I know family who went around Moncton, NB asking them if they were speaking French or EN in a parking lot. They said French. He replied: «Tes lights sont open»
I would also make a distinction between chiac and acadian french, which has a lot of older french words from the Poitou region of France that have fallen out of favour in France. Acadian French also has a lot of nautical expressions because of the heavy influence of the fishing industry. Your 2nd example is pure acadian french, as it does it not mixed with english. Chiac is the mixing of acadian french, and has mostly emerged from the 1960s onward. For example, my grand parents may speak mostly Acadian french but many of my cousins speak chiac. It's often a generational thing.
Il ya plusieurs termes marins en Acadie, effectivement. Mais même au Québec et au Madawaska, on dit «débarquer» d'une voiture, alors ça vient de «barque».
I am now in my 60s. I grew up in New England and spoke French as a child mostly with my Quebecer grandparents and some with my dad. In order to get an A in school, I would always study French right thru high school and college, but honestly today, like then, I have a rather difficult time understanding any of these languages, including spoken Québecois which my family spoke and what I heard all the time. I now live in Catalonia, Spain, where I speak Catalan (not Spanish), which is an old romance language originating in Les Pyrénées, Longuedoc-Rousillon, South of France. If you can read French, you can likley read and understand some Catalan.
@@NotLeftarded1 Aaaahhhh .... Acadian French is also difficult for me to hear properly and understand, like Quebecois. I hope you manage to one day visit Langeudoc Roussillon, then you can take a very easy day trip to neighboring Catalonia, Spain. In both places you will hear Catalan being spoken. Catalan and French are not mutually understood, but on paper, you can see the old French inside the Catalan langauge, especially the verbs in thier infitive states and certainly some nouns, liguistic rules. Catalan uses the same accents as French except for circumflex.
This is absolutely brilliant and a must see... je suis francophone québécoise et je n'étais pas ou peu au courant de ces différences... merci d'analyse les différents dialectes francophones d'outremer car ils sont peu documentés comparativement au régionalisme de France vs le français métropolitain parisien.
I’m from Quebec. An anglophone. But my ancestors came from France (primarily) in the late 1500’s. Surprisingly, Bryson and Chiac are both understood quite well.
Little correction: The "alle" in "Eweille, 'alle toi une buche..." doesn't come from the verbe "aller" as in going but rather "halle" toi une buch as in "haul yourself a tree trunk (seat)" The h being silent this context. In other acadian dialects, the H may be more pronounced, depending on the accent.
Yeah im from south east nb, i would say "hal toi une bunch" noticible h sound, pretty well a version of haul. We conjucate english verbs in french modes all over the place so therefore "hall-er"
And bûche doesn't mean tree trunk... It means a log of wood. "Enweille, mai don une aut'e bûche su' l'feu, y fais frette à soèr!" Pour awaèr une bûche, y faut ben couper el tron(c) d'arb' premier! (To get a log, ya first have to cut the tree trunk!) - Brayon person who moved away from home to live with the English & Acadians as a pre-teen, decades before the common use of the internet or access to something like TH-cam to try to connect with the folks from home & just hear the language of home! And yet still... We're mocked for not speaking French "properly."😔 And folks don't believe we're French/Acadian (NM Brayon) because we speak and write English "too well...” Welcome to what assimilation and education can do! 🙄🤯
That verb is in the dictionary, but it has a single L and is written without circumflex even though it sounds like â. Look for "haler" in Wiktionary. It doesn't come from English, it's a traditional word about sailing, and as sailing was very important in New France, many words specific to sailing became metaphors for something else, especially in coastal areas.
My family is from the Madawaska and Victoria counties, and very much Brayon. I mostly grew up in the southern part of NB. The second example you gave in Chiac, I was not fully able to follow, but the Brayon example I hear from my extended family all the time. When I studied in Quebec City, they kept correcting my French because it sounded wrong to them, but I was just speaking the way I learned. "Barrez la porte!" was considered an Anglicism the first time I said it to my colleagues. But no anglophone I ever spoke to refers to barring the door. So that was a weird response to me.
Barrer la porte derives from regional French spoken in the Poitou province. I'm from this part of France and we still use this phrase. People from other regions express surprise when we use it so I've stopped using it since I've settled in the Parisian suburb.
"Barrer la porte" is used throughout Quebec (the province) and probably in every French-speaking community in Canada, but it does not surprise me that teachers would be ignorant about what is correct, where does each word comes from, what is a language, and what's this mythical thing called "Standard French" and how it gets confused with "registre correct" and "how people speak in France"...
All of us in french louisana say "barrer la porte", and in English we never say "bar the door". And using bin (bien) for "very" (along with fort) is common as well.
Barrer meaning to lock is also common in Louisiana, as is the pronunciation of [k] as [tS] before front vowels, mostly the high ones. We don't say tchulotte but we say tchuillère, tchoeur, tcheue, cotchille, tchêter, tchamphrer, for example
I keep wondering what is uniquely Acadian, Louisianan or Québécois for example. They all have overlapping features that are probably just related to older, more widespread French features from past centuries. Thanks for watching!
100% on the barrer. but not everyone does the tch instead of que. more up in marksville maybe, but not in st martinville/lafayette. you DO hear "jeule" instead of gueule prety much everywhere , though.
@@markbordelon1601 Yeule is most common in Quebec ; I think in Acadie it's djeule. I've heard a few cases of the tch words when I was a kid in an Acadian part of Quebec, for example étchœurer.
I am a Montrealer with roots and extended family from NB, grey up bilingual. Chiac sounds so familiar and completely understandable to me, cool! Brayon sounds very close to rural Quebecers, and somewhat to the east-end of Montreal (Hochelaga). I can definitely tell the difference between Chiac and Brayon. Learned something cool today thanks!
Je suis Québécois d'origine brayonne et plusieurs personnes parlent très bien français, après être avoir être allé dans un hôpital du Sud-Est du NB, dans le coin de Sheddiac. Même chose à l'hôpital Dumont de Moncton. L'accent des gens est un peu diffrent sans plus. Mais je sais que la pression est forte entres jeunes pour chiaquer à l'école, selon quelqu'un de la famille éloignée.
