Speaking a dialect frozen in time: Quebec French, Toishanese

[shootingstar]

1. Quebec French supposedly is equivalent how 17th-century French aristrocracy spoke.  Sounds like influence of the French immigrants in 1600's onward.  The royal roots of Quebec's French - BBC Travel

2. I speak, Toishanese which is a dialect within the Cantonese Chinese language. Toishanese was spoken by then the mid 19th-century to mid-20th-century Chinese immigrants to North America. The historic Canadian railway workers would have spoken the same dialect I speak.  The pioneer Chinese-Canadians and Chinese-Americans came from the same southern small district 100 km. away from HK  -- where my parents both came from and where grand, great-grand- parents' families were.

So what I speak is considered "old", peasant/rural dialect. It would be viewed by educated Chinese in the same way as the Parisiennes for Quebeckers.   Toishanese is a dying dialect.

I admit that I have chosen sometimes to shop at certain, older Chinatown stores, because it's just easier for me to speak. However they would know English, if I didn't know any Chinese.

****THis is true:  I am living and walking history, by language and in flesh. Yes, I certainly am Canadian --with real evidence of living pioneer history in my mother tongue. 

[groupw]

That’s funny to hear! When we were in Montreal in 2003, it was for the Canadian Grand Prix with crowd members from around the world. We were walking out in front of a group speaking English, but I remembered on person asking another if it felt good to be in a country that spoke his native tongue. Her replied, “I don’t know what they are speaking here, but it certainly isn’t French!”

Richard Thompson shared that when he researched music for 1,000 Years of Popular Music that there were some songs from the Middle Ages whose melodies were thought to be lost. However, they found places in the Appalachians where the songs had been handed down over generations. Scholars said the melodies were consistent with what they believed to be accurate. He used one of the versions recorded for his show. 

[MickinMD ★]

23 hours ago, shootingstar said:

1. Quebec French supposedly is equivalent how 17th-century French aristrocracy spoke.  Sounds like influence of the French immigrants in 1600's onward.  The royal roots of Quebec's French - BBC Travel

2. I speak, Toishanese which is a dialect within the Cantonese Chinese language. Toishanese was spoken by then the mid 19th-century to mid-20th-century Chinese immigrants to North America. The historic Canadian railway workers would have spoken the same dialect I speak.  The pioneer Chinese-Canadians and Chinese-Americans came from the same southern small district 100 km. away from HK  -- where my parents both came from and where grand, great-grand- parents' families were.

So what I speak is considered "old", peasant/rural dialect. It would be viewed by educated Chinese in the same way as the Parisiennes for Quebeckers.   Toishanese is a dying dialect.

I admit that I have chosen sometimes to shop at certain, older Chinatown stores, because it's just easier for me to speak. However they would know English, if I didn't know any Chinese.

****THis is true:  I am living and walking history, by language and in flesh. Yes, I certainly am Canadian --with real evidence of living pioneer history in my mother tongue. 

In part of my last college French class, all of us fluent or close to it with only French allowed to be spoken during class, we studied 16th Century French Lyric Poetry [Il pleure dans mon coeur, etc.] and it was a bear to understand and have the poems explained to us in modern French - thinking in two foreign dialects at the same time!

My aunt by marriage was Quebecoise and her native language French.  When she and her husband, my Uncle Tom, toured France she got frustrated and angry that the French couldn't understand her French very well.  The fraternity I joined at U. of Toronto included a French Canadian and two French Canadian sisters - all three were from northern Quebec - teased him once, comparing him to the homeless guy we gave a room to in return for him cooking for us.  One sister said, "Par eh feece."  I was several years away from passing a fluency test in French to get a chemistry degree and had no clue what she said.  The other sister, who I was dating, whispered in my ear, "Father and son."  In French French that's "Pere and fils:" pronounced more like "Pear eh fees."

In American schools, the standard dialect taught is "Tour Valley French."  I was taught all the French pronunciation tricks like to put my tongue on my teeth instead of the roof of the mouth for certain consonants and the French long "U" is done by forming your lips to whistle and trying to say a long "E."

I had no trouble making myself understood in French in France, 27 years after my last French class, though I later realized I was saying things like, "I would like the Coke Lite," instead of the correct "I would like of the Coke Lite." but the gist was understood and the French made it clear they appreciated my broken French better than me expecting them to speak English. When I couldn't remember how to say things like "How long for a table?" I could say, "How many minutes for a table?"

