By: Jingshu Helen Yao, Master of Museum Studies student / Summer Intern at the CLM
Language acquisition is my area of interest and I am fascinated by the theories about the connections between language learning and age, language distance, and level of exposure.
Sometimes I observe people and ask questions to draw connections between what I learned and real-life scenarios, but the best subject to study is always myself. Since I decided to challenge myself and pick up French, I started to reflect on my experience learning other languages.
Linguists believe that everyone with regular cognitive ability is able to acquire their first language effortlessly under normal development. The abilities to comprehend and to speak are considered innate, similar to the ability to walk or run. Like many, I have no memory of the acquisition process of my own first language. I am a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese and the knowledge I have regarding Mandarin is mainly unconscious knowledge, or competence. I could easily distinguish grammatical sentences but would have difficulty explaining the exact grammatical rules. On the contrary, when I learned English in school, I learned systematic information about English clause types and conjugation rules, or what is commonly referred to as grammar by non-linguists. Even after more than a decade of study, I still make mistakes speaking or writing English, but if I need to lay out the rules of the English language one by one, I might do better than many native speakers who didn’t study linguistics or English grammar. This type of knowledge is conscious, like solving a math problem or citing a verse. I need to actively think about what I need to say and whether sentences are grammatical before producing them, whereas the same process is more intuitive for a native speaker. Even though the task became less demanding as I became more fluent, it was almost impossible to ever process English as a native speaker does.
“Le nouveau taxi!”, beginner’s textbook for learning French as a second language, Chinese edition. (Photo: Jingshu Helen Yao)
Learning French this summer reminded me of the initial stage of learning English. I struggle to produce every sound, pause for long times to think about what I need to say and how to say it. However, learning a foreign language as a child and an adult is rather different. On one hand, I have a big advantage of having studied linguistics and understanding terms such as “tense”, “aspect”, and “grammatical gender”. If I had been exposed to French at a much younger age, the complex verb conjugation rules and the masculine and feminine genders of nouns would have completely throw me off, since none of them were in my first language Mandarin. I would have asked questions such as “Why are the chairs feminine and why are the walls masculine?”, to which the answer could only be “That’s how the language works.” That definitely wouldn’t have satisfied the mind of a child. As an adult learner, I am more comfortable with just remembering the genders rather than trying to figure out why. On the other hand, I didn’t feel as much pressure when I tried to pronounce English words as a child. I wasn’t aware of “having an accent” and wasn’t as embarrassed about making mistakes as I am now. Even though I understand that making mistakes is a natural process during learning, I find myself less expressive and less willing to speak out loud, which is a barrier in language learning.
Aside from age difference, language distance is another factor that I think about. Mandarin is very distant from English geographically, historically, and structurally. Learning English meant learning completely different phonological rules and morphological structures. For example, a syllable in Mandarin usually contains only a consonant and a vowel, whereas an English syllable can have several consonants together in a cluster, and a syllable can end with consonants. English also has a larger vocabulary than Mandarin. On the other hand, French and English are much closer, since they are both Indo-European languages and French heavily influenced English in its development. The two languages share many words that were either of the same origin or borrowed from one another. Even before I started learning French, I could figure out part of the French information on a snack package using the knowledge I already had in English.
Closeness of French and English shown in the Indo-European family tree. Source, emphasis by CLM.
I was often asked how many languages I speak when people learned that I study linguistics. The question frustrates me from time to time since linguists are not human-shaped Google Translate. Rather than learning languages themselves, they study everything about languages. However, learning a new language as a linguistics student is a fun experience and my journey learning French has just begun.
Michif is a language traditionally spoken by the Métis of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, across Canada, and even in North Dakota. The language has been the subject of intense discussions in linguistics because of its unique creation.
Professor Nicole Rosen of the University of Manitoba has studied Michif since she was a grad student, and has worked on an online dictionary to try to document and preserve the language. For all that makes Michif interesting and special, it has not received the attention from documentarians and revitalization efforts that it needs. It, unfortunately like so many of North America’s Indigenous languages, is on the brink of extinction. At stake is a language represents the two sides of Canadian history: the ancient history of Canada pre-contact, and the history of the settlers who arrived from Europe and moved west.
