JOUAL

'Joual' is the common name for the linguistic features of basilectal Quebec French that are associated with the French-speaking working class in Montreal. Speakers of Quebec French outside Montreal do not refer to their speech as Joual though they may have other names to identify it such as Magoua and Chaouin in and around the greater Trois-Rivières region.
Attitudes towards Joual range from stigma to exaltation depending on forms and components of human communication such as social setting (formal/informal; public/private), channel (spoken vs. written; broadcast) and so on.
Joual is often termed a sociolect of Quebec's French-speaking working class in the Montreal area. However, it can no longer be strictly considered as such given two major events in the latter half of the 20th century: upward socio-economic mobility among Quebec francophones and a cultural renaissance connected to the Quebec sovereignty movement. At the beginning of the 21st century, Joual now fits the description of a diatype more than any other categorization.

Contents

Origin of the name ''Joual''

Most notable or stereotypical linguistic features

English loanwords

Notes

See also

External links

Origin of the name ''Joual''

Although coinage of the name ''joual'' is often attributed to French Canadian journalist André Laurendeau, usage of this term throughout French-speaking Canada predates the 1930's.
The actual word ''joual'' is the representation of how the word ''cheval'' (horse) is pronounced by those who "speak in" Joual. ''Cheval'' is usually pronounced as one syllable, , by all francophones in la Francophonie. With this in mind, in the chain of speech some vowels and consonants undergo changes due to their environment. In the case of , the Voiceless postalveolar fricative was voiced to become a Voiced postalveolar fricative , thereby creating . Next, the at the beginning of a syllable in some regional dialects of French or even in very rapid speech in general weakens to become the semi-vowel written "ou". The end result is the word transcribed as ''joual''.

Most notable or stereotypical linguistic features

Joual	French	English
toué	toi	you or "ya"
moué	moi	me
chu	je suis	I'm or "Ahm"
té	tu es (t'es)	you're or "yer"
ché	je sais	I know
pantoute	pas du tout	not at all
pis	puis / et puis	then / "So what?"
y	il	he or "'e"
a	elle	she
ouais or ouin	oui	yeah or "yep"
y'a	il y a	there's or "there're"
icitte	ici	here
ben	bien	well
s'a	sur la	on the 'xyz' (feminine)
su'l	sur le	on the 'xyz' (masculine)
tsé	tu sais	y'know
nuitte	nuit	night
dé-hor	dehors	outdoors
boutte	bout	end, tip
litte	lit	bed
Han?	hein ?	wot? or wut?
eille	hé	hey you
frette	froid	cold
fa	fait	make or do
fak	donc (ça fait que)	so, therefore

Diphthongs are normally present where long vowels would be present in standard French.
Although ''moué'' and ''toué'' are today considered substandard slang pronunciations, these were the pronunciations of Old French and French used by the kings of France, the aristocracy and the common people in all provinces of Northern France. After the 1789 French Revolution, the standard pronunciation in France changed to that of a stigmatized form in the speech of Paris, but Quebec retained the historically "correct" one, having been isolated from the Revolution by the 1760 British Conquest of New France.^[1]
Joual shares many features with modern Oïl languages, such as Norman, Gallo, Picard and Poitevin-Saintongeais though its affinities are greatest with the 17th century koiné of Paris.^[2] Speakers of these languages of France predominated among settlers to New France.
Another outstanding characterictic of Joual is the use of profanity called sacre in everyday speech.^[3]

English loanwords

There are a number of English loanwords in joual although they have been stigmatised since the 1960s:^[4]

★
★ Bécosse: From backhouse, used generally in the sense of a bathroom. Unlike most borrowing, this one can sometimes be seen written, usually as shown here.

★
★ Bicycle or bécik: Bicycle

★
★ Bike or bécik: Motorbike

★
★ Blood: Compliment, as in "Té Blood" (''You're all right''). Rarely used today.

★
★ Braker: Pronounced [] or []. Verb meaning "to brake".

★
★ Breaker: Pronounced or . Circuit breaker (''disjoncteur''). Still very often used nowadays.

★
★ Canife: Pronounced Kah-Neef. A Pocket Knife, literally the French pronunciation of the English word (K-nife).

★
★ Coat: Winter Jacket (Only for the clothing item), never in the sense of "layer".

★
★ Chum: Most often in the sense of boyfriend, although sometimes simply as friend.

★
★ Enfirouaper: To cheat someone. This comes from "In fur wrap". Centuries ago, fur traders would sell a ballot of fur, actually filled with cardboard in the middle.^[5]

★
★ Frencher: Pronounced or . To French-kiss.

★
★ Fucker le chien: Pronounced []. Used to imply that something is diffucult to do.

★
★ Fuse

★
★ Gas: Pronounced [gɑz]. In the sense of fuel or in the sense of flatulence.

★
★ Lift: Only used in the sense of giving a lift to someone in one's vehicle.

★
★ Mossel: Muscle.

★
★ Peppermint, usually pronounced like ''pepper men''

★
★ Pinotte: Peanuts. Unlike most other borrowings, this one is sometimes seen written, usually spelled like here.

★
★ les States: Pronounced . Used when referring to the USA.

★
★ Tinque : Usually pronounced . Used in the sense of "container": Tinque à gaz [fuel tank]

★
★ Tough

★
★ Truck

★
★ Suit: Coat.

★
★ Ski-doo: Snowmobile (name of a Bombardier trademark).

★ Some words were also previously thought to be of English origin, although modern research has shown them to be from regional French dialects:

★
★ Pitoune (log, cute girl, loose girl): previously thought to come from "happy town" although the word "pitchoune" exists in dialects from southern France and means "cute girl".

★
★ Poutine: was thought to come from "pudding", but some have drawn a parallel with the Languedocian word "poudingo", a stew made of scraps, which was (in Montreal) the previous use of the term.

Notes

1. Marc Picard, "La diphtongue /wa/ et ses équivalents en français du Canada." ''Cahiers de linguistique de l'Université du Québec'' 1974, 4.147-164.
2. Henri Wittmannn, "Le français de Paris dans le français des Amériques." ''Proceedings of the International Congress of Linguists'' 16.0416 (Paris, 20-25 juillet 1997). Oxford: Pergamon (CD edition). [[1]]
3. Gilles Charest, ''Le livre des sacres et blasphèmes québécois.'' Montréal: L"Aurore, 1974; Jean-Pierre Pichette, ''Le guide raisonné des jurons.'' Montréal: Les Quinze, 1980; Diane Vincent, ''Pressions et impressions sur les sacres au Québec.'' Québec: Office de la langue française, 1982.
4. The standard reference to this subject is Gilles Colpron, ''Les anglicismes au Québec: Répertoire classifié. Montréal: Beauchemin.
5. Gaston Dulong, ''Dictionnaire des canadianismes.'' Québec: Larousse Canada, 1989, p. 180. However, this view of ''enfirouaper'' as an anglicism is strongly disputed today. [[2]]

See also

★ Quebec French

★ Magoua

★ Chaouin

★ Quebec French lexicon

★ Quebec French profanity

★ French language

★ English language

★ Chiac

★ Quebec

★ Canada

External links

★ article on joual at Canadian theatre

★ article on joual in ''La Linguistique'' journal

★ a few extracts of texts in joual

★ http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/1990h.html

★ http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/1992.html

★ http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/2004b.html