French in Canada - Couverture souple

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 3895865710 ISBN 13 : 9783895865718

Synopsis

Canadian French has had a long and remarkable history; it has been at home upon this continent for almost 400 years. From 1763 until recent times it survived upon its own, without substantial input from the mother country, France, which gave up its North American colonies at the Treaty of Paris. Because of its remarkable history Canadian French has several outstanding features. One of these is the existence of archaisms, of old words and expressions that have disappeared or died out in France, such as the old weights and measures that were in use before the coming of the metrical system at the time of the French Revolution of 1789. The Revolution, coming a quarter of a century after the Treaty of Paris, was largely irrelevant to Canada. Another was the borrowing of Amerindian terms for the different life experiences of the New World. Some of these, such as 'caribou', found their way into international French, others remain purely local borrowings. Then there is the development of a distinctive regional accent, which other speakers of French recognize as "Canadian". There is also the development of a distinctive form of expressive language that has led to Canadian francophones on holiday in Mexico being nicknamed 'los Tarbanacos' by the Mexicans. Finally there is the influence of English, since the francophone population in Canada, largely centred in the Province of Quebec, is surrounded by a continental sea of English.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. French is the mother tongue of about 6.7 million Canadians. While most native French speakers in Canada live in Quebec, where it is the majority and sole official language, about one million native francophones live in other provinces, forming sizeable minorities in Manitoba, New Brunswick which is officially a bilingual province and Ontario and significantly smaller communities in Alberta, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. Many, but not all, of these communities are supported by French-language institutions. While French, with no specification as to dialect or variety, has the status of one of Canada's two official languages at the federal government level, English is the native language of the majority of Canadians. The federal government provides services and operates in both languages. French is the sole official language in Quebec at the provincial level and is co-official with English in New Brunswick. The provincial governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba are required to provide services in French where justified by the number of francophones.

Détails de l'édition

• ISBN 10: 3895865710
• ISBN 13: 9783895865718
• Reliure: Broché
• Langue: anglais