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General => Other => Topic started by: Yuki on September 13, 2016, 06:27:02 PM

Title: Language wars
Post by: Yuki on September 13, 2016, 06:27:02 PM
EDIT: Topic split from https://codewalr.us/1500

Quote from: p2 on September 13, 2016, 06:05:16 PM
^^
franco-canadians and french and franco-suiss guys don't speak the exact same language? O.o

We do understand each other, but it's not exactly the same dialect. Kinda like British English and American English, minus the spelling differences.
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: Hayleia on September 13, 2016, 07:22:35 PM
Quote from: Juju on September 13, 2016, 06:27:02 PM
We do understand each other.
No we don't :P
JK, yeah, most of the time we do. But I'm not kidding though, sometimes we have no clue what canadian-french people are saying. And I'm not talking about "tabarnak" and stuff, we never say that but we know that's how they swear. I'm talking about "regular" sentences that we sometimes don't understand at all. Only orally though, written canadian-french is as readable as french-french.

If you want an example of difference, some french people say "as-tu vu ?", others say "t'as vu ?" and canadian-french say "t'as-tu vu ?" (did you see?).
Kind of the same difference as when some people say "c'est quelle heure ?" instead of "il est quelle heure ?" (what time is it?).
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: p2 on September 13, 2016, 07:40:18 PM
I partially begin to understand why my teachers didnt like my french... >.>
By accident (and without knowing) I always mixed up various dialects xD
Always thought it didnt matter what to use since it'd all be correct xD
But tinking about this now I cant even imagine someone switching from one german dialect to another every sentence O.o would be pure gore to listen to it  :'(
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
Quote from: Hayleia on September 13, 2016, 07:22:35 PM
Quote from: Juju on September 13, 2016, 06:27:02 PM
We do understand each other.
No we don't :P
JK, yeah, most of the time we do. But I'm not kidding though, sometimes we have no clue what canadian-french people are saying. And I'm not talking about "tabarnak" and stuff, we never say that but we know that's how they swear. I'm talking about "regular" sentences that we sometimes don't understand at all. Only orally though, written canadian-french is as readable as french-french.

If you want an example of difference, some french people say "as-tu vu ?", others say "t'as vu ?" and canadian-french say "t'as-tu vu ?" (did you see?).
Kind of the same difference as when some people say "c'est quelle heure ?" instead of "il est quelle heure ?" (what time is it?).
The thing with French Canadians (especially in Quebec) and France is that we both use anglicisms but not the same as each others. For example:

Quote from: FranceJe vais faire du shopping ce weekend car j'adore ça, mais les bus vont sûrement être pleins.
Quote from: QuebecJe vais aller magasiner en fin de semaine parce que c'est le fun, mais les bus vont sûrement être full.

There are also a lot of idioms in France that are not used in Quebec and vice-versa, including some newer ones and others that can even go as far as causing misunderstandings. In some occasions I have less troubles understanding English from USA than French from France, which is why I occasionally chatted in English with certain French TI community members.

Also in Quebec, the thing with swear words is that they can be used both as nouns, verbs and exclamations. For example:
QuoteMon tabarnak, ma t'en crisser un sa gueule, ostie de caliss.
Which means the person is really pissed off at the other and is threatening to punch him in the face. :P Kinda like the Smurfs when they replace random verbs with "Schtroumpher"


As for spoken language it depends of the area @Hayleia . In Quebec province, most black people have accents similar to France, same for many white people in Montreal and Gaspésie areas. There are also places in France where the accent seems much stronger than others. Another thing is that in Quebec we constantly alternate between the 12 hours and 24 hours system and people between 25 and 40 often uses parts of the metric system and parts of the British system, depending of the situation (for example, we use feet/inches and pounds when measuring our height and weight, while we use meters, kilometers and grams for objects. I even own a bathroom scale that only uses lbs.
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: Yuki on September 14, 2016, 06:00:00 AM
Hehe, that's pretty much it. Take your favourite Smurf comic, replace every instance of Smurf with "tabarnak", ????, profit. (Kinda like replacing wand with wang in Harry Potter.)

But yeah, the slang is entirely different between Québec, France and other french-speaking countries, and to a lesser extent between regions of the same country. The accents as well, they're really different, heard Québec's is much closer to 17th century France, and the language took different directions since then, especially with the English conquest of 1760.
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: p2 on September 14, 2016, 07:27:13 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
Quote from: FranceJe vais faire du shopping ce weekend car j'adore ça, mais les bus vont sûrement être pleins.
I love doing my shopping stuff at weekends because the bus is always empty then
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
Quote from: QuebecJe vais aller magasiner en fin de semaine parce que c'est le fun, mais les bus vont sûrement être full.
I went ??? at the end of the week but the bus was almost full.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
QuoteMon tabarnak, ma t'en crisser un sa gueule, ostie de caliss.
Something about your tabacco and some "c"  ???

Guess I messed up the times since I often dont even recognice if something is future or past in french xD


Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
for example, we use feet/inches and pounds when measuring our height and weight, while we use meters, kilometers and grams for objects. I even own a bathroom scale that only uses lbs.
You guys are really strange  :ninja:
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: Hayleia on September 14, 2016, 08:05:28 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 13, 2016, 08:27:27 PM
The thing with French Canadians (especially in Quebec) and France is that we both use anglicisms but not the same as each others. For example:
Oh yeah, and in France, a lot of people are stupid and use "mail" for "email"/"courriel". That's just stupid. Everytime someone tells me "tu m'envoies ça par mail ?" I answer "c'est pas un peu lent la poste ? tu préfères pas un email ?" <.<

And for spoken language, I was not talking about accents (though yeah, they contribute to making understanding better or worse :P). I was talking about the fact that you say "tabarnak" more often than you write it (I hope :P) so written canadian-french is supposedly closer to french-french than their oral counterparts.
Title: Re: Language wars
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on September 15, 2016, 04:56:15 AM
Ah lol yeah. As for written Canadian French being closer to your French it's because we tend to be very careful. I mean, I don't think newspaper companies or teachers will like if you say tabarnack or c (yes, that word is also used in Quebec french) in an essay or news report. But it depends of the person really. Since Quebec swear words use vocabulary from the church, it was considered a sin by many people to swear until the start of the 90's. It still is nowadays, but people don't care as much. When I was kid it was still considered extremely bad to do it as kid and you definitively need to avoid doing it in a classroom.