Canadian French (, ) is the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

as it is spoken in Canada. It includes multiple varieties, the most prominent of which is Québécois (

Quebec French Quebec French ( ), also known as Québécois French, is the predominant variety (linguistics), variety of the French language spoken in Canada. It is the dominant language of the province of Quebec, used in everyday communication, in education, ...

). Formerly ''Canadian French'' referred solely to Quebec French and the closely related varieties of

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

(

Franco-Ontarian Franco-Ontarians ( or if female, sometimes known as ''Ontarois'' and ''Ontaroises'') are Francophone Canadians that reside in the province of Ontario. Most are French Canadians from Ontario. In 2021, according to the Government of Ontario, ther ...

) and

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West, or Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a list of regions of Canada, Canadian region that includes the four western provinces and t ...

—in contrast with

Acadian French Acadian French () is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has seven regional accents, including Chiac and Brayon. Phonology Since there was relatively little linguistic contact with F ...

, which is spoken by

Acadians The Acadians (; , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French colonial empire, French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, most descendants of Acadians live in either the Northern Americ ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

(including the Chiac

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

) and some areas of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

(including the dialect St. Marys Bay French),

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island is an island Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. While it is the smallest province by land area and population, it is the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

and Newfoundland & Labrador (where

Newfoundland French Newfoundland French or Newfoundland Peninsular French () is the French spoken on the Port au Port Peninsula (part of the so-called “French Shore”) of Newfoundland. The francophones of the region can trace their origins to Continental French ...

is also spoken). In 2011, the total number of native French speakers in Canada was around 7.3 million (22% of the entire population), while another 2 million spoke it as a second language. At the federal level, it has official status alongside English. At the provincial level, French is the sole official language of

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

as well as one of two official languages of

and jointly official (derived from its federal legal status) in

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

and the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

. Government services are offered in French at select localities in

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, Ontario (through the '' French Language Services Act'') and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the country, depending largely on the proximity to Quebec and/or French Canadian influence on any given region. In New Brunswick, all government services must be available in both official languages.

Dialects and varieties

'' is spoken in Quebec. Closely related varieties are spoken by Francophone communities in Ontario, Western Canada and the

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

region of the United States, differing only from Quebec French primarily by their greater

linguistic conservatism In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or feature of a language is one that has changed relatively little across the language's history, or which is relatively resistant to change. It is the opposite of innovative, innovating, or advanced ...

. The term ''Laurentian French'' has limited applications as a collective label for all these varieties, and ''Quebec French'' has also been used for the entire dialect group. The overwhelming majority of francophone Canadians speak this dialect. ''

'' is spoken by over 350,000 Acadians in parts of the

Maritime provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of ...

, Newfoundland, the

Magdalen Islands The Magdalen Islands (, ) are a Canadian archipelago in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Since 2005, the 12-island archipelago is divided into two municipalities: the majority-francophone Municipality of Îles-de-la-Madeleine and the majority-angloph ...

, the Lower North Shore and the

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (, ; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on it ...

. St. Marys Bay French is a variety of Acadian French spoken in Nova Scotia. ''

Métis French Métis French () is one of the traditional languages of the Métis people along with Michif and Bungi, and is the French-dialect source of Michif. Features Métis French is a variety of Canadian French with some added characters such as Ññ ...

'' is spoken in

and Western Canada by the

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

, descendants of

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

mothers and voyageur fathers during the

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

. Many Métis spoke

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

in addition to French, and over the years they developed a unique mixed language called

Michif Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade wo ...

by combining Métis French nouns, numerals, articles and adjectives with Cree verbs,

demonstratives Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

, postpositions,

interrogatives An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...

and pronouns. Both the Michif language and the Métis dialect of French are severely endangered. ''

'' is spoken by a small population on the

Port au Port Peninsula The Port au Port Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the Canada, Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Roughly triangular in shape, it is located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland. Geography The pe ...

of Newfoundland. It is endangered—both Quebec French and Acadian French are now more widely spoken among Newfoundland Francophones than the distinctive peninsular dialect. '' Brayon French'' is spoken in Madawaska County, New Brunswick, and, to a lesser extent, Aroostook County, Maine, and Beauce of Quebec. Although superficially a

phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...

descendant of Acadian French, analysis reveals it is

morphosyntactic In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, wh ...

ally identical to Quebec French. It is believed to have resulted from a localized levelling of contact dialects between Québécois and Acadian

settlers A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...

