Mouche, pis tousse, pis crache, pis atchoum
March 10, 2008 at 8:48 am (Fight the Good Fight)
Blowing my nose, coughin’, spittin’ and sneezin’, are from an old song, one that describes my current condition. Those words are pretty slang for any French-speaker, but they sure get the point across.
I grew up in Northern Ontario, where a lot of people are bilingual. I went to French school as a kid and spoke French at home and English on the streets. As a result, I’m fluent in both languages, both written and spoken — a blessing nowadays.
In my experience, French people in Northern Ontario are just, well, people. They don’t care where you’re from: Québec, the Maritimes, Manitoba, or Europe. French is French, some people just have different pronunciations or expressions, that’s all. Who cares? As long as you can communicate with each other, all is good.
It wasn’t until I moved to Toronto, and later Whitehorse, did I realize that there’s a whole hierarchy in the French-speaking world. You may disagree with me, but here’s how it goes:
Highest on the ladder: Parisians, then other Europeans, then Québecois, and then the rest of us in no particular order: Franco-Ontarians, Maritimers, pods of Francophones in the prairies, Louisiana, Haiti, etc…
Every time I have had the privilege of working with Parisians, it seemed like they always felt the need to correct me. I don’t mind if I ask, but in regular conversation, it can get annoying very quickly. I must say though, that any French person from other parts of France that I have worked with are far more laid back, and don’t have this annoying habit.
As for Québécois, I love the place and its people. Growing up a short drive from its border, I spent much time in “La belle province”. In terms of the hierarchy, however, here’s a little story:
I worked as a teller in a local bank, and one client had a very thick French accent. So, I reverted to French. She was pleased and quite impressed, so much so, that she thought I was from Québec. She asked: “What part of Québec are you from?”
“I’m not from Québec.”
“Really?” Wide-eyed, she responded, “I never would’ve known. Where are you from?”
“Northern Ontario…Timmins…across the border from l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue, if you know where that is.”
“Oh, so you’re not really French-Canadian then.”
I wanted to knock her out, but instead, I counted her bills, smiled, and said, “Having gone to French school all my life and spoken nothing but French at home, I wonder what more I need to be considered French-Canadian. What do you think?.” We both knew what she was thinking.
fawnahareo said,
March 10, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Wow, the arrogance.
I learned French in Northern Ontario, as well, though it was through a French Immersion program. I don’t think I had much of an opinion about different types of French, other than thinking that super-slangy Quebec French seemed pretty low-brow. Ha!
The first time I ever remember learning about differences in terminology was when I visited some family in France (third cousin and third cousins once removed, but who’s counting?) and I was referring to slides as a “glissoire”. They had no idea what I was talking about. I notice one of the books I have for Jade refers to it as a “toboggan”, just like my cousins did. So then I wondered if “glissoire” was just a figment of my imagination.
yukonchatterbug said,
March 11, 2008 at 7:34 am
Fawn,
There certainly are different words and expressions to describe the same thing, as is the case with English in the UK versus North American (i.e. flat vs. apartment). Your example is a good one. My family use to call a slide “glissade.”
The French spoken in Northern Ontario is actually very similar to that in many parts of Québec. The expressions used are the same, as is the terminology. Mind you, Ontarians tend to use more English words injected into conversation. For instance, some people will say, “Elle a eu tellement de fun sur la slide.”
My husband always teases me about my French. He took French immersion as well, so he understands some of it. He always finds that my French changes depending on who I’m talking to. If it’s work-related, my French is much more formal, correct, and brushed up. If I’m talking to family, I revert to slang, different accent and all.
What bothers me isn’t the different ways people express themselves, but the attitudes surrounding the language, that one is better than the other. These attitudes don’t encourage non-French speakers to learn the language, that’s for sure.
Fawn said,
March 11, 2008 at 8:40 am
I dated a Franco-Ontarian (Ottawa area) for a year and always got a kick out of stuff like “J’vais parker mon char,” and similar.
The attitude thing is interesting. I don’t remember anyone ever saying anything to give me the opinion, but I know that when I was little I thought Parisian French was the best kind, maybe because it made sense that the language spoken in the place of origin would be the “purest”. Later on I came to think that it made sense to speak a more Canadian French, being Canadian and all. Finally I got mature enough to cast off the idea that there has to be a hierarchy at all. After all, my own French is far from perfect.
Spanish has a similar issue, I think. I remember visiting some Canadian friends who were studying in Spain and chatting about some of the differences between Spanish there and in different parts of South America or Mexico. Interestingly, they all agreed that they preferred the kind of Spanish spoken in Mexico.
Kathleen Molloy said,
June 17, 2008 at 9:01 am
Living in west Quebec I know exactly what you mean. I struggle to use “decent” french and that doesn’t mean grammatically correct french but french that won’t get me sued or arrested. It’s a struggle but I get buy fine. I can order compost in French, I got sized for a post-maternity bra in french, and I negotiated edits with my french proof reader for my novel La Mort au menu. BUT the real trouble comes when you know just enough french to get by and you think you know more than you do. This happens to me ALL the time. Last week I was trying to explain to our day care provider that I was going to pick up the kids early so that I could get my eye brows waxed because I didn’t want to let the Unibrow grow out of control. The concept of the Unibrow is not foreign to hairy Quebecers. My explaination was a mess though and I translated Unibrow as unilateral eyebrow, one line of eyebrow, uninterupted eyebrow and finally she got it and cried with laughter. In west Quebec the Unibrow translated as : Le One Piece.
Kathleen Molloy, author – Dining with Death
http://www.diningwithdeath.ca
http://www.kathleenmolloy.offo.ca
http://www.lamortaumenu.ca
» Is loss of language possible? Yukon Chatter Bug said,
March 18, 2010 at 11:47 am
[...] I grew up in a French-Canadian household, and unless we had English-speaking guests, we always spoke French at home. Plus, I went to French school most of my life. Still, having grown up in Ontario, I became fluent in English at a very young age. Eventually, I married a Québécois and we moved to Toronto where I worked in a customer call centre for a mutual fund company answering incoming calls on their French line. So, as an adult, I continued to hone my French-speaking skills. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for callers from Québec to ask which part of their province I was from. [...]