Reply to What do France-French think of "French" people in Quebec?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read that the French spoken in Quebec is equivalent to what the English colonists spoke and that the language sounds more stagnant and old-fashioned to the French. Is this true?  In any event, Quebec is beautiful and I was so envious and impressed how the Quebecois switched effortless between English and French.[/quote]

The English colonists spoke English not French...[/quote]

What?? You're kidding. The English colonists spoke English?? I had no idea.

No. What I meant is that French language stagnated similarly to what it would sound like if we spoke colonial English today, hence the word "equivalent" and not "is" or "was."  In other words, Canadian French sounds like Ye Olde French to the French today.[/quote]

That's silly. Why would the French language "stagnate" in Quebec, any more than any other language? Every living language changes over time. [/quote]

I don’t know if that’s true. That’s why I’m asking.  Maybe stagnate wasn’t the right word.

From my Lonely Planet guide:

“Quebec settlers were relatively cut off from France once they arrived in the New World, so the French you hear today in the province, known colloquially as Quebecois, developed more or less independently from what was going on in France. The result is a rich local vocabulary, with its own idioms and sayings, and words used in every day speech that haven’t been spoken in France since the 1800s.”[/quote]

Right. So, modern Quebecois developed from the language spoken by the Quebec settlers, and modern French developed from the language spoken by the people who stayed in France. Just like modern American English developed from the language spoken by the English settlers, and modern English English developed from the language spoken by the people who stayed in England. American English also uses idioms and words that people in England no longer use (for example, "I had gotten lost" vs. "I had got lost)" but you wouldn't say that we're all running around speaking 1620s English.[/quote]

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