Chiac

Chiac is a dialect of the Acadian French language with influences from English and to a lesser extent from various Canadian aboriginal languages, such as the Eastern Algonquian languages. It is spoken by many Acadians in southeast New Brunswick, especially among youth near Moncton, Dieppe, Memramcook and Shediac.[1]

Chiac
Native to	Canada
Region	Acadian communities throughout the Maritime provinces, mainly around Moncton, Shediac and Memramcook
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Romance Oïl French Acadian French Chiac
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Linguasphere	51-AAA-am

History

Chiac is a relatively recent development of the French language whose growth was spurred in the 1960s by the dominance of English-language media in Canada, the lack of French-language primary and secondary education, increased urbanization of Moncton, and contact with the dominant Anglophone community in the area. The word 'Chiac' is believed to be derived from "Shediac". University of Orléans linguist Marie‑Ève Perrot describes Chiac as "the integration and transformation of English lexical, syntactic, morphological, and phonetic forms into French structures".[2]

Background

The roots and base of Chiac are Acadian French, a spoken French often tinged with nautical terms (e.g., haler, embarquer), reflecting the historical importance of the sea to the local economy and culture. Chiac also contains many older French words (e.g., bailler, quérir, hucher, gosier) which are now deemed archaic by the Académie Française, as well as aboriginal-derived terms, notably from Mi'kmaq, evident in words such as matues, meaning 'porcupine'. Chiac uses primarily French syntax with French-English vocabulary and phrase forms.

Chiac is often deprecated by both French and English speakers as an ill-conceived hybrid language — either as "bad" French or as "bad" English — like franglais.[3]

In the arts

Acadian writers, poets and musicians such as France Daigle, Cayouche, Zero Celsius, Radio Radio, Paul Bossé,[4] Fayo,[5] Lisa LeBlanc, Les Hay Babies, and 1755[6] have produced works in Chiac.

Chiac is also featured in Acadieman, a comedy about "The world's first Acadian Superhero" by Dano Leblanc.[7] The animated series, also a comic book, contains a mixture of Anglophone, Francophone, and "Chiacophone" characters.

Example sentences

• "As-tu vu le crab qui crawlait su la beach de soir?" (Did you see the crab that was crawling on the beach this evening?) Created by Acadienne Sylvie G
• "Ej vas tanker mon truck de soir pis ej va le driver. Ça va être right d'la fun." (I am going to go put gas in my truck and drive it tonight. It's going to be so much fun.)
• "Espère-moi su'l'corner, j'traverse le ch'min pi j'viens right back."[8] (Wait for me at the corner, I'm crossing the road and I'll be right back.)
• "Zeux ils pensont qu'y ownont le car." (They think they own the car.)
• "On va amarrer ça d'même pour faire sûr que ça tchenne."[8] (We will tie it like this to make sure it stays.)
• "Ça t'tente tu d'aller watcher un movie?" (Do you want to go see a movie?)
• "Ej ché pas...so quosse vous faites de soir?" (I don't know. What are you guys doing tonight?)
• "J'aime ta skirt, j'aime la way qu'a hang." (I like your dress, it fits you well!)
• "Ton car é ti en pretty good shape?" (Is your car in working order?)
• "J'get pas ton troube." (I don't understand your problem.)
• "C'é pretty right on man, mon truck handle dans les trails." (It's really fun, my truck handles well off-road.)
• "Man, c'té nouvelles light-là sont complicated, j'aimais mieux le four-way stop!" (Man, these new lights are complicated, I preferred the four-way stop.)
• "Mame, les rules des quads sont tu les mêmes sur les chemins?" (Mom, do the four wheeler regulations apply on the city streets?)
• "Ton truck work tu? Ch'te baillra vingt piace pour une quick drive en ville." (Does your truck work? I'll give you twenty bucks for a quick drive to the city.)
• "T'é pu avec lui anymore, c'é pretty right on ça." (You aren't with him anymore; well that's good news.)
• "On decole tu su la brosse desoir?" (Are we going out drinking tonight?)
• "Sylvie, ça semble comme si tu work out man, moi chu naturally fit though!" (Sylvie, it looks like you have been working out, I'm lucky enough to be naturally fit.)
• "J'vais parker mon car dans le driveway là." (I'm going to park my car in that driveway.)
• "Quossé tu parles about" (What are you talking about.)
• "Yinque à ouaire on oua bien" (Just by seeing, you see well.)
• "Va waire endans d'la bakery mander si yiavont still la sale su les Râpures." (Go check inside the bakery if they still have the sale on Rappie Pies.)
• "On va faire une run au nord a la weekend , veut tu v'nir?" (We're going on a trip up north this weekend, do you want to come?"
• "Cousse-tu veux chte-dise?" (What do you want me to tell you?)
• "Tchein ton siault d'beluets!"[8] (Hold on to your blueberry bucket!)
• "Chiss qu'est stia quis travle avec le muffler de blower?" (Who is that driving with a broken muffler?)
• "J'étais tellement en djable que j'l'ai horé par dessus la fence." (I was so upset that I threw it over the fence)
• "J'ai crashé dans l'peteau d'hydro, pis l'car était toute smashé." (I crashed into the telephone pole and wrecked the car.)
• "On a virer une moyenne brosse hier soire, pi sa va su le round two betot desoire." (We went on a big drinking binge last night, and it's going to be round two later tonight.)
• "Tchin tes chulottes." (Keep your pants on!)
• "Ayousque t'as mis mes hardes?"[8] (Where did you put my clothes?)
• "Astheure c'é mon tour."[8] (Now it's my turn.)
• "Reste icitte, j'v'aller parker la char à côté du garage." (Wait for me here, I'm going to park the car next to the garage.)
• "Le gars puait assez qu'les genoux m'buckleyiant!" (The guy smelled so much my knees buckled.)
• "C'é right hard de driver standard quand tu commences à driver." (It's very hard to drive a manual stickshift when you're a beginner.)
• "Well ça c'é pretty sharp, man." (Well that's pretty sharp, man.)
• "Check ça out, pi call-moi back." (Gather some information and let me know what's going on.)
• "Cheins tes overhalls pis tes r'change de d'soure." (Hold your overalls and your underwear!)

