A New Project of Old Words
I sometimes almost forget that I am a francophone.
I wake up every morning hearing words in english coming at me. I spend most of my time speaking it. And although I predominantly write in english, french is my mother tongue.
But my tongue does not sound out words like most French-Canadians, the vast majority of which live in Quebec and Ontario. In fact, throughout most of my adult life, when I speak with other french-language speakers, I standardise the manner in which I speak, to ensure that I am understood, and to be viewed as a francophone.
Why do I do this? Well that’s a complicated story.
The crux of it all, is that I grew up in a small french-speaking region of Nova Scotia, Canada. And that small region was surrounded by english-speaking communities, and so a degree of linguistic isolation happened over the past two hundred years. Add to that a general lack of connectedness towards representations (and access to those things) presented via Canadian mass media and you have the conditions for a community that, in essence, preserved 17th and 18th century phonetics, snytax, grammar, and idiomatic expressions.
Get it? No? Let me give you an example (with general apologies to any linguists vis-à-vis writing out pronunciation guides):
When Molière would write the word green, he would write it as “vart” not “vert,” which is the current standard. I, however, say the word as “vart,” with an elongated “ah” sound (similar to the English “far”), rather then “vert,” with a soft “eh” sound.
It would be pretty easy to say that most people who use any language are aware that the manner in which they speak classes them in some manner: culturally, economically, socially, geographically. And like most forms of classism, there is a hierarchy. And Acadians, especially those from Nova Scotia, were for a long time classed low on this presumed scale. Their patois or parler acadien was viewed as archaic at best, quaint in general, and uneducated at its worst.
An excerpt from Pascal Poirier’s “Le parler franco-acadien et ses origines”, which can be found in its entirety here.
To be clear, I am not a linguist or an etymologist, but I am often moved as to how receptive people are to hearing about the distinct manner in which Acadians of various regions express themselves: from their accents to the particular influences which have forged their manner of speaking. For example, because many Acadians worked in or were adjacent to marine lifestyles, as well as agricultural ones. In most standard forms of spoken french, one would “lace” their shoes. However, it is common to hear “amarre” for tying one’s laces, let alone anything that needs to be tied together in this manner. At that, the word “amarre” refers to rope, especially ropes one would find on boats. The likelihood of Acadians having access to lace for their shoes, rather than string or rope, is another reason why the word never stuck. What one does on a daily or common basis shapes the role of the language, where and how it is used.
But over the past century, an wave of assertiveness could be found in all sorts of linguistic communities - not just francophone. The manner in which a person spoke could be seen as a badge of honour, a refusal of linguistic classism. In Acadian popular culture, writers and musicians have been taking the high road with their patois or parler acadien, no matter how one pronounces a word. People like current parliamentary poet laureate Georgette LeBlanc, musicians like Radio Radio or Lisa LeBlanc have been telling their stories in manners which fits best in their respective mouths.
And that’s what interests me: what comes out of our mouths as Acadians, and the sheer varieties therein.
So I started a Twitter feed called @AcadieBaranque, which presents acadian vocabulary words. Baranquer is a verb used by some Acadians which means to chat, talk, speak, in a generally informal manner. As for where I would source these words, I wanted to give that work - and the words themselves - a bit of credibility, and of accountability. And so I chose three published works detailing the Acadian vernacular: Le Glossaire Acadien by Pascal Poirier, Dictionnaire du français acadien by Yves Cormier and Le Parler de la Baie Sainte-Marie by Félix Thibodeau.
As I said above, I am not a linguist, but I am interested in words and their usage, and perhaps more so, interested in giving people access to these works where these words are presented. I am especially interested in presenting the works of Poirier and Thibodeau, both of whom worked tirelessly in preserving Acadian traditions, no matter how they manifested themselves. And for them - and arguably their time frame - the easiest way to identify an Acadian was the manner in which they spoke. So why not give credence to such a thing, but collecting it, and putting it out there for others to read, share, and perhaps find validation of one’s mode of expression.
Alors, je vous invite d’arrêter de beurdasser votre temps, et baranquons des parlers Acadiens!