Hi great job - I was from Edmundston originally but now I’m in GTA area and my kids are learning French in Ontario and even this is very different compared to Quebec - Acadien - Chiac and Brayon. So this will be good for my kids to see my real French lol. Good Job
I am Brayon born and raised... and we love our dialect! Well I do anyway loll ... and I write the way I speak ... although for some people who don't understand me I will make an effort to actually speak proper French :) and it gets to me every time someone calls the PLOYES pancakes O_o ... loll
Ployes are not pancakes or worse... plugues! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 I'm sending you extra ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ because I can only like your comment once. (Ouais... Y'a qqun qui a app'lé les ployes des plugues... El chœur m'a r'viré dans l'estoma!🤯)
@@PrplPoppySystem même chose pour moé! Mais c'est plus les Québecois qui appelle sa des plugues loll (entk de mon expérience la) Je sais pas de ou tu vient mais sa fait du bien de lire kek un qui parle comme moé lolll
Très intéressant, tous ces dialectes dérivés du français ! Ça fait plaisir d'entendre les racines de notre magnifique langue... Vive Le Québec, vive le Nouveau-Brunswick, vive l'Acadie !!! ❤ de FRANCE
I notice different accents right away when the Brayonne French was being spoken from my parents and grandparents Acadian French from the Tracadie NB and Caraquet NB area of New Brunswick. When my parents and I use to to drive to New Brunswick from Ontario I notice the difference in accents right away when we would stop for breakfast in Edmundston NB which is also known as the capital of the Republic of Madawaska.
They speak a French dialect of their original region in France. As french migration and settlement in north America stopped in 1815 they became bilingual and their native language was not renewed and mixed with other spoken french. Plus they have no schools to teach and transmit their language. Shame that French republic completely forgot and abandonned these communities, we can an find French schools all around the world except in this part of north America.
I am from New Brunswick. I understand Brayon very well but I honestly struggle with Chiac. I have trouble switching between English and French. My francophone family is from the Restigouche Region, next door to Madawaska, so that probably helps.
Oui tu es right. Ici on park le car dans le parking lot. Mon grand grand grand père a venu ici de Quebec ils a u une femme Acadienne. Je crois ils aiment pas le facon on parle. sorry for all the grammar errors I spend 80% of my life in English that's what being a minority is really like, something you Quebecers know nothing about with 95% French in your community. Many times when I visited Quebec not even treated like the brother I am.
I keep telling people I am French Canadian and being asked to speak French and when I come out speaking Brayon they never seem to believe me, thinking I just learned it from TV or something. You speak very locally when you are raised in an old folks home and only go to school in French till grade 8, then an English high school, and don't speak French for 10 years. So, therefore, my dialect is very localized and childish, how you'd expect 13 year-olds to talk in Clair on the school playground. That, and I have been working in American factories for the last 4 years, so I interact with a large number of immigrants on a daily basis, primarily people from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, so I am also losing a lot of my french as my colloquialisms slip into Spanish territory. So, when I am looking for something to say, I used to say "eettttttt euuuhhhh parce-queee" but now it seems more natural to say "yyyyy uhhh ahoraaa sii" As for the questions at the end, as a Brayon who's family had been in the general area for many generations, I sometimes have a hard time telling the differences between Brayon and Chiac just because they're so similar, but make the distinction based on the accent. It's definitely hard to explain, but to the trained ear, you can tell. Same as when you're British and you can tell where someone's accent is from.
Right? And people from the Brayon area can tell which small town folks are from by their unique, almost familial, colloquialisms. "Mon 'arçon" is the one I remember best... Anyone comes from Sainte-Anne will say it in a way unique to them.
What about the French spoken in Northeastern part of New Brunswick like in Tracadie-Shelia or in Caraquet NB? My family is from around the Miramichi City area. But my grandparents and the other older generation came from Tracadie and Legacéville
Another difference is that most of my family speak the "r" towards the front of the mouth. The narrator here continually sounds the "r" in the back of his throat as in Standard French.
ersoud is ressoud with metathesis of the prefix [r@] to [@r~Er]. Ressoudre means to show up. That's the exact situation in Louisiana in any case, don't see a reason to say its any different up there.
Ressort is a spring (slinky spring...) In Brayon pronounced ’ersor' not to be confused with "'arsor' moé d'icitte toé!” (Re-sors moi d'ici toi!" Meaning "Get me outta here you!" usually said in shock. If the "moé" is missing, be careful about what comes next. It could still be a statement said in shock, or it could essentially be a threat to life and limb as if you tracked mud on a freshly washed floor. Context is all in the tone which can never be read without context clues. Ressoudre could be an old way of saying "Résoudre." Remember that the letter "s" in French was later replaced by accents. Résoudre means to solve. To solve anything as a group, people have to show up. The question is... How did the Indigenous Communities of the Wabanaki Confederacy (especially the Mi'kmaq'i, Wolastoqey, and Passamoquady People) influence the language and the meaning of the word...
@@PrplPoppySystem résoudre and ressoudre are distinct verbs with distinct history. True that many cases of "es" became "ê" or "é", but not this one. It didn't happen in front of a vowel or another s. So, "escole" can become "école", et "fresne" can become "frêne", but "ressoudre" can't become "résoudre". "ressoudre" actually comes from "sourdre", with an extra r and which is a cousin of "surgir".
Pure Brayon here... In your last example, the dude should’ve said: « ...le moteur stâllait », not « stoolait ». His motor kept stalling. Aside from that, good job!
as a belgian, i can understand brayon(sounds a bit like old french my great grand parents were speaking). for Chiac i have to put it at 0.5 speed to get half of it
There are similarities to the way we speak French in Louisiana, such as the use of nautical terms for onshore navigation and old French words. Also, "je suis" is often pronounced as "shoo", especially in French speaking communities west of the Atchafalaya Basin. Thank you for the interesting video.
5:00 It's the ACADIAN EXPRESSION of those NATIVE TO THE LAND YOU SPEAK OF, Chu Ben broke - emphasis on Irony Boy am I short of money but yet I'm always on the go. G manquer dgas - My inner light died out when that situation occured, the passion played peek a boo with me. HOPE THIS WAS INFORMATIVE TO YOUR DISSECTION OF A COMMUNITY 🙏🏼❤️👣🎀
As a brayon, this is hilarious to watch but I'm also very appreciative that you put this out there! But "pi s'quand est-ce s'quon arsoud chenous" is actually "et puis, c'est quand est-ce qu'ont arrivent chez nous?"
Arsoud, ou Ar'sons? If it's more ar'sons, then it becomes: "Et puis, c'est quand est-ce que nous re-serons nous chez nous?" Which is more than a mouthful! It's translated to: "So, when are we going to be back to our home?" Serons is a conjugated form of the verb être, which is to be. Adding the "re" prefix (if you will) to the verb, means again, or in this case, to be (back home) again. See: Voir, revoir as an example.