I had the great privilege to speak with Professor Rosen about this fascinating language.
Nicole Rosen : Well, Michif is a language that is spoken by a subgroup of the Métis people, and it is a mixture of French and Plains Cree, but also a little English and Ojibwe too.
MI : Where did Michif come from?
NR : Near as we can tell, it was formed at the beginning of the 19th century. It was spoken by the 1820s or 1830s, and it was formed in the Red River Valley (Which is around Winnipeg). It was formed largely by French settlers marrying Indigenous women; who created a new culture—the Métis culture—and who also created a new language.
MI : That’s much earlier than I had thought it would be, had the French settlers been in that area before the 1820s, and just not started to create this culture until then?
NR : There may have been a group before then, but the earliest records we have of the language is from that time. There were certainly traces of this language and culture before then, but it wasn’t until about the 1820s that this group was referred to collectively as a community called the Metis, or the Red River Metis. It wasn’t until then that we have a clear record of the Métis creating their own culture, and their own identity; that may not started start until the 1820s when settlers started coming this far west.
MI : And so today where would we find speakers of Michif?
NR : There are speakers in Manitoba in a few communities like Camperville, San Clara, and around Binscarth. There are other Métis communities with speakers in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and North Dakota. In the 1870s and 1880s the Métis were dispersed—or it may be more appropriate to say they fled the Red River Valley due to rebellions and battles. So they dispersed across the Prairies. The battle of 1885 is really the one that marked the end of the Métis settlements in the Red River Valley, Louis Riel was hanged, and the Michif language and Métis culture went into hiding after that.
Before that the Métis actually had a pretty good place in society because they were bi-cultural, multilingual, they knew their way around the land, and they often attended school, so they could trade between the groups of settlers and Indigenous peoples. Because of their dual heritage, they could often get along with either community : the First Nations or the settlers.
MI : So before 1885 they could be a part of both communities, and then after 1885 they weren’t really a part of either one?
NR : Yes, unfortunately then they really went into hiding, and it is really from that point that the Métis really begin to be marginalized. Also at that time, more and more French Quebecois were being recruited to settle the west: Quebecois who weren’t of “mixed blood”, and these new settlers really contributed to the marginalization of these “mixed” people.
MI : If the language went “underground” in a sense, that makes it all the more interesting that it was able to survive. The speakers were dispersed across the Prairies, and yet the language was able to survive.
NR : The Michif language really went into hiding. It was only spoken at home, it was not the language the Métis tended to use elsewhere. And there were some Métis communities that, after they spread out, they really just tried not to mix with the other communities to keep their culture alive. Part of the other side of their persecution and isolation is that their underground culture, and marginalized status, meant that they sometimes avoided being sent to residential schools. The residential schools tended to target the reservations, and a lot of Métis just lived out in the bush, off the land, and so some were able to keep their language, and avoid bringing attention to themselves. Certainly not all, or even most, but some were able to do this because they were so dispersed and remote.
MI : So would you say that that is part of the reason they were able to keep their language alive? Because they did keep themselves to themselves, and did try to avoid being a part of too many other communities?
NR : I think so. I mean, this is kind of a huge generalization. Because of the dispersed and multicultural nature of the Métis people, they are very diverse in their histories and experiences. This makes it very hard to generalize, or even say that something usually happened a certain way. Especially because Michif is just one of the languages of the Métis. They also speak a Métis variety of French, and a Métis variety of Cree, among other languages, and so when you try to describe this thing called Michif, it is somewhat ambiguous. Linguists know Michif as this “mixed” language [A creole is a language developed between two groups who develop a pidgin or simplified way of communicating, and eventually develops into a language. A mixed language develops thorough two languages intertwining because the groups are almost completely bilingual]. However, the Métis people see Michif as any one of several languages.
MI : So if you were to estimate, how many speakers would you say there are today?
