Comment by throwawaymaths
2 days ago
as someone who learned continental french, when i visited quebec i saw "melon d'eau" and i nearly lost it.
2 days ago
as someone who learned continental french, when i visited quebec i saw "melon d'eau" and i nearly lost it.
Meanwhile I went hiking up on Georgian bay and saw a bilingual sign for a local landmark
“Overhanging point
Point Overhanging”
That's the first gloss DeepL gives me for it. I've never before in my life heard "pastèque" and I doubt I'll remember it.
« Melon d'eau » ? For watermelon? I thought it was a joke, but well, Wikipedia mentions it: « La pastèque [...], parfois appelée melon d'eau » (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past%C3%A8que)
Everyone says « pastèque » in mainland France, where I've lived for over 40 years. I've never seen melon d'eau and I doubt anyone will understand it unless they know the English word.
This is a remnant of British colonization. French-speaking population didn't know any English, so you have a lot of these literal translations.
I've heard "flour" uttered with the French pronounciation (fl-oo-r, instead of homonym of "flower") in New-Brunswick. I was floored. Took me a while to figure out what they meant.
Clearly, this originates from non-English speakers reading "flour" on a sign and just running with it.
Also, consider that the British conquest happened before watermelon was highly prevalent in France or North-America. It's unsurprising to see terminology diverge in this case.
Conversely, I'm a native French speaker from Quebec, and honestly, this is the first time I've ever come across the word "pastèque."
1 reply →
Quebec has it's own dictionary.
Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OQLF) promotes the french language and adapt new English words (whereas France typically integrate English words in their vocab).
The website Banque de dépannage linguistique (BDL) will have a lot of useful resources if you're interested! For instance, how to write a professional sounding email, names of official documents, invoice templates.
Highlights (good and bad):
* emails -> courriels (courrier + iels; mail + similar sounding syllable)*
* spam mail -> pourriels (pourri + iels; rotten + similar lexem as courriels)
* to spoil (as in spoilers) -> divulgâcher (divulguer + gâcher; to reveal + to ruin)
* to mansplain -> mecspliquer (mec + expliquer; man + to explain); This one is outrageous (and uncommon) because it's an homonym to "m'expliquer" (explain to me)
* to browse (the web) -> naviguer (as in "to navigate"; browser -> "navigateur")
> * to browse (the web) -> naviguer (as in "to navigate"; browser -> "navigateur")
I’m old enough to remember when it was called web surfing and everyone used Netscape Navigator.
oh cool pourriels is amazing. Contrastingly the continental "mail" for "email" is... disappointing?
And Quebec has it’s own English. I spent a few years working in Montreal and soon learned about “passing the vacuum” and “closing the light”. There are so many bilingual folks that concepts and word orders flow back and forth. I had an interesting discussion with a bilingual anglophone about how in English elsewhere it’s called a “pacifier” and not a “souce”
They're literally translating from French to English because they don't know any better. In French you open and close lights and all other electronics... that's just how it works. On and off isn't a thing. So it's not it's own form of English, it's French people making mistakes.
Or “open the road” in reference to removing the snow from the road.
Also good luck planning any meals.
Dejeuner is breakfast in Quebec (lunch in France).
Diner is lunch in Quebec (evening meal in France).
déjeuner is a literal translation though. "Breaking fast" -> "dé-jeuner" (undo fasting).
French people typically say: - breakfast - petit-déjeuner (small breakfast) - lunch - déjeuner (breakfast) - diner - diner
Québecois people say: - breakfast - déjeuner - lunch - diner - diner - souper (eating soup; probably historical roots like "getting your big meal of the day" which is likely broth + potatoes)
> Québecois people say
So do (typical) French speakers in Belgium and Switzerland.
how about une boîte aux lettres?
given the englishisms in quebecois i was amused to see arrêt signs, because I'm pretty sure they say stop in france.