St. Marys Bay French (french: français de la Baie Sainte-Marie) is a dialect of

Acadian French Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon. Phonology Since there was relatively li ...

spoken around St. Marys Bay, Nova Scotia, specifically in the region of Clare, Nova Scotia. While sharing features with other dialects of

, it differs from these and other

varieties of French Varieties of the French language are spoken in France and around the world. The Francophones of France generally use Metropolitan French (spoken in Paris and considered standard) although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as ...

in its morphology and

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

., and to a lesser extent its

lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or fo ...

Situation

The speakers of St. Marys Bay French live mostly in

Digby County, Nova Scotia Digby County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. History It was named after the Township of Digby; this was named in honour of Rear Admiral Robert Digby, who dispatched HMS ''Atalanta'' to convey Loyalists from New York City in ...

, in the villages of Church Point, Comeauville, Corberie, Grosses Coques, Meteghan, St-Bernard, Rivière du Saumon, and Saulnierville. French has been spoken by a minority in this region for some time; in 1941, the number of Acadian French speakers in Digby County numbered 9,560, out of a total of 19,472 residents. By the mid 1970s, the number of residents of Digby County reporting their mother tongue as French was 7,730, or 38% of the population.

Comparison with other varieties of French

The phonemic inventory of Baie Sainte-Marie French is similar to the varieties of Acadian French spoken in Yarmouth County, to the south. However, it has idiosyncratic vowel phonemes, for example /i e o u y œ/ have various diphthongised realisations, as do several nasal vowel phonemes.Garner (1952), p. 172-173 A number of these correspondences are common outside of St. Marys Bay French and even Acadian French. A similar pronunciation of 'jamais' in part of Îles de la Madeleine occurs about as . In the

Cajun French Louisiana French ( frc, français de la Louisiane; lou, françé la lwizyàn) is an umbrella term for the dialects and varieties of the French language spoken traditionally by French Louisianians in colonial Lower Louisiana. As of today Louis ...

Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana Terrebonne Parish ( ; French: ''Paroisse de Terrebonne'') is a parish located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2010 census, the population was 111,860, and 110,461 in 2019. In 2020, its population declined to 109,58 ...

, is often realized as .

In popular culture

Grand Dérangement's song "" (from the album Dérangé) is sung in St. Marys Bay French.

Notes

References

* * * {{Gallo-Romance languages and dialects Acadian culture Acadian French Digby County, Nova Scotia