how you can say that there is a Quebec POV inherent in this change if you yourself are supporting it. Quebec French deals with the language variety itself, so there is no need to rename it to French in Quebec. Obviously, the division of material between Quebec French, Acadian French and Canadian French will involve political considerations. Joeldl 20:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Canada has an official language called French, not Canadian French, Quebec French, etc. And the official language of Quebec is also French. It should have an article that can inform about the french language as it is in the jurisdictions and the statistics of Canada, independently of the dialect that are spoken. When Statistics Canada give the number of the 6.7 millions francophone, you can easily believe, because of immigration, that some thousand speak belgian french, guinean french, haitian french... but they all speak French in Canada. I think also that an article about Canadian French can be confusing because for some, it means French in Canada, for others it is the dialect spoken in Quebec and Ontario (Canadian can refer here the the former french colony of Canada, not the present federation which includes also now what was Acadia), or it is an umbrella term for all dialects which developed in Canada, including acadian french. And I don't think that the use as an umbrella term is the best use since Acadians and French Canadians developed their own dialects independantly from each other in their respective colonies, it is not a split from a former unique dialect in North America. LeQuantum 00:32, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Where does one begin in responding to this? Well, I only ask this: Canada's other official language is ... ? Corticopia 00:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Where does his accent come from?[edit]

Could someone tell me where the second guy who speaks in french in this video come from? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFRT78AehjU I liked his accent a lot and id so much be pleased if i could read more about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.83.25.119 (talk) 23:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The evolution of the French language on the "Canadian continent"[edit]

This section and its subsections have a lot of problems. It looks like it was originally written in French and then run through a machine translation, so its English is very bad. So bad in fact, that it will be very difficult to edit into flowing English. Also most of its content is off topic. It is a general summary of the history of French Canada, but this article should be about the French language. Cultural and historical political arrangements should be mentioned only if necessary to explain a linguistic point. We have several other articles people can read for the general history of French Canada. Removing all the off-topic material will make the section worse than it already is. So I'm not sure what we should do here, but I am tempted to delete the whole section. Indefatigable (talk) 17:05, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The language itself is covered at Quebec French and Acadian French, so it's quite appropriate to have discussion of the historical and geographical context. However, much of the material appears to have been written by a user with an axe to grind against Quebec French. The section on "endogenists" and "exogenists" is clearly polemical, and appears strongly to have been inserted to defend a certain point of view. The section on anglicisms contains some properly sourced, neutral material, but gives undue weight to this aspect, considering that this article is not primarily about linguistic aspects. I am deleting the section on "endogenists" now, and will wait to hear what people think about the section on anglicisms. 96.46.204.126 (talk) 05:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've had another look at the history section, and it has a lot of material in it that seems off topic, particularly about pre-Cartier European exploration. The rest only vaguely touches on language. It also contains inaccuracies, like the claim that French had no legal status in Canada before 1867. In fact, the legislature was unilingual only between 1840 and 1848. I think it would be more appropriate to recentre the entire discussion on post-1760 events. For example, this entire encyclopedia article on language policy in Canada has only two sentences on New France.96.46.204.126 (talk) 06:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Language of instruction[edit]

This is from the Article Feedback: "What French is taught in Canada?"

  • So I tried to find secondary sources that gave a direct answer, but I cannot. From what I have gathered, in French Language classes (all Provinces), it is Metropolitan French minus certain anglicisms. In ordinary instruction in Quebec, it is Quebec French, in a formal register. If anybody can provide the correct answer with reliable secondary sources, please do. Abductive (reasoning) 05:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's no answer to this question I'm afraid. Both variants are taught indiscriminately. They're not thought of as two different 'languages' if you will, at least in Quebec. These two 'dialects' are only distinguishable in their spoken forms. It's the same as someone who would have been taught English by a British person versus someone who would have been taught English by an American or English Canadian. Outside of Quebec to the West, in elementary and high schools, I'd say Quebec French is more likely to be taught; and East of Quebec, Acadian French is most likely to be taught. That's just because in these areas respectively, the teachers are more likely to speak these dialects. However, it seems like in universities and professional or private language schools metropolitan French is more likely to be taught. I don't think you will be able to find sources to answer this question.--RXcanadensis (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with RX. That is generally my impression as well. Moreover, any sources found would likely consist mainly of anecdotal evidence. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion as a new observer, I can tell you from experience that a)in Ontario what is taught is what the article currenty refers to as 'metropolitan french" (which as far as I know has no lingusitic meaning) - really what is taught is french as it is understood to be properly spoken in France. In Quebec it is, indeed, "Quebec French, in a formal register," but minus anglicisms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.81.81.111 (talk) 11:11, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Translations of examples should be used[edit]