The ximertracks comments r spam... But great job on this video im proud to be part of this to make the example sentences and talking about my language from my natal part of the country and hope everyone is safe during this crisis
This video has gotten more views than I have every gotten on a video in the first 5 hours. More than 200 views.. how is this possible?!? Thank you for the suggestion on your French variety. This is helping this channel a lot!
@@langshack4552 Yeah I got some publicity skills haha I just posted it on different facebook group like : Edmundston Newz Chasers & Notre Madawaska and even on the most popular teacher on my school and even the mayor of my hometown and they liked it so maybe it could be used to play in schools in my hometown or around and being used in history class and for the views you desirve this :)
I’m chiac! The way we speak is often labeled as “not correct”. But, that’s just how we communicate. Speaking Chiac doesn’t mean we are less educated or loosing our French. There is no good french or bad French. Also, the way you pronounced Shediac and Moncton made me cringe ahaha
I apologize, outside of my one informant, and web pages, I had very little info to go on. How do you pronounce those cities? Thank you for watching though.
LangShack oh no no I love that you are talking about where I’m from! It doesn’t really get recognized that much. I loved it! Also, you really nailed your facts on Chiac and brayon (don’t know how to spell that lol.) It’s so true that people are very divided on if Chiac should be spoken because some say that we are loosing our French. (Teachers often don’t allow us to talk Chiac in our classrooms) And others celebrate it because it’s our culture. And your brayon accent is spot on! ..So how to prononce Moncton and Shediac.. it’s actually kind of hard to explain lol. Usually “on” would be the way you said it, but in Moncton, it’s kind of like “Monk - tin” (those are English words). And Shediac is said like “Chez - Dit- Yak“. The word “chez” and “dit” are French words that you can search up on how to pronounce. And the “yak” is like “ya” and then a “k” sound at the end
I have lived in both eastern and western Canada and have always heard Shediac pronounced shed-ee-ack and Moncton pronounced monk-tuhn (the last syllable sounding similar to the last syllable in Downton).
Bellacee yes the moncton is right. How you pronounced Shediac is how English people say it. But Shediac is actually a French community, so it’s said a little bit differently. But you’re right
3:53 er tu dsou and on er sou chenous, dsou to be under. Get it? Tu high? Tu drunk? Tu dsus? Are you "here" is what dsou ersou tudsou ju dsou. On Vous Voix pa, major influence on our dialect when speaking between Acadians and French dialect. At its most basic core of simplicity of course! Just a different voice to hear, being native of one of the areas you mentioned.
Envoye, hâle-toi une bûche, viens faire de la petite jasette, un peu ... (Come on, pull a cut log, come have a little talk for a while) Hâler= tirer (Haul in English). La bûche = cut log approx 45cm for firewood; une bûche standing on end made a seat for lumberjacks or farmers way back when. Barrer la porte is not unique to Brayon, it is all over French Canada. CH'uis ben Broke= I'm broke, I have no money. Chiac is just a mixture of 2 languages, English and French, partly from lack of education of some ancestors, partly from old French, partly to poke fun, partly because some expressions or words illustrate ideas better in a language than the other, and vice versa.une expression: chtia = celui là, this one. I find it amusing. Je la trouve amusante, celle-là, chtia!
Sorry about the person who was un-constructively critical of your pronunciation. I don`t write phonetics, but in english [kebek] [kabek] and [kébékwa] is the approximate goal. Should sound simple, basically like 'k's and single vowels. I think what bothers that person is there should be no 'w' after the first 'Q', but it is likely the most common anglo accent and doesn't sound nice. For experts, the 'ois' at the end makes a similar sound to 'w', but isn't, so should be kept to a minimum. There should be no 'h' sound. Examples to avoid: [kwibec], [kwabek] [kahhhhbek], [kebekwwaahhh] Personal comment -> buche = log. Pull up a log. I've never heard the type of tree was relevant. Sounds elitist, lol. I'm not sure I can tell the difference between the two languages, but coming from the western provinces, they make more sense to me than Québécois slang. To me, Brayon/Chiac took the best words from different languages, as the speakers were often multilingual. For older Quebec slang, it comes from a lack of vocabulary, as only unilingual Québec francophones speak Québec slang. So the choice of which words are anglicised doesn`t follow the same logic. This has changed recently with more diversity in Montreal and the arts in general.
Definitely not French from Quebec. I speak fluent French. Quebec French or France French and I can hardly understand any of this. Sometimes I can figure it out as I speak English as well but some of the sample I don't understand at all what they're talking about.
May wanna rethink the language content aspect, if you miss out the explanation that dialect and expression are native to those who speak it, it's a nightmare trap.
Comme francophone du NB je n’ai jamais vraiement accroché au Chiac (j’habite Moncton depuis 30 ans et je viens de la péninsule acadienne). Vrai que dans le nord (nord-ouest, nord-est) le fait que le Québec est tout près aide beaucoup à avoir des racines fortes en français. Je vais me faire «lancer des roches» mais j’ai toujours pensé que le Chiac était de la paresse pour ne pas parler un meilleur français, désolé de le dire. Je peux comprendre la pression sociale ; un jeune à l’école dans le sud-est va faire rire de lui si il essaie de trouver les bons mot en français. En général les gens du sud-est du NB n’ont aucune fierté à parler un français de base. Je ne parle pas de parler un français de France mais juste ne pas constamment avoir de l’anglais lorsqu’ils s’expriment. Si quelqu’un me dit : «well cecitte cé de la way que j’parle pi c’est right okay» je vais lui dire de laisser les bouts en français et puis de parler uniquement en anglais.
Le Chiac c'est funny tho. Aussi la communcation est efficace si les gens se comprend, c'est parfaitment arbitraire de dire aux gens de "Laisser les bouts en francais" t'es juste un Buzzkill lol
You shouldn't have said Moncton in a French way , its an English name. We say it properly here . J'aime les anglais ils sont pas des bébé la la comme mes peuples francophone.