Films

• Éloge du chiac, by Michel Brault, NFB, 1969 (27 minutes)[9]
• L'Acadie, l'Acadie, by Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault, NFB, 1971 (117 minutes)[10]
• Éloge du chiac Part II, by Marie Cadieux, 2009 (77 minutes)[11]

See also

• Caló (Chicano) – A slang mixing Mexican Spanish and English, emerging in the 20th century, that is used by speakers with varied ability in either language in the Southwest United States.
• Gøtudanskt – Danish language as spoken in the Faroe Islands
• Portuñol – A mixed language that combines Spanish and Portuguese and is spoken in border areas of various countries (such as Brazil and Uruguay, Spain and Portugal) where the two languages co-exist.
• Jopará – a mixed language spoken in Paraguay which combines Spanish and Guaraní
• Russenorsk – a pidgin language that combines elements of Russian and Norwegian
• Surzhyk – an interlanguage derived from Ukrainian and Russian, spoken in Ukraine
• Trasianka – an interlanguage derived from Belarusian and Russian, spoken in Belarus
• Balachka – dialects of Kuban Cossacks
• Russification – the policy of introduction of Russian language into non-Russian communities
• Diglossia – a situation of parallel usage of two closely related languages, one of which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and the other one is usually the spoken informally
• Cajun French - a language related to Acadian French spoken in south Louisiana.

References

1. Deschamps, MJ. "Chiac: A pride or a threat to French?". www.officiallanguages.gc.ca. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
2. Bureau, Government of Canada, Public Works and Government Services Canada – Translation. "Vous parlez chiac? Crazy! – Articles – From Our Contributors – Language Portal of Canada". www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-04-21. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
3. "Purists don't like this mix of Acadian French and English, but it may be helping the French language in Canada". Public Radio International. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
4. Manning, Joanna (2006-12-14). "High-flying literature". Telegraph-Journal. p. D3.
5. Laberge, Corinne (2007-06-28). "Le monde de Fayo". Retrieved 2007-08-09.
6. Elsliger, Lise (2007-06-26). "Acadian band 1755 together again". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-08-09.
7. "C'est la vie". C'est la vie. 2006-12-08.
8. Boudreau, Éphrem (2009). Glossaire du vieux parler acadien. Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu: Éditions Lambda ACADIE. p. 50. ISBN 978-2-923255-06-4.
9. IMDB
10. IMDB
11. Onesheet Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine

Further reading

• King, Ruth. "Overview and Evaluation of Acadie's joual," in Social Lives in Language – Sociolinguistics and multilingual speech communities: Celebrating the Work of Gillian Sankoff edited by Miriam Meyerhoff and Naomi Nagy (2008) pp 137ff
• Chiac: an example of dialect change and language transfer in Acadian French. National Library of Canada, 1987.

External links

• "Et si on parlait chiac ? (How about speaking Chiac?)". 1998-11-04. Archived from the original on 2008-02-27. Retrieved 2011-06-14.
• The Chiac verb particle construction – A linguistics paper (beginning on page 56 of the pdf document) examining certain features of Chiac grammar.
• Music video for Radio Radio's song "Jacuzzi", with captions.
• Interview with Radio Radio about chiac – Starts at 12:00 minutes in