Speak Québec!: A Guide to Day-To-Day Quebec French

By Daniel Kraus

Regarde a!
As-tu dj vu a?
Tu me crois-tu?

Speak Qubec! is a fun and practical handbook designed to help both native English and French speakers understand and speak Qubcois, the common tongue in Qubec. Comprising over three thousand commonly used words and expressions, Speak Qubec! provides a dynamic and accurate reference for daily Qubec conversation, including clear examples of common sayings heard around the Province. It also includes a complete history of the language, and a guide to differences in pronunciation and grammar from International French.

Designed for quick reference and practical usage, Speak Qubec! is a terrific way to understand and appreciate one of the oldest, richest, and most inspired cultures in North America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532002519

Daniel Kraus

Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and graphic novels. He coauthored The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. With Guillermo del Toro, he coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. He has won two Odyssey Awards (for Rotters and Scowler), and The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year. His books have been Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. Daniel lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at DanielKraus.com.

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Copyright © 2016 Daniel Kraus.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-0250-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0252-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0251-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 08/09/2016

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For Mom and Dad…

Who always taught

that the only true boundaries

between cultures are those

we ourselves create.

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Thanks

Sincere thanks to the following persons, without whom this book could not have been created:

Michel Besner, Yves Boudreault, la famille Brossart-Galley (Chantal, Jean-François, Anne-Lise et Églantine), Corinne et Francis Prévote, Martin Chouinard, Thérèse Bruno, Claude Cajolet, Michel Collet, Virginia Crabbé, Nancy Daoust, Eva Dawson, François DesRochers, François du Monthier, François Dunn, Nicholas Ericson, Martin Faucher, Paul and Stacey Ford and family, Eric Godin, Claudia Goyette, Amélie Hébert, Jean-Jacques Hermans, Marie-Claude Hudon, Nina Jones, Peter Kreutlein, Jean Lachance, Luc Laprise, Jacques Larue-Langlois, Laurent Lauzon, Sébastien Lavier, Christian Lavoie, Éric Lebel, Lyne Michaud, Sandra LeMieux, Isabelle LeMieux, Caroline Lévesque, Raymond Lévesque et famille, Raya Mileva, Nancy Nadeau, Sammy Nelson, Ann Nickner, François Perusse, Scott Rafer, Manuel Rochon, Michael Sheasby and family, Greg Smith and Diane Laflamme, Michael-David Smith and family, Elisabeth Starenkyj, Steven Tabac, Lisa and Michael Taylor and family, Carol Swedlow, Pierre Toussignant, Josée Tremblay, Marie-Josée Turcotte, Raphael Van Lierop, Keiko Watanabe, Sophie Vincelette and Tami Weinberg.

Special thanks to André Gauthier, Alain Laferrière, Sébastien Lavier, and Nancy Foran, whose corrections, thoughts, and ideas contributed significantly to this work.

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Contents

Thanks

Preface

Introduction

A Brief Linguistic History

General Pronunciation Tendencies

Slurs

Affricates

Diphthongs

Clipped Endings

Verbs & Conjugating

Structural Differences

Word-Level Changes

Sayings & Slurs

Swears and Insults

The Nouns

The Adjectives

The Verbs

Dictionary

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U, V

W

X, Y

Z

Conclusions

References

Online Sources

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Preface

This fourth edition of Speak Québec is truly a milestone. With over five thousand copies in print, what began as a handy list for friends has now grown into a well-known reference to the Québécois language. For some – largely Francophone readers – this book provides an interesting (and often amusing) source of insight into English. For English-speaking readers, this book has proven to be an important tool for understanding and communicating at work and in social situations.

The interest that people have taken in Speak Québec has been an enormous factor in its growth and success. Since publishing the first edition in 2000, I’ve received countless emails and letters from both visitors and residents of Quebec, offering suggestions, insights, encouragement, and thanks. For this, I am deeply grateful.

Through the years spent working on this book, I have grown ever more amazed by the richness and evolution of the Québécois language. While many of the terms and ideas you’ll find herein are rooted in Quebec’s rural history, the language itself continues to grow with a depth and colour that is a credit to the Québécois culture. The humour and frankness of the Quebecers truly shines through in the pages that follow.

My sincere hope is that this fourth edition, the result of almost fifteen years of work, research, and discussion, continues to open the doors of Quebec culture to visitors, residents, and amateurs of Quebec and her language.

Daniel Kraus

Montreal, Quebec

August 2016

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Introduction

Although many works have been published in recent years to help French speakers better understand the many unique words and expressions found in Quebec, almost no such resources exist to help English speakers. As any English Canadian or American visitor to the province de Québec will tell you, the dizzying array of words and phrases particular to the region creates an almost insurmountable barrier to communicating in French, even for those with a strong command of vocabulary and gra mmar.

The daily language heard in Quebec can actually be thought of as a superset of International French. Quebecers comfortably use most French words, but they also supplant them with several thousand additional words and colloquialisms of their own. While French speakers worldwide often joke about the great differences between their spoken and written languages, nowhere is this more evident than in Quebec – few of the thousands of differences from International French heard in conversation are ever written down. Quebecers proudly point out that a good percentage of this rich, textured language comes from le vieux français (Old French), which was brought by the first settlers. This French is complemented by a number of words adopted both from the Inuit (Canada’s northern aboriginal people) and First Nations as well as from modern English. These influences combine to form a language that retains all the expansive and artistic nuances of International French while also being endowed with the rich cultural detail and informality of North-American English.