Well... If you really want to know why they sound like hillbillies, you need to understand some important history... Like the Deportation of 1755 and the Seven Year War, how those Acadians who were NOT deported by the British American Colonists AND survived being hunted down like wild animals & scalped by them for about 10 years - with much thanks to the Indigenous People of the Wabanaki Confederacy who also suffered great losses during that time & beyond. Like how the Acadian Deportation was essentially a genocide, considering that over half of those deported died. Nevermind the negative effects of the trauma of being torn away from family to board the boats, and if you survived the trip to one of the 13 Colonies, while the colony took months -even up to a year- deciding what to do with you, you would not be allowed off the boat, or if you're lucky the warf, where you watch whatever little family & friends you have die from exposure, disease, and starvation. If you survived THAT, then you would be separated from the few survivors who were now your only family AGAIN, and be sent to live in small groups throughout that particular colony. In some colonies, you could be sold, against your will, into indentured servitude - only to be released from the contract once you turned 21... with nothing in return. If you were lucky, you were able to cling to whatever "family" you recreated for yourself, and lived in abject poverty rather than be sold off, unable to have a land claim, unable to grow food for your family, barely able to work to pay for the most basics of necessities. The birth rate among Acadians during this time dropped significantly, but didn't hit zero. The goal of all of this? To separate the Acadians from each other so that they would no longer be French or Catholic, and that they would abandon their idyllic notions of being independent from the European Empires. THAT kinda backfired on the British... It wasn't ten years after the end of the Seven Year War that the idea of American independence from the British Empire grew throughout the Colonies. (I wonder why? 🎆⬜🟥) After the Seven Year War, some Acadians settled where they were, many tried to return "home" - of which many would die on their journey - or others went to settle in Louisiana, where they were given land grants, goods, livestock, and money in order to settle in Louisiana. Like how, during and after the American Revolution (which as we said was greatly influenced and impacted by the Acadian Deportation) the British Loyalists not only displaced Acadians AGAIN, but ordered that there be a maximum of 10 Acadian families that could move to a given area, and that that community could not get larger than 1000 people. These areas were to be well and faraway from any English community. Some, like my ancestors, were told to settle on an Indigenous Reserve. That cost the government a pretty penny! For the next number of decades, the Acadians were denied medical care, education, religious access in French, and even banking. (See: farmersbank.ca/discover-rustico/farmers-bank-of-rustico/ for more information...) And even once they were allowed to have access to education, they mostly got English teachers to come teach them French. IF an Acadian family in New Brunswick (I can't speak for Acadiens in other locations) moved to an English community to find better work, their employers would ban them from speaking French. I can her you say that this makes sense... Don't speak French at work. It went further than that! The entire family was banned from speaking French, even in their own home! If a passerby overheard a person, even a child, speak French from an open window, the employee (usually the dad) would lose his job. This was still going on in the 1960's. I personally know Acadians who cannot speak any French at all, even though their own parents were fluent. The Capital of New Brunswick, the only Officialy Bilingual Province in Canada did not have a French High School until after I started to go to school, even though it had a population split of about 25-30% French and the rest English - with a sizeable Indigenous Community and smaller numbers of different immigrant communities. In the French school here, and in the French Immersion program - because I went through both - we were taught Metropolitan French, and because we lived in a primarily antigonistic English community, we rarely spoke French away from school. There was only ONE French radio station until the late 90's... It was talk radio so no access to French music before then, French movies were a rarity (I only ever remember seeing one), and the last time I lived there about 15 years ago, it was still impossible to buy a French magazine, French greeting cards, French Valentine's Day Cards for the kids to pass out in school, and you could only get a small assortment of French books from the Big Box Book Store in town. Oh, and we had access to a handful of French TV channels, which was better than the ONE from when I was a child. In small French towns along the East and North coasts of New Brunswick, you could catch English TV if you had cable, but you could have up to 3 French TV channels, you could get French radio, but it might be full of static compared to the English Radio, and you had access to both French and English books and cards in small stores because department stores were a rare sight in these small towns. In fact, we remember when the first big department store came to Madawaska County, where we lived in our early childhood. So why do we sound like hillbillies? Because the English have tried, for over 250 years to erase us, who we are, our culture, our language, our history, by denying us our basic human rights such as access to education. That's why I'm not surprised that the person who wrote the first draft of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is a lawyer from a small town in New Brunswick. Look him up: John Peters Humphrey.
As an acadian, thank you for spreading knowledge about our quiet culture!
I know family who went around Moncton, NB asking them if they were speaking French or EN in a parking lot. They said French.
He replied: «Tes lights sont open»
I would also make a distinction between chiac and acadian french, which has a lot of older french words from the Poitou region of France that have fallen out of favour in France. Acadian French also has a lot of nautical expressions because of the heavy influence of the fishing industry. Your 2nd example is pure acadian french, as it does it not mixed with english. Chiac is the mixing of acadian french, and has mostly emerged from the 1960s onward. For example, my grand parents may speak mostly Acadian french but many of my cousins speak chiac. It's often a generational thing.
I felt number 2 could easily be Brayon as well.
Il ya plusieurs termes marins en Acadie, effectivement. Mais même au Québec et au Madawaska, on dit «débarquer» d'une voiture, alors ça vient de «barque».
I am now in my 60s. I grew up in New England and spoke French as a child mostly with my Quebecer grandparents and some with my dad. In order to get an A in school, I would always study French right thru high school and college, but honestly today, like then, I have a rather difficult time understanding any of these languages, including spoken Québecois which my family spoke and what I heard all the time. I now live in Catalonia, Spain, where I speak Catalan (not Spanish), which is an old romance language originating in Les Pyrénées, Longuedoc-Rousillon, South of France. If you can read French, you can likley read and understand some Catalan.
I'm an Acadian in NB , my family came from Languedoc Roussillon. Just wanted to say hello . Hi 👋 bonjour, allô , salut.
@@NotLeftarded1 Aaaahhhh .... Acadian French is also difficult for me to hear properly and understand, like Quebecois. I hope you manage to one day visit Langeudoc Roussillon, then you can take a very easy day trip to neighboring Catalonia, Spain. In both places you will hear Catalan being spoken. Catalan and French are not mutually understood, but on paper, you can see the old French inside the Catalan langauge, especially the verbs in thier infitive states and certainly some nouns, liguistic rules. Catalan uses the same accents as French except for circumflex.
This is absolutely brilliant and a must see... je suis francophone québécoise et je n'étais pas ou peu au courant de ces différences... merci d'analyse les différents dialectes francophones d'outremer car ils sont peu documentés comparativement au régionalisme de France vs le français métropolitain parisien.
