Thursday, June 14, 2012

Colors of Time

 
Languages are a living organism just like flowers.
It's amazing how they change with time.
In Quebec we have what is called Quebecois French.
Quebecois French is evolved French, as
 a sort of bastardation of the French language.

I remember our teachers telling us, it is not  true French.
Our teachers in the English schools were all from Paris.

When the first settlers came to Canada
they intermarried with the Indians and inter related with the English which you could say
evolved the French language into something different.
Wikipedia had some interesting things to say about it.
It discussed the Acadian French and mentioned the word Joual which is the incorrect
working mans French used in Quebec.

The word Patois was also mentioned as nonstandard French . It comes from the Old French meaning
incomprehensible speech, rude language and non Parisian French.
Jean Jaures said "one names patois the language of a defeated nation."

Similarly, Patois is also referred to many forms of English spoken in the Caribbean.

Jamaican Patois consists of many words from many races within the Caribbean such as Latin, Spanish,
Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese AmerIndian, English, and several African languages.
Going to live there thinking one would understand English would be a mistake. You'd have to learn the new words  or slang pertained to this area, using words from all those languages.

Creole dialects include words from French Spanish Hebrew German Dutch Italian Chinese Japanese Vietnamese and Others. Patois is also spoken in Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.

It is described as a bastardization of the English language in the same way Quebec French is described with respect to that of France.

Many of the words used today in Quebec are different from the French used in France.
The example I remember our teacher using was the word la gomme instead of effaseur for a blackboard
eraser. We also called chewing gum , la gomme.

This is what makes Quebec interesting when the Quebec politicians speak of preserving the French language,
when the French from France refuse to be associated with it linguistically.
This is what makes it interesting when they kill a language and then try to destroy a country by pretending to be what they long ago have seized to be.

The Quebecois today are Canadian. They cannot call themselves French and therefore a distinct society.
The Province is heterogeneous, filled with many people from all countries and in order to change this, many people would have to be turned out of Quebec or re educated which is indeed ludicrous and would have to resort to ethnic cleansing.

Wiki - Office québécois de la langue française, believes that objectively standardizing Quebec French would lead to reduced interintelligibility with other French communities around the world, linguistically isolating Quebecers and possibly causing the extinction of the French language in the Americas.

I guess they admit that all things are not as they seem.lol

 People have to learn to live together and stop all this separation nonsense .
Time colors us all. Nothing ever stays the same.
All I have to do is look at the smart hydro meters they are forcing people to install today when there was nothing wrong with the old ones.
Another reason to force money to be spent on things people do not need,to create more trouble. These new meters will break just as the old ones did.
One has to understand that the more complicated we make things, the harder they are to repair and the more repair they will require.
:)
xoxoxoxoxoxox




8 comments:

Rob-bear said...

Patois? Français? Il n'y a pas de quoi.

Zuzana said...

It is always fun how languages evolve and change, being adapted and mixed.;) Have a nice weekend,
xoxo

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi A Lady's Life .. language does colour us still - yet all through centuries languages have blended, so are people now - yet still those differences stick out (and continue to occur) .. wish we could all live happily ever after.

Cheers Hilary

A Lady's Life said...

Rob Bear - It is amazing the things people fight over.
Why not just be happy that you live in a great country, ney....Continent.
No place is perfect but some places are more perfect than others.

A Lady's Life said...

Zuzana - yes languages do change as fast as the products and technology changes.
During the Industrial revolution so many people were left job less as machines took over.
Today this might be happening again.
People have to find other things to do and yet here they are fighting over frivolous things.Mostly partisan politics

A Lady's Life said...

Thanks Hilary - I am a pacifist.
I like people to get along not because the law says so but because it's the right thing to do.

Diane Stringam Tolley said...

I love this country! But if people want to find something to argue or fight over, they will always be able to find it. My Husby lived for a couple of years in France. He says that what they speak here can't be called French. I speak only English - badly - it all sounds like Greek to me!

A Lady's Life said...

Diane I agree. This is what makes the issues with Quebec such a waste of time.
We pass laws against bullying and hate and yet here the so called patriots, who are really closet racists, are continuously fueling it.
They have been told by Quebecers from day one, Quebecers don't want to separate but they will keep at it. Canada needs the St Laurence River so we cannot give up Quebec for any reason.