Bonjour! Hi!

Language Used in Greeting Customers in Shops and Retail Stores

In 2010 the OQLF (Office québécois de la langue française) carried on a survey in downtown Montreal on the language in which customers were greeted.

This survey was replicated in 2012 but on a smaller scale. Its scope was restricted to downtown St.-Catherine Street (between Papineau and Atwater).

Results show a significant decrease over a two-year period in the use of French as the only language to greet customers in shops and retail stores, from 89% in 2010 down to 73% in 2012. Curiously enough, this finding is not mentioned in the summary published by the OQLF (OQLF, 2012a: 5 where the figure given is 74% for 2012 and the 2010 figure is omitted).

There is a corresponding increase in the use of bilingual greetings from 1% in 2010 up to 14% 2012. However there was no difference in the impossibility to get services in French over this two-year period (OQLF, 2012b: 16 and 22). These findings lend weight to the popular perception that the overall use of French in Montreal is indeed decreasing.

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OQLF, 2012a, Bilan de l’évolution de la situation linguistique au Québec, Langue du commerce et des affaires, Faits saillants. Montreal: Office.

OQLF, 2012b, La langue d’accueil, de service et d’affichage des noms d’entreprise des commerces de détail du centre-ville de Montréal en 2012 selon les observations. Montreal: Office.

Dangerous Liaisons at Downton Abbey

 –This text was first published in French on 21 February 2014 –

In one episode of season 4 of Downton Abbey, Lady Mary is heard to say: “papa r’and mama”.

This kind of linking phenomenon is called “intrusive R”. It appears after the vowels /ɑ:/, /ə/ or /ɔ:/ when followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound:

China ^rand India

law ^rand order

pasta ^rand sauce

This linking R can even be heard within a word between a root morpheme and a suffix as in draw^ring room.

This kind of sandhi is a characteristic of Estuary English, the variety of English spoken along the Thames river and estuary though it reaches beyond.

It seems that intrusive R comes from the popular speech of London. Here is Márton Sóskuthy’s conclusion of his synthesis on the emergence of intrusive R:

All sources from before 1870 describe the phenomenon as a vulgar feature of Cockney pronunciation that should be avoided, as opposed to sources from around the turn of the 20th century, which all admit that it is present even in the pronunciation of educated speakers, and take a much less negative attitude towards it.

According to sociolinguist Peter Trudgill, intrusive R is now part of standard English pronunciation.

A similar phenomenon exists in Quebec French, especially as spoken in Montreal: it is intrusive L, as in ça l’arrive souvent. According to linguist Yves-Charles Morin who published a study on linking L the frequency of non etymological L’s might depend on social class (this pronunciation might be heard more frequently in impoverished neighbourhoods) and perhaps also on age and geographical origin (this pronunciation seems to be peculiar to Montreal French, at least it seems to have started there).

In Quebec French intrusive L is stigmatised whereas in British English intrusive R is now considered standard.

Which Standard Language for Quebec?

The “Quality of Language” Issue (Corpus Planning)

The Charter of the French Language stipulates that French is the official language of Quebec (section 1). But it says nothing about which variety of French should form the basis of its norm. It has been commonly assumed that it was the variety described in the most commonly used dictionaries and grammars (former deputy minister Jean-Claude Corbeil, personal communication). At the time the Official Language Law (1972) and the Charter of the French Language (1977) were passed, this meant essentially dictionaries and grammars made by Europeans and published in Europe (Commission des états généraux, 2001: 81). In litigious cases where there was no consensus on which term was to be used in French or when there was no agreement on what the proper translation was for an English term or phrase, Quebec’s language agency, the Régie de la langue française (the name of the language agency from 1972 to 1977), explained in 1976 (Régie, 1976: 9) that it was empowered by the law to officialise a French equivalent and make its use compulsory in certain circumstances (in state documents, in public advertising, in textbooks, etc.).

Nevertheless allowing French to become Quebec’s official, common, and working language has meant an increased preoccupation with social and regional variation. A debate developed on which kind of French should be the official one: was it to be the international standard historically based on Parisian French but increasingly tolerant of local peculiarities (as evidenced by the introduction of many ‘Belgicisms’, ‘Quebecisms’, ‘Africanisms’, etc., in the major dictionaries published in Paris)? Or was Quebec to establish its own standard variety placed at the pinnacle of a series of hierarchised colloquial registers (as proposed by the Conseil de la langue française, 1990: 30 and 50 and in various papers by Cajolet-Laganière and Martel, e.g. 1996)?