Ce n'est pas d'outre mer c'est du nouveau Brunswick et du Maine (USA)
I’m from Quebec. An anglophone. But my ancestors came from France (primarily) in the late 1500’s. Surprisingly, Bryson and Chiac are both understood quite well.
Little correction: The "alle" in "Eweille, 'alle toi une buche..." doesn't come from the verbe "aller" as in going but rather "halle" toi une buch as in "haul yourself a tree trunk (seat)" The h being silent this context. In other acadian dialects, the H may be more pronounced, depending on the accent.
Yeah im from south east nb, i would say "hal toi une bunch" noticible h sound, pretty well a version of haul. We conjucate english verbs in french modes all over the place so therefore "hall-er"
In edmundston we use the "h" sound , we say , " halle toé une buche"
And bûche doesn't mean tree trunk... It means a log of wood. "Enweille, mai don une aut'e bûche su' l'feu, y fais frette à soèr!" Pour awaèr une bûche, y faut ben couper el tron(c) d'arb' premier! (To get a log, ya first have to cut the tree trunk!)
- Brayon person who moved away from home to live with the English & Acadians as a pre-teen, decades before the common use of the internet or access to something like TH-cam to try to connect with the folks from home & just hear the language of home! And yet still... We're mocked for not speaking French "properly."😔 And folks don't believe we're French/Acadian (NM Brayon) because we speak and write English "too well...” Welcome to what assimilation and education can do! 🙄🤯
That verb is in the dictionary, but it has a single L and is written without circumflex even though it sounds like â. Look for "haler" in Wiktionary. It doesn't come from English, it's a traditional word about sailing, and as sailing was very important in New France, many words specific to sailing became metaphors for something else, especially in coastal areas.
One mistake in here, "chu bin broke" means "i am broke" as in out of money! Just to let you know! (I am from the area)
Even though some people might use it differently depending on which parts of northwestern NB it is used. I never heard it used differently though
That was in an example sentence I had in my resources, so I apologize for that. Thank you for pointing that out, and for watching!
Nous autres ont dit pas on est broke. On dit on a pis une c$#% de cent.
My family is from the Madawaska and Victoria counties, and very much Brayon. I mostly grew up in the southern part of NB. The second example you gave in Chiac, I was not fully able to follow, but the Brayon example I hear from my extended family all the time. When I studied in Quebec City, they kept correcting my French because it sounded wrong to them, but I was just speaking the way I learned. "Barrez la porte!" was considered an Anglicism the first time I said it to my colleagues. But no anglophone I ever spoke to refers to barring the door. So that was a weird response to me.
Barrer la porte derives from regional French spoken in the Poitou province. I'm from this part of France and we still use this phrase. People from other regions express surprise when we use it so I've stopped using it since I've settled in the Parisian suburb.
"Barrer la porte" is used throughout Quebec (the province) and probably in every French-speaking community in Canada, but it does not surprise me that teachers would be ignorant about what is correct, where does each word comes from, what is a language, and what's this mythical thing called "Standard French" and how it gets confused with "registre correct" and "how people speak in France"...
Actually in Australia they say "bar the entrance" which ironically has a French loanword in it.
All of us in french louisana say "barrer la porte", and in English we never say "bar the door". And using bin (bien) for "very" (along with fort) is common as well.
Barrer meaning to lock is also common in Louisiana, as is the pronunciation of [k] as [tS] before front vowels, mostly the high ones. We don't say tchulotte but we say tchuillère, tchoeur, tcheue, cotchille, tchêter, tchamphrer, for example
I keep wondering what is uniquely Acadian, Louisianan or Québécois for example. They all have overlapping features that are probably just related to older, more widespread French features from past centuries. Thanks for watching!
100% on the barrer. but not everyone does the tch instead of que. more up in marksville maybe, but not in st martinville/lafayette. you DO hear "jeule" instead of gueule prety much everywhere , though.
@@markbordelon1601 Yeule is most common in Quebec ; I think in Acadie it's djeule. I've heard a few cases of the tch words when I was a kid in an Acadian part of Quebec, for example étchœurer.
It’s also common expression in some part of France. In Vendée for example.
very good explanation...I'm Brayon living in the republic of Madawaska....we still use the moto in Edmundston NB...
Loved it!!!!
Thank you for watching and I greatly appreciate the comment!
I am a Montrealer with roots and extended family from NB, grey up bilingual. Chiac sounds so familiar and completely understandable to me, cool! Brayon sounds very close to rural Quebecers, and somewhat to the east-end of Montreal (Hochelaga). I can definitely tell the difference between Chiac and Brayon. Learned something cool today thanks!
Je suis Québécois d'origine brayonne et plusieurs personnes parlent très bien français, après être avoir être allé dans un hôpital du Sud-Est du NB, dans le coin de Sheddiac. Même chose à l'hôpital Dumont de Moncton. L'accent des gens est un peu diffrent sans plus. Mais je sais que la pression est forte entres jeunes pour chiaquer à l'école, selon quelqu'un de la famille éloignée.
Hi great job - I was from Edmundston originally but now I’m in GTA area and my kids are learning French in Ontario and even this is very different compared to Quebec - Acadien - Chiac and Brayon. So this will be good for my kids to see my real French lol. Good Job
Hopefully they’ll prefer to speak your kind of French with you! Keep that French alive!! Thanks for watching!
I am Brayon born and raised... and we love our dialect! Well I do anyway loll ... and I write the way I speak ... although for some people who don't understand me I will make an effort to actually speak proper French :) and it gets to me every time someone calls the PLOYES pancakes O_o ... loll
Ployes are not pancakes or worse... plugues! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
I'm sending you extra ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ because I can only like your comment once. (Ouais... Y'a qqun qui a app'lé les ployes des plugues... El chœur m'a r'viré dans l'estoma!🤯)
@@PrplPoppySystem même chose pour moé! Mais c'est plus les Québecois qui appelle sa des plugues loll (entk de mon expérience la) Je sais pas de ou tu vient mais sa fait du bien de lire kek un qui parle comme moé lolll
@@XaTiDa Pareille!
@@PrplPoppySystem moé je vient de Edmundston :)
Thanks. my father spoke chiac it's nice to see someone keeping our dying dialect alive.
Dying dialect? Everything I've heard is that Chiac is on the rise, especially amongst younger people around Moncton.
Comme Francophone Belge, j'aime entendre le parler de nos cousins d'Amerique. A Liege ,nous parlons le Wallon Liegeois
l'Amérique _du Nord_ s'il vous plaît.