Speak Québec! is designed to be used by English speakers as a practical handbook for understanding Québécois – the day-to-day French spoken in Quebec. It is also highly valuable for francophones who wish to understand the English equivalents of common colloquialisms. By no means a dictionary of officially recognized Canadian French, this book is intended to clearly explain the vocabulary and expressions necessary to speak the rich vernacular found in and around the province of Quebec. I deliberately make no judgments as to what is technically or grammatically correct, seeking instead to provide the real-world picture of the language needed to understand and appreciate the Québécois culture.

The first part of this work provides a brief history of the Québécois language, from its origins in New France and the Amerindian tongues to its modern-day influences from English. It also provides a clear explanation of differences in grammar and pronunciation from International French. The second part of the book is a dictionary, a lexicon containing two thousand of the words and phrases most commonly heard throughout the province and most necessary for understanding.

The fundamental goal of this book is to open the doors for better communication and cultural exchange between the Québécois people and others, both domestic and abroad. I wish you luck as you unlock the nuances of this tremendously rich and varied language, and I hope this work provides a concrete means of grasping the joie de vivre that stands behind one of North America’s most unique and undiscovered cultures.

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A Brief Linguistic History

New France (?–1763)

The evolution of the Québécois ¹ language actually began in prehistory, long before the arrival of the first Europeans. The Inuit, Native Americans who had migrated thousands of years earlier across the frozen expanse of the Bering Strait, developed – unbeknownst to them – many words that survive in daily Québec parlance to this day. The First Nations – such as the Micmac, the Cree, and the Outaouais – also had a hand in developing the modern Québec tongue, as their cultures grew and thrived and as they developed words for the unique world around them.

The arrival of the first French explorer (Jacques Cartier, in 1534) brought French traditions, language, and culture of the period to Quebec. Although Cartier made three separate trips to North America – travelling up the St. Lawrence River as far south as Montreal – it was only half a century later, with the founding of Quebec City in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, that France had a true foothold in the New World. The quickly blossoming fur trade in Quebec brought a rising tide of explorers to the province. With the founding of Ville Marie (modern-day Montreal) in 1642, French presence in the colonies increased quickly, and the development of the province of Quebec was afoot.

Although the language used in Quebec during this period largely reflected the accent of Paris (whence most of the earliest French settlers came), certain regional groups also brought their particular dialects – Normand, Basque, Flemish, etc. Many of the unique accents and linguistic tendencies identified in Quebec today date straight back to this period, and the reign of Louis XIV.

As would be expected, however, these new settlers lacked words for many of the things they encountered. The fauna, flora, and native culture about them had no equivalents even in rural France, and so these early pioneers began to use the native terms for things particular to their new world. These settlers adopted Native American words for modes of transport and items (toboggans, moccasins, etc.) they had never before encountered. The same held true for names of new animals (wapiti, caribou, achigan, ouananiche), which were simply phonetic transcriptions of the Native American names. The name ouaouaron (giant frog) in fact, derives directly from the Native American onomatopoeia for the deep bellowing sound the creature makes. A good number of city names in Quebec were derived from the Native American names for places – towns such as Chicoutimi, Tadoussac, Natashquan, and others. Many other modern Québec terms also evolved from these early days, drawn from agriculture, fishing, and winter survival.

British Control (1763–1840)

By the mid 18 th century, the gradual arrival of British interests in the New World – most notably the 13 colonies bordering New France – began to significantly influence the original French settlers. The inevitable clashes between the two sides reflected the almost continuous state of war between their mother countries. The British and French approaches to colonization were notably different, however. Whereas the British remained in an essentially urban lifestyle, the French became familiar with the Native Americans, signed treaties with the tribes, and learned their languages. The significant linguistic overlaps with both English and the native tongues increased, and entirely new French words began to appear.

In September of 1759, the armies of British Major General James Wolfe and French General Louis Joseph de Montcalm clashed on the Plains of Abraham, just south of Quebec City. The British victory in this battle, and the fall of Quebec City to English forces, forever changed the future of New France. The other major French towns, such as Montreal, surrendered soon after. This victory prompted the departure of many of the wealthy French and French academics; those who did not return to France were on the whole tradesmen, craftsmen, and farmers, who had already put down familial roots in the New World.

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the King of France surrendered the full rights to the territory of Canada to the British monarchy. This transfer of power opened the doors to a flood of new English-speaking European colonists, who brought with them new ideas, words, and dialects. Many new terms that developed during this period were based on the perception and integration of these new immigrants, including words such as enfirouapé (meaning wrapped in fur), a pejorative colloquialism for the wealthy English arriving in Quebec City in the post-war years.

Whereas Quebec’s earliest commerce had been based on fur trading, the evolving social economy of Quebecers began to centre increasingly around agriculture. The years that followed the Treaty of Paris were marked by the establishment of the seigneurial system; some two hundred separate fiefs of land along the St. Lawrence River were owned by wealthy landowners, with the the land worked principally by farmers and tradesmen. These so-called