 

[shootingstar]

3 hours ago, MickinMD said:

In part of my last college French class, all of us fluent or close to it with only French allowed to be spoken during class, we studied 16th Century French Lyric Poetry [Il pleure dans mon coeur, etc.] and it was a bear to understand and have the poems explained to us in modern French - thinking in two foreign dialects at the same time!

My aunt by marriage was Quebecoise and her native language French.  When she and her husband, my Uncle Tom, toured France she got frustrated and angry that the French couldn't understand her French very well.  The fraternity I joined at U. of Toronto included a French Canadian and two French Canadian sisters - all three were from northern Quebec - teased him once, comparing him to the homeless guy we gave a room to in return for him cooking for us.  One sister said, "Par eh feece."  I was several years away from passing a fluency test in French to get a chemistry degree and had no clue what she said.  The other sister, who I was dating, whispered in my ear, "Father and son."  In French French that's "Pere and fils:" pronounced more like "Pear eh fees."

In American schools, the standard dialect taught is "Tour Valley French."  I was taught all the French pronunciation tricks like to put my tongue on my teeth instead of the roof of the mouth for certain consonants and the French long "U" is done by forming your lips to whistle and trying to say a long "E."

I had no trouble making myself understood in French in France, 27 years after my last French class, though I later realized I was saying things like, "I would like the Coke Lite," instead of the correct "I would like of the Coke Lite." but the gist was understood and the French made it clear they appreciated my broken French better than me expecting them to speak English. When I couldn't remember how to say things like "How long for a table?" I could say, "How many minutes for a table?"

 

I have no doubt she and your uncle were frustrated they were not understood in France.

I would actually have to ask a good friend on these dialect differences, who was a high school chum and classmate and became French language teacher in the very same high school she and I went long ago.  She also became a dept. head.  She worked in France as an au pair for a few years after high school but before she returned to university in Ontario.  She has both her French language and literature undergraduate degree and the required teaching degree.

She only recently retired...2 yrs. ago or so. And returned to supply teaching part-time during covid. 

I find French a graceful sounding European language.  It does help to know abit when in France ..even basic phrases and reading signs etc.

[MickinMD ★]

I read a book about using linguistics to determine how far back in time various populations separated and their language developed into different languages.

It was fascinating.  It turns out that languages change a few percent every hundred years.  Additionally, the development of things like the taming of horses and the words for saddle, bridal, etc. mean the populations split if the words are much different in two different languages.  Like the difference between British and American English for words like torch/flashlight, Telly/TV, car bonnet/hood, etc.  But there were very few differences in the 1700's for types of boats and other things of recent development.

Also fascinating was the detective work that pieced together what the original main European language, Proto-Indo-European, very probably sounded like and that it had two words for "fart," one for loud (perd) and one for silent but deadly (pesd).

[ChrisL]

8 hours ago, MickinMD said:

I read a book about using linguistics to determine how far back in time various populations separated and their language developed into different languages.

It was fascinating.  It turns out that languages change a few percent every hundred years.  Additionally, the development of things like the taming of horses and the words for saddle, bridal, etc. mean the populations split if the words are much different in two different languages.  Like the difference between British and American English for words like torch/flashlight, Telly/TV, car bonnet/hood, etc.  But there were very few differences in the 1700's for types of boats and other things of recent development.

Also fascinating was the detective work that pieced together what the original main European language, Proto-Indo-European, very probably sounded like and that it had two words for "fart," one for loud (perd) and one for silent but deadly (pesd).

We found that happened a lot with my parents who’s Dutch stopped evolving & growing in 1958.  When family would come to visit from Holland they often threw in words she was not familiar with as the word, technology or slang came about after she left.

[shootingstar]

4 hours ago, ChrisL said:

We found that happened a lot with my parents who’s Dutch stopped evolving & growing in 1958.  When family would come to visit from Holland they often threw in words she was not familiar with as the word, technology or slang came about after she left.

I found it interesting, my mother who doesn't know much English, she didn't recognize the Chinese Cantonese word for chocolate, when she was once speaking with a relative who had immigrated to Canada within 1 yr.