Quebec French lexicon

There are various lexical differences between Quebec French and Metropolitan French in France. These are distributed throughout the registers, from slang to formal usage.

Notwithstanding Acadian French in the Maritime Provinces, Quebec French is the dominant form of French throughout Canada, with only very limited interregional variations. The terms Quebec French and Canadian French are therefore often used interchangeably.

tandardization

The Office québécois de la langue française believes that neither morphology nor syntax should be different between Québécois and Metropolitan French, and even that phonetic differences should be kept to a minimum. However, starting in the 1960s, it agreed to the use of words then called "well-formed Canadianisms "(canadianismes de bon aloi)"," that either are regional in nature (such as names of plants and animals), have been used since before the Conquest, or are justified in their origin and are considered to be equivalent or "better" than the standard equivalent.

A small list of words was published in 1969, mainly containing words that were archaic in France but still common in Quebec. This list especially contained imperial units and words from aboriginal languages. Subsequent lists have been published regularly since then.

There are a number of lexical differences between Quebec French and the French of France; these are distributed throughout the registers, from slang to formal usage.

Many differences that exist between Quebec French and European French arise from the preservation of certain forms that are today archaic in Europe. Obviously new words were also created for Quebec specialties that do not exist in Europe.

As with any two regional variants, there is an abundance of slang terms found in Quebec that are not found in France. Quebec French profanity uses references to Catholic liturgical terminology, rather than the references to prostitution that are more common in France. Many English words and calques have also been integrated in Quebec French, although less than in France. Borrowing from English is politically sensitive in Quebec and tends to be socially discouraged.

Non-sexist usage

Formal Quebec French also has a very different approach to non-sexist language than Metropolitan French. There is a much greater tendency to generalize feminine markers among nouns referring to professions. This is done in order to avoid having to refer to a woman with a masculine noun, and thereby seeming to suggest that a particular profession is primarily masculine. Forms that would be seen as highly unusual or stridently feminist in France are commonplace in Quebec, such as "la docteure," "l'avocate," "la professeure", "la présidente", "la première ministre," "la gouverneure générale", and so forth. Many of these have been formally recommended by the "Office québécois de la langue française" and adopted by society at large. The French government has lately moved in the same direction for official usage ("madame la ministre").

Also, rather than following the rule that the masculine includes the feminine, it is relatively common to create doublets, especially in polemical speech: "Québécoises et Québécois," "tous et toutes," "citoyens et citoyennes".

As an isolated anecdote, a Quebec labour union once decided to promulgate an epicene neologism on the model of "fidèle", calling itself the [http://www.fpcsn.qc.ca/ "Fédération des professionnèles"] , rather than use either "professionnels" (masculine only) or "professionnels et professionnelles" (masculine and feminine). This sparked a fair amount of debate and is rather on the outer edge of techniques for nonsexist writing in Quebec French.

Morphology (word formation)

Some suffixes are more productive in Quebec than in France, in particular the adjectival suffix -"eux", which has a somewhat pejorative meaning: "téter → téteux" (thick, dumb, nitpicking, nerd), "niaiser → niaiseux" (foolish, irritating); "obstiner → ostineux" (stubborn); "pot → poteux" (a user or dealer of marijuana). This originates in the Norman language.

The adjectival suffix -"euse" is added to verbal stems to form "the machine that verbs." For example "laver" → "laveuse" "washing machine"; "balayer" → "balayeuse" "vacuum cleaner" (but "streetsweeper" in France). In France "vacuum cleaner" is "aspirateur".

Use of anglicisms

Loanwords from English in French, as well as calques or loan syntaxic structures, are known as "anglicisms" (French: "anglicisme").

Colloquial and slang registers

The use of anglicisms in colloquial and Quebec French slang is commonplace. Some examples of long-standing anglicisms include:

use of preposition stranding

It is also very commonplace for an English word to be used as a nonce word, for example when the speaker temporarily cannot remember the French word. This is particularly common with technical words; indeed, years ago before technical documentation began to be printed in French in Quebec, an English word might be the most common way for a French-speaking mechanic or other technical worker to refer to the mechanisms he or she had to deal with.

It is often difficult or impossible to distinguish between such a nonce anglicism and an English word quoted as such for effect.

There are some anglicisms that have no obvious connection to any currently existing modern Canadian English idiom. For example, "partir sur un nowhere" ("leave on a 'nowhere'", to go on an adventurous trip without necessarily knowing your destination or perhaps even your travel companions); "etre su'l party" ("be on the 'party,'" to be partying or to be in the mood for a party).

tandard register

A number of Quebecisms used in the standard register are also derived from English forms, especially as calques, such as "prendre une marche" (from "take a walk," in France, "se promener", also used in Quebec) and "banc de neige" (from English "snowbank;" in France, "congère," a form unknown in Quebec.) However, in standard and formal registers, there is a much stronger tendency to avoid English borrowings in Quebec than in France.

As a result, especially with regard to in modern items, Quebec French often contains forms designed to be more "French" than an English borrowing that may be used anyway in European French, like "fin de semaine" which is "week-end" in France, or "courriel" (from "courrier électronique") for France's "mail" or "mel".

Some are calques into French of English phrases that Continental French borrowed directly, such as "un chien chaud" for European French "hot dog". In Quebec, the spelling "gai" to mean homosexual is standard. Note that in France, "gai" has kept the original meaning of "happy", "cheerful" while "gay" is used to mean "homosexual" but specifically in reference to mass gay-American subculture and by those usually over 35 who identify as gay. Gay men in France 35 and under usual label themselves as "homo", not "gay".

Although many (not all) of these forms were promulgated by the Office québécois de la langue française (OLF) of Quebec, they have been accepted into everyday use. Indeed, the French government has since adopted the word "courriel" (in 2003). The term has been gaining acceptance as it is now used in respected newspapers such as Libération.

Jargons and slangs

Several social groups, tied together by either a profession or an interest, use a part or all of the corresponding English jargon or slang in their domains, instead of that used in other French-speaking countries. English terms are, for example, very widely used in typically male jobs like engineering (notably mechanical engineering), carpentry, and computer programming. This situation was caused historically by a lack of properly translated technical manuals and documentation. Recent translation efforts in targeted domains such as the automotive industry and environmental engineering are yielding some encouraging results. The most English-ridden Quebec slang is without question used among members in the gamers community, who are also for the most part generation Y frequent computer users, where computer gaming slang is used as well as an enormous number of normal terms commonly found in computer applications and games ("save", "map", "level", etc.).

Perception

The perceived overuse of anglicisms in the colloquial register is a cause of the stigmatization of Quebec French. Both the Québécois and the French accuse each other (and themselves) of using too many anglicisms. A joke runs that the difference between European French and Quebec French is that in Europe, "on se gare dans un parking" (one parks in a carpark) and in Quebec, "on se parque dans un stationnement" (one parks in a parking lot).

Quebec and France tend to have entirely different anglicisms because in Quebec they are the gradual result of two and a half centuries of living among English speakers, whereas in Europe they are much more recent and result from the increasing international dominance of American English. Statistically, though, and rather counter-intuitively, the French use more anglicisms than the Québécois.

"See also Franglais."

Other differences

Here are some other differences between standard Quebec French and European French:

Many, but not all, of the European equivalents for the words listed above are also used or at least understood in Quebec.

ee also

*Quebec French profanity