A viral video circulating on social media is sparking outdated reactions, according to linguists. Because the Quebec accent does not go hand in hand with an inferior language, according to them, and we must free ourselves from the injunctions of a fantasized norm. The language spoken in Quebec is neither worse nor better than that of France: it is quite simply a variation, they insist.
And again: Internet users are making fun of Quebecois speaking. Since Tuesday, on X (formerly Twitter) and on Tiktok, a video of young Joël Legendre singing on the show Canadian evening in the late 1970s was commented on by hundreds of people. The song he performs is sometimes called Coming back from Saint Helena Or I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare. The child then leads with his voice an animated crowd, acting as an echoing choir, who clap their hands to the beat.
In the comments, some people defend the native language, while others denigrate it without embarrassment, going so far as to deny that French is really spoken in this corner of North America. “My French-speaking wife (perfect Parisian accent) laughs every time Quebecers open their mouths. It’s not French! » writes for example in English an X user.
These reactions do not surprise linguists who The duty talked.
If this kind of online distribution quickly snowballs here, it is first and foremost because Quebecers have sensitive skin when it comes to linguistic issues. We have made progress with our linguistic insecurity, but it is not over, says linguist Julie Auger. She cites as an example people for whom adopting French expressions is a guarantee of a “more correct” language, even if it means embracing their language tics. A reader of Duty suggested in particular last year to replace the word “faque” with “du coup” – which she found “very ironic”, she remembers, since the expression is mocked in France.
As for those who would like to ridicule the language here, their messages demonstrate a preconceived and fixed idea of French, say these linguists who are working to deconstruct it.
“Why not take another look at language and celebrate its diversity and adaptability? » immediately asks the woman who is also a full professor at the University of Montreal. “I don’t know why humans insist on dividing themselves into categories and devaluing others. »
Variations on the same theme
Already, French French, which we often take for “good French”, is recent. “We spoke French here, in New France, before France as a whole spoke French. » At the time of the French colony, in the 17e century, it is only around Paris and among the nobility that French is spoken, while Burgundian dominates in Burgundy and Picard in Lille, she gives as an example.
There is therefore no unitary and immutable language, on the contrary. “What is considered “good French” varies enormously depending on History. […] We may not like all the changes in the language, but if it doesn’t change, it dies,” says the specialist. She also participated in a collective work entitled French is very good, thank youwhich sought to overturn this vision that French is dying because of the Internet or the influence of English.
“We always come back to this question. Wouldn’t we have the right to speak a variety of French that is different and reflects our history? » analyzes Wim Remysen, professor of linguistics at the University of Sherbrooke. These are “old, outdated speeches” which completely ignore the phenomenon of variation in a language, variations which exist in all languages throughout the world. “You wouldn’t ask an American to speak the same English as a Brit, it’s not complicated! » he adds.
Already, on the 19the century, there was this kind of debate around the French Canadian Patois, he notes. It is always this idea that there is something wrong with the French spoken in Quebec that resurfaces, an idea which has often served to weaken or minimize demands to assert our linguistic rights, notes Mr. Remysen. “It is wrong to want to stigmatize these particularities. On the contrary, it is something that is part of who we are. »
The French language would particularly favor purists according to these two professors. “In the case of French, it is a particularly dominant discourse because it has always had a hypercentralization of the norm,” says Mr. Remysen. In the case of English and Spanish, the former colonies became more important than the metropolis, and “this demographic weight facilitated a certain emancipation”.
A question of records
At the same time as French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is on an official visit to Quebec and releasing his ceremonial rhetoric, the two experts are also calling for an end to comparing “apples to oranges”.
The reflex to believe that “the French have more vocabulary” is often due to comparing different registers. “We think of French Idiots, but we must also think of the French of Céline Galipeau. We tend to reduce, […] but Quebec French is also this range of forms,” says Mme Auger. “There has always been a colloquial language, everyday language, and a standard language. It is in particular the role of the school to help children master as best as possible this variety which gives access to all professions. »
It is good to be able to communicate with French speakers elsewhere in the French-speaking world and to have access to literature; the important thing is therefore also to know how to move from one register to another depending on your needs and the situation, notes the linguist.
Internet users like Stéphane Venne do not agree, and they intend to make it known. He shared his point of view on social networks as a “simple citizen”, but also as a songwriter who made language his artistic material. He thus called for a distinction between accent, the “acoustic dimension”, and that of “language competence”, which would include syntax, vocabulary and elocution.
For him, criticism of an accent – whether it is Marseille, Norman, Parisian or Quebecois – is “completely ridiculous”. What is “more fundamental” is mastery of the language itself, he continues on the phone with The duty. “If you have 60 words in your vocabulary and another community has 600, there is a deficit,” he believes. So Quebecers speak badly, according to him? “We don’t have centuries of culture and education. We are a young French community that has a future,” defends the artist. “The capacity of ordinary people in France, the sport of language that they master, is far superior,” he nevertheless asserts.
However, no study shows that the variation between colloquial language and formal language is greater in Quebec than in France. “We are more in the realm of clichés and stereotypes,” concludes Mr. Remysen, who invites us to celebrate our varied language.