There are several examples and quotes in French that are not translated into English. While this may be fine for those who are bilingual, for those who only speak English, this is problematic, as it leaves one wondering what is actually being said, Since it is an English Wikipedia article, could someone please add the translations immediately following the French (in parentheses).

For Example,

In conclusion, according to the Robert Dubuc's article "Régionalismes et communication",[15] for the French-speaking community of Quebec, « il n’y a de salut hors de la maîtrise de ses moyens linguistiques dont le français commun constitue l’armature essentielle et efficace. » — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.248.91 (talk) 05:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

means nothing to me.

Thank you. 99.245.248.91 (talk) 05:07, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Section entitled "Quebec"[edit]

There is a contradiction between the table, which is inaccurate in any case, and the paragraphs discussing anglicisms which follow. The table suggests that France french ("metropolitan" French) when it is taught allows for anglicisms. This is not accurate. The table also suggests Quebeckers use fewer anglicisms - also inaccurate. The section goes on to state, in fact, that Quebeckers use a lot of anglicisms, and goes into quite a lot of detail.

No one in Quebec uses "fin de semaine" in casual conversation, they use "le week-end." "Parc a stationnement" is ludicrous. Stationnement is correct, and many Quebeckers use "le parking."

I don't think the table adds anything. It should be deleted.

"There is, however, a movement which is trying to reintroduce the respectful "vous" - there is a movement seeking to enforce a more formal french language use, and eliminate "Montreal street french" or joual and other dialects. But it is not very significant. One group is here: http://www.asulf.ca/

The article needs a discussion of joual or at least a reference to the joual wiki page.

There is an excellent reference web page here http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/400ans/timeline.html that outlines the development of french in Quebec. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.81.81.111 (talk) 11:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested merge 19 May 2015[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Discussion died out long time ago, therefore clarified as no consensus. For further discussion, go to Talk:Canadian_French#Merger_proposal. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 14:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note Kwamikagami did not specify their preferred title (i.e., which article to merge into which) as they simply tagged each article with {{merge}} templates. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It has been suggested that this page be merged into Canadian French.
  • Support The term "Canadian French" is a notorious umbrella term for Canada's French dialects and I support this merge 100%. Savvyjack23 (talk) 21:42, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do you say that "Canadian French" is a notorious umbrella term? "Canadien French", as in Montreal Canadiens? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. My first choice was "Canadian French", but I had no idea why we had two articles to begin with, nor the reasons for their names, so I left it open. I figured that there might be a good reason, but at the very least we need hat notes to clarify the topic of each article. If people here don't know why we have two articles, then we probably do need to merge them. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Any news on that topic? From an outside view, a merging needs to be strongly considered. Saemikneu (talk) 19:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: I haven't read the article content, so I can't say much about it, but I think the sociocultural matter of French speakers in Canada is a separate topic from Canadian French, the variety of the French language. —ajf (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

sabirisation[edit]

This statement looks like propaganda: "Law 101 could postpone the advance of the phenomenon or even prevent it." Law 101 has been in effect since 1977, and yet there are undoubtedly more colloquial Anglicisms in Quebec French today than ever before. So there is precious little reason to believe that Law 101 can really halt such normal and predictable linguistic phenomena.--108.36.159.94 (talk) 11:41, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Requested move 6 June 2020[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

French language in Canada → History of French in Canada – According to User:Nikkimaria on Talk:Canadian_French#Merger_proposal, "[Canadian French] is primarily a linguistics article, focusing on the dialect and its varieties. The [French language in Canada] is primarily a historic/sociological discussion of the French language in Canada, focusing on legal and political concerns." Therefore, rename this article as suggested. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 14:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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