NR : Our best estimates are a few hundred; however, we don’t really know because a speaker can check Michif on the census, but, as I said, Michif means three different languages, and so we don’t know which language people who say they speak Michif necessarily mean. Even when Michif is included in the census (2011), the numbers it comes out with are kind of meaningless unless you also know which language the speakers are referring to—a speaker can check the Michif box, but what does that mean: Michif French, Michif Cree, or the mixed Michif [There were 640 respondents in 2011’s census who reported Michif as a Mother Language].
MI : So when a Romance language (French) and an Algonquian First Nations language (Plains Cree) mix, what does that end up looking like?
NR : Well, people have differing views on what it looks like, but overall, it does look like it has a heavy influence from French, but it is mostly Plains Cree. The nouns and adjectives tend to come from French, and most of the verbs tend to come from Plains Cree. That’s very broadly speaking: in reality it isn’t exactly that cleanly split.
MI : Would someone who speaks French understand Michif better or worse than someone who speaks Cree?
NR : Someone who speaks Cree will understand Michif a little better than someone who speaks French, but it would still be very difficult. However, I do think the language, as a whole, is more like an Algonquian (First Nations) language than a Romance language like French. However, there is a large number of French words incorporated into it, and even sounds that exist in French, but not in Plains Cree, have become a part of Michif.
MI : So how did you first begin studying Michif? How did you even first hear about it?
NR : I think in the past most people hadn’t even heard of Michif—even here in Winnipeg. I think that is less true now, but it is still not widely known about. It was actually during my Master’s in French linguistics at the University of Toronto that I first heard of Michif. I had always been interested in French in contact with other languages, such as when it creates Creoles [like in the Caribbean].
When one studies languages in contact, there is always a section that covers “mixed languages”, and it is always the same example for a mixed language: Michif. There are others, but that is the one that is most commonly used as the example of a mixed language. I thought to myself, “Really? This is spoken here, in Canada, by the Métis people? I’m from Winnipeg, they speak Michif around there? I’ve never heard of it—I have to go and find out what this thing is.” That was really what started it all. I found out about Michif, and then I called the Manitoba Métis Federation when I was doing my Master’s, and I just asked if anyone spoke Michif, or if they could tell me anything about the language. It turns out they had just begun developing a Michif Language Project, and I started collaborating with them, which I continue to do today. It just all worked out.
[Here is a video of a Michif speaker singing “oh where, oh where has my little dog gone”. Credit : Manitoba Métis Foundation]
Thank you sincerely to Professor Nicole Rosen for her time and fascinating insight into the Michif language. Professor Rosen has done significant work with Métis elders who speak Michif in creating an online dictionary, and making recordings available on a linguistic atlas of the Algonquian languages here [An amazing and fun website to see where the speakers are across Canada]. Importantly, her work has involved listening to the Métis communities’ needs and goals in helping to revitalize and document their own language…or, as we’ve learned, languages.
The Métis have had a very different path toward the formation of that culture and community than many other groups. Their language and culture is young, and it has already had more than its fair share of trials and strife, yet the Métis culture, and the Michif languages continue to be celebrated today. Hopefully this fascinating language, that played such an important role in Canada’s history, will survive long into the future.
Prof. Rosen has provided several resources so you can learn more about Métis culture and Michif languages:
This week’s post concerns a variety of French (actually a variety inside a variety of French) that represents our two national languages very well. Chiac is a fascinating meld of French and English, and although it was not studied for many years, it has recently become the subject of linguistic research.
One of the people stepping up to study Chiac is Emilie LeBlanc, who is herself a native speaker. She was kind enough to explain to me what Chiac is, and why studying it is more than just about research: it is about changing public perceptions.
Emilie LeBlanc of York University
Michael Iannozzi : So I suppose, to start, what is Chiac?
Emilie LeBlanc : Chiac is a variety of Acadian French. For those who don’t know, Acadian French is a dialect of French that is spoken in Atlantic Canada, which is distinct from Quebec French and its offshoots, such as Ontario French. The difference is mainly due to the isolation of Acadians from other speakers over the course of several centuries: Acadian has retained a lot of the older features which have been lost in other French dialects. Chiac is a variety of Acadian which has been spoken in the Moncton, New Brunswick area for several decades. It is characterized by use of traditional Acadian dialectal forms in combination with code-switching (switching between French and English) and borrowings from English.