Très intéressant, tous ces dialectes dérivés du français ! Ça fait plaisir d'entendre les racines de notre magnifique langue... Vive Le Québec, vive le Nouveau-Brunswick, vive l'Acadie !!! ❤ de FRANCE
I notice different accents right away when the Brayonne French was being spoken from my parents and grandparents Acadian French from the Tracadie NB and Caraquet NB area of New Brunswick. When my parents and I use to to drive to New Brunswick from Ontario I notice the difference in accents right away when we would stop for breakfast in Edmundston NB which is also known as the capital of the Republic of Madawaska.
They speak a French dialect of their original region in France. As french migration and settlement in north America stopped in 1815 they became bilingual and their native language was not renewed and mixed with other spoken french. Plus they have no schools to teach and transmit their language. Shame that French republic completely forgot and abandonned these communities, we can an find French schools all around the world except in this part of north America.
"Barrer la porte" is common in Québec and Louisiane.
I am from New Brunswick. I understand Brayon very well but I honestly struggle with Chiac. I have trouble switching between English and French. My francophone family is from the Restigouche Region, next door to Madawaska, so that probably helps.
As a Québécois I would say Brayon is much closer to Quebec french whereas Chiac sounds much more english to my ears. They are quite distinct to me.
Oui tu es right. Ici on park le car dans le parking lot. Mon grand grand grand père a venu ici de Quebec ils a u une femme Acadienne. Je crois ils aiment pas le facon on parle. sorry for all the grammar errors I spend 80% of my life in English that's what being a minority is really like, something you Quebecers know nothing about with 95% French in your community. Many times when I visited Quebec not even treated like the brother I am.
i love la canada we are so diverse! yipee!! je suis bin!
I grew up in Moncton and went to Louisiana and had a bon time mange fruit de mer and music
I keep telling people I am French Canadian and being asked to speak French and when I come out speaking Brayon they never seem to believe me, thinking I just learned it from TV or something.
You speak very locally when you are raised in an old folks home and only go to school in French till grade 8, then an English high school, and don't speak French for 10 years. So, therefore, my dialect is very localized and childish, how you'd expect 13 year-olds to talk in Clair on the school playground.
That, and I have been working in American factories for the last 4 years, so I interact with a large number of immigrants on a daily basis, primarily people from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, so I am also losing a lot of my french as my colloquialisms slip into Spanish territory. So, when I am looking for something to say, I used to say "eettttttt euuuhhhh parce-queee" but now it seems more natural to say "yyyyy uhhh ahoraaa sii"
As for the questions at the end, as a Brayon who's family had been in the general area for many generations, I sometimes have a hard time telling the differences between Brayon and Chiac just because they're so similar, but make the distinction based on the accent. It's definitely hard to explain, but to the trained ear, you can tell. Same as when you're British and you can tell where someone's accent is from.
Right? And people from the Brayon area can tell which small town folks are from by their unique, almost familial, colloquialisms. "Mon 'arçon" is the one I remember best... Anyone comes from Sainte-Anne will say it in a way unique to them.
What about the French spoken in Northeastern part of New Brunswick like in Tracadie-Shelia or in Caraquet NB? My family is from around the Miramichi City area. But my grandparents and the other older generation came from Tracadie and Legacéville
Another difference is that most of my family speak the "r" towards the front of the mouth. The narrator here continually sounds the "r" in the back of his throat as in Standard French.
When trying to listen carefully to another language, background music is an uneccesary hindrance.
in Saguenay we say arsoudre too to mean arriver
ersoud is ressoud with metathesis of the prefix [r@] to [@r~Er]. Ressoudre means to show up. That's the exact situation in Louisiana in any case, don't see a reason to say its any different up there.
I couldn’t find anything, “errer sous” was what I came across. This makes perfect sense though. Thank you for sharing!
Ressort is a spring (slinky spring...) In Brayon pronounced ’ersor' not to be confused with "'arsor' moé d'icitte toé!” (Re-sors moi d'ici toi!" Meaning "Get me outta here you!" usually said in shock. If the "moé" is missing, be careful about what comes next. It could still be a statement said in shock, or it could essentially be a threat to life and limb as if you tracked mud on a freshly washed floor. Context is all in the tone which can never be read without context clues.
Ressoudre could be an old way of saying "Résoudre." Remember that the letter "s" in French was later replaced by accents. Résoudre means to solve. To solve anything as a group, people have to show up. The question is... How did the Indigenous Communities of the Wabanaki Confederacy (especially the Mi'kmaq'i, Wolastoqey, and Passamoquady People) influence the language and the meaning of the word...
@@PrplPoppySystem résoudre and ressoudre are distinct verbs with distinct history. True that many cases of "es" became "ê" or "é", but not this one. It didn't happen in front of a vowel or another s. So, "escole" can become "école", et "fresne" can become "frêne", but "ressoudre" can't become "résoudre". "ressoudre" actually comes from "sourdre", with an extra r and which is a cousin of "surgir".
Pure Brayon here... In your last example, the dude should’ve said: « ...le moteur stâllait », not « stoolait ». His motor kept stalling. Aside from that, good job!
Yea same moi tou chu brayon and I just wanted to add that “stoolait” means tattletaling or just telling on someone
as a belgian, i can understand brayon(sounds a bit like old french my great grand parents were speaking). for Chiac i have to put it at 0.5 speed to get half of it
more than 1 400 Thats great !!! I helped you by sharing this on facebook
This is seriously insane to me hahahahaha and I thank you so much for helping me!
There are similarities to the way we speak French in Louisiana, such as the use of nautical terms for onshore navigation and old French words. Also, "je suis" is often pronounced as "shoo", especially in French speaking communities west of the Atchafalaya Basin. Thank you for the interesting video.
5:00 It's the ACADIAN EXPRESSION of those NATIVE TO THE LAND YOU SPEAK OF, Chu Ben broke - emphasis on Irony Boy am I short of money but yet I'm always on the go. G manquer dgas - My inner light died out when that situation occured, the passion played peek a boo with me. HOPE THIS WAS INFORMATIVE TO YOUR DISSECTION OF A COMMUNITY 🙏🏼❤️👣🎀
this is very close to our quebec french actually!
As a brayon, this is hilarious to watch but I'm also very appreciative that you put this out there! But "pi s'quand est-ce s'quon arsoud chenous" is actually "et puis, c'est quand est-ce qu'ont arrivent chez nous?"
