Montreal French ( French: Le français montréalais ) is one of the best-studied [1] dialects ( topollects ) of the French language in Quebec [2] . It is based on the speech of the French colonists of the 17th-18th centuries, guided by the linguistic norms of pre-revolutionary Paris (the so-called Paris Koin ). Montreal French is the core of the so-called Western dialect ( parler de l'Ouest [3] ), which during the time of New France extended to Detroit . After the British conquest of Quebec upstream, the Montreal dialect was supplanted by English. On the other hand, in the XIX century, the Montreal dialect significantly expanded its territory during the colonization of neighboring regions (south and north-west of the city) by French-speaking people from the vicinity of Montreal. Currently, due to the fact that almost half of the Quebec population lives in the Montreal agglomeration, many features of the Montreal pronunciation ( diphthongization of vowels and palatalization of consonants) begin to penetrate into eastern dialects, where these features were not observed until the early 1990s [2] . At the same time, the Montreal dialect itself is not static: various changes constantly occur in it [4] .
Formation History
Apparently, the basis of the phenomena that led to the separation of the dialects of Inland Quebec from the dialects downstream of the river is the creolization , to which French began to undergo as the French colonists moved deeper into the mainland upstream of the river. St. Lawrence. In contacts with the local autochthonous population, before the start of mass French colonization in the Trois-Rivieres region , the Creole language Maguya was formed , whose influence intensified to the west.
After the cataclysms associated with the British conquest of New France in 1759, only about 5,000 francophones remained in Montreal. In connection with the departure of the French nobles, merchants, and the military, representatives of the predominantly peasant and working classes, as well as a small group of priests who took upon themselves educational and enlightening functions, remained in the city. It was at their insistence, in the Old Montreal pronunciation, until the middle of the 20th century, its most striking feature was cultivated - the swollen Latin / r /, which was later replaced by the rear-lingual [ʁ]. In modern Montreal, a rumbling / r / can sometimes be heard in the speech of the native Montreal over 50 years old. Migrants from the regions do not absorb it.
In the British era, due to the low educational level of the French-speaking population and its low social status, the formation of Montreal French was influenced by the local workers' sociolect ( basilekt ) Zhual , which absorbed a large number of Englishisms and cripples from the English language.
Features
- The most striking feature of modern Montreal pronunciation is the persistent diphthongization of the closed ê: baleine [balɛ̃ːn]> [balaɛ̯n]; arrête > [aʁaɛ̯t].
- Transition -age to [ɑɔ̯ʒ].
- Maintaining the longitude of the vowels / i, y, u / before the extension consonants / v, z, ʒ, vʁ / (livre, église, tige).
- Loss / l / in the definition. articles and cliques ( à (la) gare , j '(la) a connais ).
- The maximum approximation of the pronunciation of Anglicisms to their Anglo-American counterparts: hamburger> [ambɚɡɚ], short> [ʃɔɹt], barbecue> [bɑɹbɪkju], etc.
Notes
- ↑ Project MUSE - Manifestations phonétiques de la dynamique des attributions ethnolinguistiques à Montréal> (link not available) . Date of treatment October 20, 2018. Archived March 5, 2016.
- ↑ 1 2 Project MUSE - Les Québécois perçoivent-ils le français montréalais comme une variété topolectale distincte?: Résultats d'une analyse perceptuelle exploratoire (link not available) . Date of treatment October 20, 2018. Archived March 5, 2016.
- ↑ http://andre.thibault.pagesperso-orange.fr/QuebecDHFQ.jpg
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