MI : Where is Chiac spoken?
EL : It is spoken in the Moncton area. However, it is important to note that not all Francophones in Moncton speak Chiac. Moncton has a diverse francophone population including people originally from the northeast and from all over la Francophonie, in part because the Université de Moncton is located there. It is also important to note that Chiac is not that different from varieties of Acadian French spoken in other parts of Atlantic Canada where there has been long-term contact with English.
MI : What caused it to develop separately from French and English?
EL : The Moncton area has been about 40% francophone and 60% Anglophone for several decades so almost all speakers are bilingual. Code-switching and borrowing are common in situations of intense language contact worldwide so the development of Chiac is not that surprising. By the way, many linguists today regard Chiac as a variety of French which has been influence by English, not as a separate language.
MI : How many speakers are there?
EL : This is a very difficult question to answer because census data asks for whether you speak English and/or French, not what dialect you speak. We know that there are approximately 54,000 French speakers in Moncton; however, not all of these speakers are Acadians, and not all of them speak Chiac.
MI : What makes it unique?
EL : Acadian French in itself is very interesting as it preserves older forms not found in many other varieties. For instance, in Nova Scotia you can hear young people using the older forms of the past tense, which many scholars have claimed hasn’t been part of spoken French for centuries. In all of the Acadian areas you can hear present tense verbal morphology, such as third person plural –ont (e.g. ils dansont “they are dancing”) which likewise disappeared from most spoken varieties centuries ago. The most striking aspect of Chiac for outsiders is the code-switching between French and English. You have to be a really good bilingual to shift effortlessly from one language to another within utterances.
MI : What does it looks like, and what does it sound like?
EL : To the untrained ear, Chiac sounds like a French person using a huge amount of English. This is because English is unexpected and stands out. Lexically, certain borrowings from English have replaced the French forms: for example, the discourse markers ‘but’ and ‘so’ have almost completely replaced their French counterparts mais and alors.
Chiac has also borrowed many English verbs but conjugates them in French. For example, ‘to walk’ becomes walk-er, ‘walked’ becomes walk-ait, and so on.
To more clearly show this distinction, here is an utterance by a Chiac speaker who I recorded as part of my MA research.
‘Apparently y’a un guy dans la band qui garde exactly comme lui. Yeah comme mes friends watchait les Brit Awards pis i étiont juste comme ‘what the wow quoi?’ Comme I’étions super confused. Cause i pensaient actually que c’était lui yeah’
As you see in this utterance, the discourse marker ‘yeah’ appears frequently [A discourse marker is just a word that is used during a pause, or to connect phrases, but doesn’t have much meaning on its own. A common English one is, “you know”]. Chiac speakers also use ‘well’ as a discourse marker. Chiac speakers also employ calques (translated expressions borrowed from English): for example garde in the example above is a shortened version of regarde which means “to look at” in Standard French. A Chiac speaker will use regarder in a general way [meaning “to look like” in this case] instead of using the Standard French verb ressembler.
However, Chiac has a much subtle variation which makes it quite interesting to linguists. I could do research on Chiac for my entire life and still not have uncovered everything.
MI : If someone speaks English or French, can they understand Chiac?
EL : Partly. English speakers can get the gist of simple utterances as the main borrowings are verbs and nouns. If a Chiac speaker says “J’vas aller parker mon car dans la driveway”, the English listener will hear ‘park’, ‘car’ and ‘driveway’, which can give him or her the sense of the utterance. French speakers who don’t know any English might have a harder time. French speakers who know English will understand most of the utterance but will probably miss some parts as Chiac is spoken quite fast. However, if a Chiac speaker says something like “Il avont back conté des menteries” an Anglophone is not going to understand but another Acadian will [“They used to tell lies”]. And Francophones from other areas will get the gist.
MI : Now turning to you, what first got you interested in the study of Chiac?