For those adhering to the second proposal, Quebec French is considered as an autonomous language variety possessing its own standard, a standard that is said to reflect the linguistic uses of the new French-speaking middle class, which arose after World War II (Gendron, 1986). As linguist Jean-Denis Gendron (1986: 95) adds, this new predominant linguistic standard appears in public and official discourses, both spoken and written. In 1990, the Conseil de la langue française proposed to launch a comprehensive description of Quebec French uses (at times abbreviated as... FUQ ‘français en usage au Québec’), including standard uses. This led to the creation of the Franqus project based at the Université de Sherbrooke; the project has received substantial funding from the state (more than $3 M as of 2005, cf. Meney, 2005).

Others propose to view the linguistic situation of Quebec as diglossical (e.g. Lamonde, 1998: 96-103; Barbaud, 1998; Maurais, 2008a, chapter 1; Meney, 2010). Typically, diglossia means a situation where two language varieties are in contact, each of them having certain spheres of social interaction assigned to it. The relationship between the two language varieties is hierarchical: one has high, the other has low prestige. According to this view, the high variety in Quebec would be ‘international French’, used for example in official, commercial, and scientific communications, while the low variety would be Quebec colloquial French used mainly but not exclusively in non formal circumstances (see the discussion by Meney, 2010: 102-122, esp. p. 106).

There is therefore a two-fold division on the topic of which linguistic norm should be favoured: on the one hand, those who hold that international standard French should be the variety taught in schools; on the other hand, ‘endogenists’ who propose that Quebec should officialise its own linguistic norm. ‘Endogenists’ have maintained for years that there is a consensus among Quebec linguists and the general public on an endo-normative standard (e.g. Commission des états généraux, 2001: 84 and Conseil de la langue française, 1990).

A proposal was sent to the 2008 sovereignist Parti québécois convention asking that ‘the teaching of French should be reoriented toward the acquisition of spoken and written standard Quebec French’ (quoted by Paquot, 2009). Linguist Annette Paquot intervened in the media before the proposal was discussed at the convention (Paquot, 2008). She pointed out that the proposed new standard differs only marginally from the established international norm (mainly easily understandable lexical items) and that even supporters of this new standard write their books and publish their papers in international standard French (Paquot, 2008 and 2009). The Parti Québécois convention finally made no move since promoting a new language standard in schools was clearly not supported by public opinion (this is of course reminiscent of the ‘Oakland Ebonics controversy’ in the USA).

The rejection of the proposal on standard Quebec French by the 2008 Parti Québécois convention shows that there is obviously no consensus on the adoption of an endo-normative standard in the public at large. Moreover many prominent linguists (e.g. Barbaud, Meney, Nemni, Paquot) disagree on the existence of the consensus peremptorily proclaimed in some official reports. Admittedly the opponents just mentioned are foreign-born but many native Quebecers also discourage the establishment of a local norm (for instance opinion leaders Lysiane Gagnon at the daily La Presse and Denise Bombardier at Le Devoir). Also, this raises the issue of the discrimination that a new standard could bring to immigrant citizens, a great number of whom are selected by the Department of Immigration on the criterion that they already have a working knowledge of French – a knowledge usually acquired abroad at school where the only variety of French taught is ‘international French’. This argument was developed by Maurais (2008b) who advised choosing the standard that would create the least discrimination.

The absence of a consensus on a new local linguistic norm is also evidenced by the results of opinion polls: in surveys done in 1998 and 2004 about half the respondents felt that they spoke Québécois while the other half felt that they spoke French (Maurais, 2008a: 19).

On the basis of the opinion poll results published by Maurais (2008a), it has been argued by Paquot (2009) and by Meney (2010) that if there is at all a consensus on the linguistic variety to be taught in Quebec’s schools, it does not tend to support the claim made by the proponents of an autonomous norm. Quite the reverse: 76.8% of respondents (all native French-speakers born in Quebec) think that international French should be the standard variety taught in schools while 88.3% think that it is advisable that reference books used in schools (such as grammars and dictionaries) should be the same in all French-speaking countries.

Despite the above, the OQLF’s Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique (Grand Terminological Dictionary, hereafter GDT) has maintained its new orientation adopted in the early 2000's, which favours the acceptance of colloquial words (including loan-words and loan-translations). The GDT merely tags them with the label “langue courante”, but this is not done systematically. This approach, in its core more lexicographical than terminological, was denounced in a manifesto by 19 former OQLF’s terminologists. These terminologists were supported by more than a hundred other terminologists, translators and copy-editors (Manifesto, 2011; for a critical assessment of the GDT, see Meney, 2010: 405-443).

All in all, the debate over which variety of French should prevail still goes on but supporters of ‘international French’ have made headway and the former chairperson of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française Conrad Ouellon declared his preference for international French (CSLF, 2010: 2).

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Bibliography

Barbaud, Philippe (1998), Dissidence du français québécois et évolution dialectale. Revue québécoise de linguistique 26/2, 107-128.

