Is French Canadian Different Than French
Put two people in a room for a week and they will end up adopting each other’s habits. It is impossible for humans to stay unaffected by their fellow beings. Sometimes, this act of affecting each other is individual. We pick up habits at school, learn to talk like our parents and siblings, simply because we spend the most time at home and school. Once we enter the adult life, our coworkers take the place of school friends and they start affecting our lives enough to change our habits. Countries, however, don’t change slightly, they change drastically. Sometimes, a whole culture gets affected by a little incident. Sometimes, the vernaculars undergo heavy changes.
There are also instances where the culture or the tongue of a people was completely adopted by another group of people. It mainly happened when one group was ruling the other one and their influence made everyone learn their ways. Sometimes, people adopted the cultural values of their rulers and continued practicing them for the rest of their lives. A lot of examples for this can be found in today’s society. As for the vernaculars, there are also plenty of examples to prove this trend. English, for instance, spread because the people of the UK went around the globe colonizing land and influencing the local population to learn their way of living.
Today, the English used in the UK, the USA, Australia, and other previous British colonies is almost the same, especially in writing. It gained importance because its speakers went around the world and showed their power by conquering different lands and ruling different nations for centuries. Even when the British left, their language stayed behind. The same is true for Spanish which has a lot of speakers today that weren’t born or raised in Spain. French is another example but its reach was not as great as English. However, it has still managed to stay alive in one of the previous French colonies: Canada.
French in Canada:
The vernacular came to Canada in the 17th century but instead of fading over time, it gained more importance in the local scene and is one of the official languages of the country today. The French settlers who came to Canada never went back to their homeland. They made a new home for themselves in the Canadian province of Quebec and that’s why the majority of French speakers in the country live in Quebec today.
The culture of Quebec is heavily influenced by French. Students start learning the language at a very early age so that the language barrier wouldn’t stop them from progressing in their country. Since French has been in Canada for a long time, many people wonder whether it has become a new vernacular or is still the French that is spoken in France.
Is French Canadian Different Than French?
It is true that both Canada and France have the same language. However, the two tongues have become quite different over time and there are many differences among them that means they cannot be considered the same. The written French may have more similarities than the spoken one but even that has unique features in both Canada and France.
Here are the main differences between the two languages:
- Canadian French is Archaic:
After the French left Canada and the British took over, the speakers of the language lost contact with other French speakers and as a result, their tongue didn’t go through any updates. Even after all this time, the French spoken in Canada has some features of the vernacular from the 17th Century. The tongue spoken in France, however, underwent a lot of changes with time and sounds a lot modern today then its Canadian sibling.
- Anglicisms and Aboriginal Words:
Since Canada was ruled by the British after the people from France left, the language of the Canadians adopted English words more than the vernacular of France. Canadian French has a lot of English words that are either taken as it is or updated with French spellings.
The language of France didn’t take any aboriginal loanwords. However, the Canadian French has adopted words from the First Nations languages.
- The Accent Differences:
Although it should go without saying, the accents in Quebec and France are completely different from each other. Due to the accent, it is difficult for the speaker of one to understand the other. The people of France keep a more formal tone while talking, but the Canadian French sounds more like singing.
- Methods of Addressing:
In Canada, people prefer using informal methods of addressing friends and family members. In formal settings, the method of addressing each other becomes formal too. However, in France, people prefer using formal methods of addressing each other in all kinds of settings.
- Different Terminologies:
When it comes to specific fields and industries, the differences between the two increase by manifold. There are plenty of terms in the legal system that are different in both states. The same can be said for a lot of other fields.
The differences between the two versions of French are important to consider when you are in need of a translation. You must inform your translator which version of the language you want your documents to be in because depending on your audience, you can only choose one version. If you pick the wrong version or assume they are both the same, you will confuse your target audience.