Another native speaker told me what they meant and recorded it hah, I just took his notes and posted this 😅
Arsoud, ou Ar'sons? If it's more ar'sons, then it becomes:
"Et puis, c'est quand est-ce que nous re-serons nous chez nous?" Which is more than a mouthful! It's translated to: "So, when are we going to be back to our home?" Serons is a conjugated form of the verb être, which is to be. Adding the "re" prefix (if you will) to the verb, means again, or in this case, to be (back home) again. See: Voir, revoir as an example.
i understand brayon more cuz i lived closer to new-brunswick when i was younger. I sometime speak like one without realising it xd
There are some similarities between Chiac/Brayon with Eastern Ontario French.
Une buche is a log for us (grand sault)
As in "bûche de Noël"
The ximertracks comments r spam... But great job on this video im proud to be part of this to make the example sentences and talking about my language from my natal part of the country and hope everyone is safe during this crisis
This video has gotten more views than I have every gotten on a video in the first 5 hours. More than 200 views.. how is this possible?!? Thank you for the suggestion on your French variety. This is helping this channel a lot!
@@langshack4552 Yeah I got some publicity skills haha I just posted it on different facebook group like : Edmundston Newz Chasers & Notre Madawaska and even on the most popular teacher on my school and even the mayor of my hometown and they liked it so maybe it could be used to play in schools in my hometown or around and being used in history class and for the views you desirve this :)
As a québecois who speak french, i can understand most of brayon dialogue, it's not the case with chiac, it's much more difficult to understand.
As a brayon I consider myself an acadian.
I’m chiac! The way we speak is often labeled as “not correct”. But, that’s just how we communicate. Speaking Chiac doesn’t mean we are less educated or loosing our French. There is no good french or bad French. Also, the way you pronounced Shediac and Moncton made me cringe ahaha
I apologize, outside of my one informant, and web pages, I had very little info to go on. How do you pronounce those cities? Thank you for watching though.
LangShack oh no no I love that you are talking about where I’m from! It doesn’t really get recognized that much. I loved it! Also, you really nailed your facts on Chiac and brayon (don’t know how to spell that lol.) It’s so true that people are very divided on if Chiac should be spoken because some say that we are loosing our French. (Teachers often don’t allow us to talk Chiac in our classrooms) And others celebrate it because it’s our culture. And your brayon accent is spot on! ..So how to prononce Moncton and Shediac.. it’s actually kind of hard to explain lol. Usually “on” would be the way you said it, but in Moncton, it’s kind of like “Monk - tin” (those are English words). And Shediac is said like “Chez - Dit- Yak“. The word “chez” and “dit” are French words that you can search up on how to pronounce. And the “yak” is like “ya” and then a “k” sound at the end
LangShack was very impressed by how much you knew!!
I have lived in both eastern and western Canada and have always heard Shediac pronounced shed-ee-ack and
Moncton pronounced monk-tuhn (the last syllable sounding similar to the last syllable in Downton).
Bellacee yes the moncton is right. How you pronounced Shediac is how English people say it. But Shediac is actually a French community, so it’s said a little bit differently. But you’re right
Wants some more chiac? Search “Acadieman” about a superhero that happens to be chiac. It’s actually a funny adult cartoon.
Les ployes on dl air tout plaquées. Pas trop des belles ployes entoute
🤣 Bahahaha! Colline, ton commentaire ma fait rire tout fort.
C’est vré qui sont plaqués pi y’on pas des beaux yeux! Ma mére s’rait pas fière!
Might want to fix the audio a bit, mon ami. Some serious feedback and muffling going on.
Thanks for the feedback bro! Thankfully this was a really old video so the newer ones don’t have this issue
3:53 er tu dsou and on er sou chenous, dsou to be under. Get it? Tu high? Tu drunk? Tu dsus? Are you "here" is what dsou ersou tudsou ju dsou. On Vous Voix pa, major influence on our dialect when speaking between Acadians and French dialect. At its most basic core of simplicity of course! Just a different voice to hear, being native of one of the areas you mentioned.
And we say LA Porte not Le. We do have basic french grammar skills 😂
Hein is the Acadian version of the Canadians eh if we wanna stereotype it 🤭🤫😂
It's the language of the Maritime Acadians lol
Very interesting but please, learn how to pronounce Quebec and québécois. It’s like nails on a chalkboard when you say those words.
LOL ... "Chu ben broke" means "I'm so broke" in english, so it means "J'ai pas d'argent" in french
Envoye, hâle-toi une bûche, viens faire de la petite jasette, un peu ... (Come on, pull a cut log, come have a little talk for a while) Hâler= tirer (Haul in English). La bûche = cut log approx 45cm for firewood; une bûche standing on end made a seat for lumberjacks or farmers way back when.
Barrer la porte is not unique to Brayon, it is all over French Canada.
CH'uis ben Broke= I'm broke, I have no money.
Chiac is just a mixture of 2 languages, English and French, partly from lack of education of some ancestors, partly from old French, partly to poke fun, partly because some expressions or words illustrate ideas better in a language than the other, and vice versa.une expression: chtia = celui là, this one. I find it amusing. Je la trouve amusante, celle-là, chtia!
Sorry about the person who was un-constructively critical of your pronunciation.
I don`t write phonetics, but in english [kebek] [kabek] and [kébékwa] is the approximate goal.
Should sound simple, basically like 'k's and single vowels.
I think what bothers that person is there should be no 'w' after the first 'Q', but it is likely the most common anglo accent and doesn't sound nice.
For experts, the 'ois' at the end makes a similar sound to 'w', but isn't, so should be kept to a minimum.
There should be no 'h' sound.
Examples to avoid: [kwibec], [kwabek] [kahhhhbek], [kebekwwaahhh]
Personal comment -> buche = log. Pull up a log. I've never heard the type of tree was relevant. Sounds elitist, lol.
I'm not sure I can tell the difference between the two languages, but coming from the western provinces, they make more sense to me than Québécois slang. To me, Brayon/Chiac took the best words from different languages, as the speakers were often multilingual. For older Quebec slang, it comes from a lack of vocabulary, as only unilingual Québec francophones speak Québec slang. So the choice of which words are anglicised doesn`t follow the same logic. This has changed recently with more diversity in Montreal and the arts in general.
The North-eastern acadians don’t speak brayon nor chiac. There are more than chiac/brayon in New Brunswick
Chiac here you can 100% tell brayon
Definitely not French from Quebec. I speak fluent French. Quebec French or France French and I can hardly understand any of this. Sometimes I can figure it out as I speak English as well but some of the sample I don't understand at all what they're talking about.