EL : I am a native speaker of Chiac and grew up thinking that the way I spoke was ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’. After studying linguistics, I realised that Chiac was actually incredibly interesting. To be a Chiac speaker you need to be fluent in both English and French, which actually tells us something about the linguistic competence of these speakers. Studying Chiac is very important to me, as speakers still believe that their speech is ‘bad French’. It is important that they realise how special it actually is.
MI : And your research on Chiac, how has it been conducted?
EL : I have interviewed students from the two French high schools in the area. As a native speaker myself, it is easy enough to do this. I am also planning on doing more interviews in 2015. In the future, I would also like to interview university students and adults since Chiac is clearly spoken by post-adolescents.
MI : What is the main goal of your research?
EL : I want Chiac to get more exposure. I also want to be able to understand the way it functions and its grammar. As it hasn’t been studied for very long by professional linguists, there is still a lot to learn about it.
MI : Do you find gender, age, or other factors that contribute to how much English or French a speaker uses?
EL : Since I have only looked at adolescent speech so far I haven’t found age or education differences. I also haven’t found gender differences. What I am really interested in is age-related differences: most of the work on Chiac has been with adolescents. We need to look across a wider age range.
MI : What is the public perception of Chiac?
EL : Chiac is a stigmatised variety in the community. The speakers are very aware of this, and they discuss it freely. In my interviews, the students often mention how they speak “bad French” and how they just aren’t good at French. They often compare their speech to other varieties that are “better”. Especially in the schools, these ideas are reinforced and students are chastised for ‘using English’ in their speech. Only recently has there been a surge of media that is created with Chiac, for example the tv show Acadieman, about Acadie’s first superhero, and with new bands like Les Jeunes d’Asteure.
MI : What do you think is the most important thing for the survival of Chiac in the future?
EL : If the stigmatization of Chiac ends, it would be great for the dialect. It would allow speakers to freely use the speech in any media and allow others to learn it.
MI : What has been your favourite part of your research? What do you love most about Chiac?
EL : My favorite part is discovering something new about Chiac that I didn’t know previously. Because I am a native speaker, a lot of aspects of Chiac come naturally to me, so when I begin thinking about the language linguistically, I find out really interesting things. Chiac is a part of who I am, and sadly I don’t get to speak it as much as I used to. I love listening to my participants, it brings me back to being a kid.
The very popular Acadieman, a comic book character who speaks Chiac (Source: YouTube)
A sincere thank you to Emilie LeBlanc for shedding some light on a variety of French/Acadian that I don’t think most people are aware of.
As she mentioned, it is important that, in every community nationwide, people feel validated for their dialect, accent, or speech variety. To feel that you speak “improperly”, or “the wrong way”, will affect everything you do. It is important that we emphasize that people speak in many different ways, but this should be celebrated rather than stigmatized.
When someone thinks of French in Canada, their first thought is usually of Quebec. If pressed to think of another French-speaking part of Canada, many will think of Acadian French (the French spoken in New Brunswick and other parts of the Maritimes). However, more than a million Francophones live outside Quebec, and half a million live in Ontario.
Professor Terry Nadasdi (University of Alberta) has done a great deal of research on French in Canada, and in particular in Ontario and the Prairies. There is a distinction made between Acadian French and what is called Laurentian French. Laurentian French is the French of Québec and the French spoken in Ontario and the Western Provinces. However, Professor Nadasdi has found that the French spoken in Canada isn’t the same everywhere. In particular, he argues that, outside Quebec, Francophones are always in the minority in at least the province, if not the community itself. This distinction makes the French in these communities different from that spoken in Quebec.
Because most French-speaking communities are in the minority, they are also rarely monolingual—they need to speak English to at least some degree in order to function in their communities. Professor Nadasdi is interested in finding how this knowledge of English impacts the French spoken by these minority communities.
He was kind enough to answer some questions I had about Laurentian French outside Quebec.
Flag of Franco-Albertans
Michael Iannozzi : What first brought you to study Laurentian French outside Quebec?
