LL-L "Language politics" 2011.07.13 (01) [EN]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 13 July 2011 - Volume 01
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 From: Isaac M. Davis isaacmacdonalddavis at gmail.com
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.07.09 (03) [EN]

Paul Finlow-Bates wrote:
>
> I gather Finnish Swedes have a very distinctive accent and are often
> treated as rather different by people in Sweden too. Seems they can't win!
>
<snip>

> I've only heard Quebecois French once, in a conversation with a Frenchman
> and a Belgian. I couldn't understand a word, it hardly sounded like French
> to me, though neither European seemed to have any problems.
>

That's true of Francophone Canadians as well. As you'd expect, the dialect
is lexically and phonologically conservative in some ways, and lexically and
phonologically innovative in others (probably more conservative than
innovative, on the whole, relative to higher-prestige varieties, but I
wouldn't testify to that in court, as I'm not actually so familiar with
European French). French people who run into Québeckers in Europe tend to
assume that they're Belgian, as they do share some archaisms, both lexical
and phonological, but anyone who's familiar with Belgian French or Québec
French or both can certainly tell the difference.


> Most Anglophone Canadians I've spoken to on the matter seem to have learned
> enough French to pass the exams, then more or less immediately forgotten it.
>

That's a pretty fair assessment. I passed Grade 9 French (when I was 14),
and then, out of resentment at being forced to learn the language, I never
took it formally again until recently, when I took some continuing education
courses through one of the English-language universities here in Montréal. I
picked it up by other means, mind you, and have used it more or less every
day for the past four years, but there is a definite antipathy towards
French by Anglophone Canadians, compulsory French classes haven't helped
much, and I can't claim to have been immune myself.


Isaac M. Davis

-- 

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."
—Abraham Lincoln
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