Cajolet-Laganière, Hélène and Pierre Martel (1996), Le français québécois: usages, standard et aménagement. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université Laval and Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture.

Commission des états généraux (2001), Le français, une langue pour tout le monde.

Conseil de la langue française (1990), L’aménagement de la langue: pour une description du français québécois. Quebec City: Conseil.

CSLF (Conseil supérieur de la langue française) (2010), Rapport annuel de gestion 2009-

2010. Quebec City: Conseil.

Gendron, Jean-Denis (1986), Aperçu historique sur le développement de la conscience linguistique des Québécois, Québec français 61, 82-89.

Lamonde, Diane (1998), Le maquignon et son joual, l’aménagement du français québécois. Montreal: Liber.

Manifesto (2011): Au-delà des mots, les termes, Le Devoir, 12 February 2011 and Le Soleil’s online edition, 14 February 2011.

Maurais, Jacques (2008a), Les Québécois et la norme, l’évaluation par les Québécois de leurs usages linguistiques. Montreal: Office québécois de la langue française.

Maurais, Jacques (2008b), Le français correct plutôt que le français québécois, Le Soleil, Quebec City, 1 November 2008.

Meney, Lionel (2005), Un autre dictionnaire québécois, pourquoi? Le Devoir, 7 January 2005.

Meney, Lionel (2010), Main basse sur la langue, Montreal: Liber.

Paquot, Annette (2008), Non à la ‘langue québécoise standard’, Le Devoir, Montreal, 12 March 2008.

Paquot, Annette (2009), Pourquoi notre langue doit rester le français international, Argument 11/1.

Régie de la langue française (1976), La normalisation terminologique. Montreal: Official Printer of Quebec.

5th Anniversary of a Manifesto

On 12 February 2011 the Montreal-based daily newspaper Le Devoir published a manifesto written by nine former terminologists at the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF, French Language Bureau). In the following days the first signers were joined by ten other former OQLF’s terminologists. They were eventually supported by more than a hundred other terminologists, translators and copy-editors.

This manifesto denounced the OQLF’s new orientation adopted in the early 2000’s and favouring acceptance of loan-words and loan-translations over proper standard terms already in use in French. The joint signers argued that the new approach is in its core more lexicographical than terminological. They complained that the OQLF had given up its time-proven methodology. They also questioned the appearance in a terminological dictionary of colloquial words; it could be added that the tag “langue courante” – colloquial language –, already an oddity in such a specialised work, is not even systematically appended to them.

Five years later, the OQLF has not modified its approach. Its terminological dictionary (GDT, Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique) continues to propose loan-translations that have long been criticised, for example these word-for-word translations from English: comptoir de cuisine (< kitchen countertop, instead of plan de travail), glace noire (< black ice, instead of verglas), etc.

Compared with the GDT, Google’s automatic translator would appear almost as reliable, providing at times the same word-for-word translations, as evidenced by these examples:

In the latter case, Google’s automatic translator is even more reliable than the GDT. Besides the word-for-word translation of black ice as glace noire, it suggests the standard word verglas:

As a matter of fact, over the years the OQLF chose to correct only the most obvious spelling or grammatical mistakes that have been pointed out to them. That is indeed the least that could be expected from Quebec’s language watch dog.

Cause Célèbre, or just one more petty case of mean Québec bashing?

On 21 December 2015 Toronto’s Globe and Mail published an editorial that is ultimately another example of Quebec bashing, be it soft bashing in this case. It ridiculed the proposal made by a French language defence group, ASULF, to pronounce à la française initials used in proper nouns, asking for instance the initials in P.K. Subban’s name to be pronounced Pay Ka, not Pee Kay.

Here are some passages of this editorial followed by the reply made by ASULF founder and former president. This reply has still not been published by the sheet that prides itself as being Canada’s national daily newspaper.

Last week’s linguistic cause célèbre surrounding the pronunciation of the name of a Montreal Canadiens hockey player is not exactly a scandal. No one is calling it Subbangate. But it is still instructive about the absurdities of Quebec’s language-law regime.

The hockey player in question is P.K. Subban, the all-star defenceman known to everyone as “Pee-kay” – the English pronunciation of his initials.

[...]

The Association pour le soutien et l’usage de la langue française (ASULF) wrote a letter to French-language sports commentators asking that they start pronouncing Mr. Subban’s initials based on the French alphabet. In other words, Pee-kay becomes Pay-ka.

ASULF framed its request as constructive criticism. We’d call it a publicity stunt, something groups like ASULF pull when Quebec’s language wars fall too quiet for their liking. It’s a neat trick singling out Mr. Subban, too, because he is immensely popular in Montreal and any story involving him gets good play.