Terry Nadasdi : My interest in French outside of Quebec stems from my interest in bilingualism. For the most part, minority French and bilingualism go hand-in-hand. Since my background is in sociolinguistics, the topic provides me with an interesting opportunity to study both language use patterns of bilinguals and the impact of these patterns on linguistic forms.
MI : Why is it important to study the French spoken outside Quebec, and how do you expect it to differ from that of the major Quebecois cities that are often studied?
TN : The context in which the varieties are used is different, so we can expect some linguistic differences (related to bilingualism). That said, there will always be more similarities than differences, given that they are both Laurentian. It is important to study French in minority settings for a variety of reasons. First, it gives us insight into the language of bilinguals and gives credibility to the variety. Minority varieties are often stigmatized and performing research helps legitimize them and also reveals their complexities.
MI : Why is it important to study rural varieties and Franco-Ontarian?
TN : I think it is generally important to study minority varieties for the reasons outlined above. It gives them legitimacy and provides information about the range of variation in Canadian French. Another reason would be to provide resources for second language learners who will interact with Franco-Ontarians and also to allow the Franco-Ontarian education system to determine the extent to which the local variety differs from the standard one (i.e. the one used in schools).
MI : Why is it important to study rural varieties and Franco-Ontarian, and how do you expect, or how have you found they differ from Quebecois French?
TN : I guess the most important aspect is that bilingualism is central to their identity. Many speakers don’t consider themselves entirely French or English. This is generally viewed as positive. I don’t mean they are not linguistically competent in both, but rather their identity involves both simultaneously. Identify has to do with how you represent yourself when interacting with other, how you want them to see you. For example, some speakers purposely use anglicisms when speaking French to remind the listener that they are bilingual.
MI : What is the general health of French outside Quebec, and what do you feel is the best way to promote the use of French outside of Quebec in Canada?
TN : French is fairly well supported on an institutional level. However, monolingual Francophones are rare indeed. Immersion schools are highly effective, and in some regions help maintain French. Ideally, Francophones would always have their own schools. However, there are practical (financial) factors that limit this. Immersion schools are the next best thing. Access to education and cultural events are key to promoting the use of French outside Quebec. It’s also important to have media in French that can bring community members together.
MI : You have done a lot of work on minority French communities, how does the population makeup of a city or town affect the French usage and style of speakers?
TN : Generally, the more Francophones there are at the local level, the more the kind of French spoken resembles that of monolingual Francophones in Quebec. Furthermore, speakers in such communities have a better grasp on both the formal and informal registers. When there a few Francophones, the school becomes the main place where French is used and some informal variants fall by the wayside.
MI : Finally, is there any perception of French speakers outside Quebec that you’d like to clarify or change?
TN : Some believe that minority speakers have a poor mastery of both English and French. This reveals, though, a poor understanding of bilingualism and non-standard speech varieties.
Regarding the study and discussion surrounding French-language education in many provinces outside Quebec, the students of French-immersion schools are expected to learn, and speak, the Quebecois variety of French—even if they are already fluent in French, but just in an Ontarian or Prairie variety of it. There has been a great deal of discussion around the importance of letting students feel validated in speaking their own variety of French. In almost all language communities, there is a perceived “correct” way of speaking, and the other dialects or accents are considered substandard. Professor Nadasdi’s work is aiming to correct this perception. By providing research and statistics to these varieties of French, there is scientific evidence that the French isn’t subpar or of lower quality.
This effort is especially important because language is a part of identity. When older Francophones are asked how they identify they will likely say “French” or “French-Canadian”. However, younger speakers, who have grown up speaking both national languages, now often self-identify as “bilingual”. They feel that their ability to speak both French and English is not just a skill, but a part of who they are.
A sincere thank you to Professor Terry Nadasdi for taking the time to answer my questions and explain Laurentian French outside Quebec. Just as in English, where there have been stereotypes around “valley-girl”, southern American, or Newfoundland English dialects as being less intelligent; there are also stereotypes surrounding French accents. It is important to remember that the way someone speaks has no bearing on the validity or intelligence of what they are saying.
![[An Android App for learning the Michif language]](https://langmusecad.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/michif-to-go-icon.png){kind=icon}
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