Canadian French (French: français canadien) is the various varieties of French spoken in Canada. In 2005, the total number of speakers of French in Canada (including two million non-fluent speakers) was 12,000,000. French is the mother tongue of more than seven million Canadians, a figure constituting around 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English. At the provincial level of government, French is the sole official language of Quebec and is one of two official languages of New Brunswick, as well as co-official (derived from its federal legal status) in Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Government services are offered in French at the provincial level in Manitoba, in certain areas of Ontario (through the French Language Services Act), and to a variable extent elsewhere. New England French, a variety spoken in parts of New England in the United States, is essentially a variety of Canadian French.
Quebec French is spoken in Quebec. Closely related varieties are spoken by francophone communities in Ontario, Western Canada, Labrador and in the New England region of the United States and differ from Quebec French primarily by their greater conservatism. The term Laurentian French has limited application as a collective label for all these varieties, and Quebec French has also been used for the entire dialect group. The overwhelming majority of francophone Canadians speak this dialect. Acadian French is spoken by over 350,000 Acadians in parts of the Maritime Provinces, Newfoundland, the Îles de la Madeleine, and Gaspé peninsula.
Métis French is spoken in Manitoba and Western Canada by the Métis, descendants of First Nations mothers and voyageur fathers during the fur trade. Many Métis spoke Cree in addition to French, and over the years they developed a unique mixed language called Michif by combining Métis French nouns, numerals, articles and adjectives with Cree verbs, demonstratives, postpositions, interrogatives and pronouns. Both the Michif language and the Métis dialect of French are severely endangered. Newfoundland French is spoken by a small population on the Port-au-Port Peninsula of Newfoundland. It is endangered — both Quebec French and Acadian French are now more widely spoken among Newfoundland francophones than the distinctive peninsular dialect.
Brayon French is spoken in the Beauce of Quebec; Edmunston, New Brunswick; and Madawaska, Maine. Although superficially a phonological descendant of Acadian French, analysis reveals it is morphosyntactically identical to Quebec French. It is believed to have resulted from a localized levelling of contact dialects between Québécois and Acadian settlers. New England French is spoken in parts of New England in the United States. Essentially a local variant of Quebec French, it is one of three major forms of French that developed in what is now the U.S., the others being Louisiana French and the nearly-extinct Missouri French. It is endangered, though its use is supported by bilingual education programs in place since 1987.
There are two main sub-varieties of Canadian French. Joual is an informal variety of French spoken in working-class neighbourhoods in the province of Quebec. Chiac is a blending of Acadian French syntax and vocabulary with numerous lexical borrowings from English.
The term Canadian French was formerly used to refer specifically to Quebec French and the closely related varieties of Ontario and Western Canada descended from it. This is presumably because Canada and Acadia were distinct parts of New France, and also of British North America, until 1867. However, today the term Canadian French is not usually deemed to exclude Acadian French. Phylogenetically, Quebec French, Métis French and Brayon French are representatives of koiné French in the Americas whereas Acadian French, Cajun French, and Newfoundland French are derivatives of non-koinesized local dialects in France.
French is the mother tongue of about 7.3 million Canadians (22 % of the Canadian population, second to English at 58.4%) according to Census Canada 2011. Most native French speakers in Canada live in Quebec, where French is the majority and sole official language. About 80% of Quebec’s population are native francophones, and 95% of the population speak French as their first or second language. Additionally, about one million native francophones live in other provinces, forming a sizable minority in New Brunswick, which is officially a bilingual province, where about one-third of the population are francophone. There are also French-speaking communities in Manitoba and Ontario, where francophones make up about 10-15 per cent of the population, as well as significantly smaller communities in Alberta, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan around 5-10%. Many, but not all of these communities are supported by French-language institutions.
By the Official Languages Act in 1969, Canada recognized English and French as having equal status in the government of Canada. While French, with no specification as to dialect or variety, has the status of one of Canada’s two official languages at the federal government level, English is the native language of the majority of Canadians. The federal government provides services and operates in both languages. French is the sole official language in Quebec at the provincial level and is co-official with English in New Brunswick. The provincial governments of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba are required to provide services in French where justified by the number of francophones (those whose mother tongue is French). However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires all provinces to provide primary and secondary education to their official-language minorities at public expense.