But, really? Mr. Subban’s name is P.K. If it was Peter, would ASULF insist he be called Pierre?

And what are we getting at here, anyway? The mispronunciation of the French, English, Russian, Swedish, Czech and Finnish names of NHL hockey players is as Canadian as wheat.

*   *   *

The Editor

The Globe and Mail

444 Front St. West

Toronto,  ON    M5V 2S9

Re : Pay Ka and Pee Kay SUBBAN

                                                          

                                                          

Dear Sir:

A friend of mine sent to me a few days ago your editorial dated December 20th, 2015 concerning P.K. Subban. So, I am a little bit late to send my comments on your article. Nevertheless, I think it worthwhile writing now.

What a surprise! A great Canadian newspaper of Toronto (imitating The Montreal Gazette?) is asking the question : “P.K. Subban: Is that Pee-kay? Pay-Ka? Pfft.” How comes such a question? Everybody who speaks English says Pee-Kay. There is no reason at all to question this usual pronunciation in English.

To have an answer, we must read your article. We discover, after a few lines, that it is an ordinary invitation, made by the ASULF to the French-speaking population, to pronounce in French the abbreviation (two letters of the alphabet) of the first names Pernell Karl, when they speak that language. Curiously, this invitation addressed to the French-speaking community has become a subject of scandal and mockery in some English medias with an aggressive tone against the nationalists in Québec.

Frankly, we cannot conceive that you blame our association for having invited the French community to pronounce the letters of their own alphabet according to the common practice in French. Are you going to tell us how to speak French? It would be the height of absurdity. Is there a hidden motive to explain such aggressiveness? Moreover, did you really think that your readership was interested by such a subject?

I hope that you would have never written such a caustic editorial and ridiculed our group in a great newspaper like yours, had you been well-informed about the objective of our association founded 30 years ago, its means of action and the nature of its suggestion concerning the initials of Mr. Subban. I would bet that your Montreal correspondent had never seen or heard the word ASULF before. Here are some pertinent facts for your information.

First of all, our association is the only one whose sole objective is the promotion of a French language of quality. It has nothing to do with the defense of the legal status of that language. Some other groups do that. If you read the enclosed leaflet, you will see that this fact was recognized by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française. Moreover, if you cast a look on our main interventions in the past, you will see that they have absolutely nothing to do with the English language or the English-speaking people. They concern the quality of the French language spoken or written in our community, period. So, our recent suggestion is not “instructive about the absurdities of Québec’s language-law regime”, as you write.

I also point out that Asulf is not “one French-language rights group” as you write, because our association deals with quality (linguistics) and not rights (politics). Is it clear? So, our message was not “a publicity stunt”, as you write, but a “constructive criticism”.

At the beginning of our association in 1986, there were still few people in some parts of Canada arguing that the Quebecois did not speak pure French, but something close to a dialect. It was a poor excuse for them not to learn our uninteresting idiom. The objective of our association was then very pertinent. You agree?

Even if it means repeating myself, I invite you to remember the difference between the pronunciation of a name and the pronunciation of the abbreviation of that name represented by a letter of the alphabet. When we criticize the pronunciation of Pee and Kay in French, we are aiming at two letters of the alphabet and not the names behind these letters. According to our point of view, Mr. Subban having not been informed correctly by the English-speaking medias, we wrote to him on that question. A copy of that letter is enclosed, it could help you.

You wonder on what would be the answer of Asulf if Subban was named Peter. Would it be Pierre? Not at all. You are asking that question after having written that “Mr. Subban’s name is P.K.” What a confusion! P.K. is not a name, it is the abbreviation of two first names. Now, to answer your question, we would say logically Peter like we say Pernell, but we would pronounce, in French, Pay for the letter P. in both cases. It’s so simple!

While ending this letter, I am thinking a moment to the leader of the Opposition in Québec, Pierre Karl Péladeau. If you call him Pee-Kay, I won’t tell you what to say.

                Yours truly,

               

RA/ac                Robert AUCLAIR 

c.c.   Letter to Mr. Subban 

        Leaflet Asulf

Presentation

In this blog I aim to fight against some misconceptions about language, especially stereotypes concerning French in Quebec, its status and how it is spoken.

My inspiration stems from two sources: firstly Geoffrey K. Pullum, a professor at Edinburgh University whose language chronicles were collected in 1991 in the book The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language (University of Chicago Press).

The name of my blog – Linguistically Correct – reveals my second source of inspiration, Jean Sévilla’s book Historiquement correct, Pour en finir avec le passé unique; that is: Historically Correct, To get over with one-sided visions of past (Paris, Perrin, 2003).

Posts will be uploaded on an irregular basis.