Sub-varieties

There are two main sub-varieties of Canadian French. '' Joual'' is an informal variety of French spoken in working-class neighbourhoods in Quebec. '' Chiac'' is a blending of Acadian French syntax and vocabulary, with numerous

lexical borrowing A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...

s from English.

Historical usage

The term "Canadian French" was formerly used to refer specifically to Quebec French and the closely related varieties of Ontario and Western Canada descended from it. This is presumably because Canada and Acadia were distinct parts of

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

, and also of

British North America British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, ...

, until 1867. The term is no longer usually deemed to exclude Acadian French.

Phylogenetically In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

, Quebec French, Métis French and Brayon French are representatives of koiné French in the Americas whereas Acadian French, Cajun French, and Newfoundland French are derivatives of non-koiné local dialects in France.

Use of anglicisms

The term

anglicism An anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English by another language. Due to the global dominance of English in the 20th and 21st centuries, many English terms have become widespread in other languages. Technology-related English ...

() is related to the linguistic concepts of

loanwords A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

, barbarism,

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia ( , ) is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" v ...

, and the macaronic mixture of the French and English languages. According to some, French spoken in Canada includes many anglicisms. The "" (Language Troubleshooting Database) by the distinguishes between different kinds of anglicisms: * Complete anglicisms are words or groups of

loan words A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

from the English language. The form is often exactly the same as in English (e.g., "glamour", "short", and "sweet"), but sometimes there is a slight adjustment to the French language (e.g., "", which comes from the English word "drab"). * Hybrid anglicisms are new words, formed by the addition of a French element to an English word. This element (a

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

, for instance) sometimes replaces a similar element of the English word. "" is an example of hybrid anglicism; it is made up of the English verb "to boost", to which the French suffix –er is added. * Semantic anglicisms are French words used in a sense which exists in English but not in French. Examples include ("postpone") in the sense of "to have a break", in the sense of "miserable" or "pitiful", ("floor/surface") in the sense of "floor" (level of a building), and ("harm/injury") in the sense of "(unfavorable) opinion". * Syntactic anglicisms are those relating to the word order of a sentence and the use of

prepositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

and conjunctions. The expression "" ("a good ten minutes"), for instance, comes from the English language; the more conventional French wording would be "". The use of the preposition ("for") after the verbs ("ask or) and ("search/look or) is also a syntactic anglicism. * Morphological anglicisms are literal translations (or ) of the English forms. With this kind of borrowing, every element comes from French, but what results from it as a whole reproduces, completely or partly, the image transmitted in English. The word , for instance, is formed under English influence and does not exist in standard French (which would instead use the phrasing ""). ("all year long"), ("conference call"), and ("list price") are other morphological examples of anglicisms. * Finally, sentencial anglicisms are loan

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic ...

s peculiar to the English language. The expressions (" add insult to injury") and (" ring a bell") are sentencial anglicisms. Academic,

colloquial Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

, and

pejorative A pejorative word, phrase, slur, or derogatory term is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hosti ...

terms are used in Canada to refer to the

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

. Examples are (from , "

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

"),

Franglais Franglais () or Frenglish ( ) is a French blend that referred first to the overuse of English words by French speakers and later to diglossia or the macaronic mixture of French () and English (). Etymology The word ''Franglais'' was first ...

, Français québécois, and Canadian French.

Notes and references

Notes

References

The lexical basis of grammatical borrowing: a Prince Edward Island FrenchLanguage in Canada
Edwards, John R. *

External links

Audio example of Canadian French
{{Authority control French language French dialects French language in Canada French