May wanna rethink the language content aspect, if you miss out the explanation that dialect and expression are native to those who speak it, it's a nightmare trap.
5:37 I'm French, I cannot understand a word.
Comme francophone du NB je n’ai jamais vraiement accroché au Chiac (j’habite Moncton depuis 30 ans et je viens de la péninsule acadienne). Vrai que dans le nord (nord-ouest,
nord-est) le fait que le Québec est tout près aide beaucoup à avoir des racines fortes en français. Je vais me faire «lancer des roches» mais j’ai toujours pensé que le Chiac
était de la paresse pour ne pas parler un meilleur français, désolé de le dire. Je peux comprendre la pression sociale ; un jeune à l’école dans le sud-est va faire rire de
lui si il essaie de trouver les bons mot en français. En général les gens du sud-est du NB n’ont aucune fierté à parler un français de base. Je ne parle pas de parler un français
de France mais juste ne pas constamment avoir de l’anglais lorsqu’ils s’expriment. Si quelqu’un me dit : «well cecitte cé de la way que j’parle pi c’est right okay» je vais lui dire de
laisser les bouts en français et puis de parler uniquement en anglais.
Exactement ce que j'ai toujours pensé aussi... Je n'avais pas pensé que c'était des dialectes distincts, seulement un "mauvais français "
Le Chiac c'est funny tho.
Aussi la communcation est efficace si les gens se comprend, c'est parfaitment arbitraire de dire aux gens de "Laisser les bouts en francais" t'es juste un Buzzkill lol
@@Doolittleincredible Ca invalide pas le dialect ca? la semantique existe encore malgre ton opinion.
Deprimant !
Ouaouh ! Tu parles d'un baragouin !
You shouldn't have said Moncton in a French way , its an English name. We say it properly here . J'aime les anglais ils sont pas des bébé la la comme mes peuples francophone.
Can’t you get someone who doesn’t sound like a hillbilly ?
You just marked out the entire population dawg (I live here Ain't dissing no one lol)
Well... If you really want to know why they sound like hillbillies, you need to understand some important history...
Like the Deportation of 1755 and the Seven Year War, how those Acadians who were NOT deported by the British American Colonists AND survived being hunted down like wild animals & scalped by them for about 10 years - with much thanks to the Indigenous People of the Wabanaki Confederacy who also suffered great losses during that time & beyond.
Like how the Acadian Deportation was essentially a genocide, considering that over half of those deported died. Nevermind the negative effects of the trauma of being torn away from family to board the boats, and if you survived the trip to one of the 13 Colonies, while the colony took months -even up to a year- deciding what to do with you, you would not be allowed off the boat, or if you're lucky the warf, where you watch whatever little family & friends you have die from exposure, disease, and starvation. If you survived THAT, then you would be separated from the few survivors who were now your only family AGAIN, and be sent to live in small groups throughout that particular colony. In some colonies, you could be sold, against your will, into indentured servitude - only to be released from the contract once you turned 21... with nothing in return. If you were lucky, you were able to cling to whatever "family" you recreated for yourself, and lived in abject poverty rather than be sold off, unable to have a land claim, unable to grow food for your family, barely able to work to pay for the most basics of necessities. The birth rate among Acadians during this time dropped significantly, but didn't hit zero. The goal of all of this? To separate the Acadians from each other so that they would no longer be French or Catholic, and that they would abandon their idyllic notions of being independent from the European Empires. THAT kinda backfired on the British... It wasn't ten years after the end of the Seven Year War that the idea of American independence from the British Empire grew throughout the Colonies. (I wonder why? 🎆⬜🟥)
After the Seven Year War, some Acadians settled where they were, many tried to return "home" - of which many would die on their journey - or others went to settle in Louisiana, where they were given land grants, goods, livestock, and money in order to settle in Louisiana.
Like how, during and after the American Revolution (which as we said was greatly influenced and impacted by the Acadian Deportation) the British Loyalists not only displaced Acadians AGAIN, but ordered that there be a maximum of 10 Acadian families that could move to a given area, and that that community could not get larger than 1000 people. These areas were to be well and faraway from any English community. Some, like my ancestors, were told to settle on an Indigenous Reserve. That cost the government a pretty penny!
For the next number of decades, the Acadians were denied medical care, education, religious access in French, and even banking. (See: farmersbank.ca/discover-rustico/farmers-bank-of-rustico/ for more information...) And even once they were allowed to have access to education, they mostly got English teachers to come teach them French.
IF an Acadian family in New Brunswick (I can't speak for Acadiens in other locations) moved to an English community to find better work, their employers would ban them from speaking French. I can her you say that this makes sense... Don't speak French at work. It went further than that! The entire family was banned from speaking French, even in their own home! If a passerby overheard a person, even a child, speak French from an open window, the employee (usually the dad) would lose his job. This was still going on in the 1960's. I personally know Acadians who cannot speak any French at all, even though their own parents were fluent.
The Capital of New Brunswick, the only Officialy Bilingual Province in Canada did not have a French High School until after I started to go to school, even though it had a population split of about 25-30% French and the rest English - with a sizeable Indigenous Community and smaller numbers of different immigrant communities. In the French school here, and in the French Immersion program - because I went through both - we were taught Metropolitan French, and because we lived in a primarily antigonistic English community, we rarely spoke French away from school. There was only ONE French radio station until the late 90's... It was talk radio so no access to French music before then, French movies were a rarity (I only ever remember seeing one), and the last time I lived there about 15 years ago, it was still impossible to buy a French magazine, French greeting cards, French Valentine's Day Cards for the kids to pass out in school, and you could only get a small assortment of French books from the Big Box Book Store in town. Oh, and we had access to a handful of French TV channels, which was better than the ONE from when I was a child.
In small French towns along the East and North coasts of New Brunswick, you could catch English TV if you had cable, but you could have up to 3 French TV channels, you could get French radio, but it might be full of static compared to the English Radio, and you had access to both French and English books and cards in small stores because department stores were a rare sight in these small towns. In fact, we remember when the first big department store came to Madawaska County, where we lived in our early childhood.
So why do we sound like hillbillies? Because the English have tried, for over 250 years to erase us, who we are, our culture, our language, our history, by denying us our basic human rights such as access to education.
That's why I'm not surprised that the person who wrote the first draft of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is a lawyer from a small town in New Brunswick. Look him up: John Peters Humphrey.