Real French

Québec has language laws that prevent businesses from using English in their advertising among other things, and some controversial rulings have come from it. One such ruling was the use of "le week-end". Québec was punishing businesses who used this term instead of "la fin de semaine". There was an interview done with an official from the language police where the interviewer had a dictionary from France which showed "le week-end" is proper French. The Québec official said "France doesn't decide what words are French. We do."

L'Académie française disagrees
- Prescriptivist jerks. Let's all dress up in $50,000 robes, call ourselves immortals, and pretend that we can control language.
- L'académie française deez nuts
- Oh please. There isn't a single linguist in the Académie Française.
  The Académie Française is to the French language what a group of former weathermen is to climatology.
TIL the French Language Police is a thing
- Il y en a deux ! Une pour la France et une pour le Québec mais la majorité des locuteurs du français sont en Afrique.
This tracks
I'm not finding any info on this. Source?
- I tried searching for it before posting but couldn't find it. It was a radio interview likely sometime in the 80s. It's hard to find because a search for controversial things the Québec language police have done turns up a lot of results.
Weren’t they going down the street punishing restaurants who had sandwich boards in 51(+)% English?

Ouiaboos.

I hate you so much. Here, have my upvote.

I never got this: why do people in France speak an American language instead of a European one?

See, the problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur...
French-Canadian from Quebec here: the same way an American will use a french word mid sentence to add a certain je-ne-sais-quoi…
But they tend to go way overboard with them, ending with bastardized, barely comprehensible french. And they dare correct us when we use the proper french terms instead of the ones they abuse.
- I was watching a video on YouTube today where the person was demonstrating some things and kept going "voila", but everytime he said it, he didn't really pronounce the v, so it sounded more like moilah. One step away from moolah (slang for money).
  It was bizarre.
  I just couldn't not hear it. I completely forget what the video was about.
I don't get it. How is French an American language? I don't understand the meme overall either
- French is spoken in France and parts of north America. Most people are very emotional about their native language so they feel every deviation of it is just wrong.
  The most common and seemingly natural view is that France French is "right" and oversea French is not but honestly it's arbitrary. OP turned it around and so I did too, eventhough I myself live in a non French European country. Well, we all hate our neighbors and the enemy is my enemy is my friend I guess.
And why do they speak mexican in spain?

I lived in both 'French Canada', and France at one point in my life.

In my experience, they all consider themselves the best thing France ever made and the other side are the equivalent of "rednecks"

To be fair, they both can be right.

To be fair if you're used to "metropolitan" French then some Québécois accents can sound very "redneck".
- It's all honks over there in the new world.

Why does that big Spain patch look like Ontario?
It is kinda interesting you can see the way it spreads around water. English with the Atlantic Ocean to the East, French with the Mississippi & Ohio rivers, and Spanish with the Gulf of Mexico and eventually hitting the Colorado River
Hence why if Quebec split they should keep the name Canada and the other provinces should vote for a new name.

Canada is home to the largest French speaking population in the world that has never surrendered to Germany.

I think that is DR Congo. More french speakers than France.
- Give Canada some respect, DR Congo didn't even exist until after WWII.
- More French speakers than Quebec, New Brunswick, and a smattering here & there in other provinces? The only other thing the French in this country have is poutine. The least we can do is give them this.
They made up for it by surrendering to the British and having their land sold to the Americans.
- I mean, you're not wrong, but the French in this country have made being a pain in the English-speaking population's ass their entire raison d'être since like 1760. They've been fighting a resistance war for like 264 years which is why I consider it a good roadtrip if I can get from Cornwall to Edmundston without having to stop. Beautiful province but a pain in the dick to even exist in if you're an Anglo.

That's a very un-Picard-like Maneuver

- Seeing "deleted by creator" in response to what was just said is somehow funnier than anything you could have otherwise responded with xD

Every french speaker is delusional.

Oh please, Ontario is just a polite and liberal mini-USA

if Ontario defines what "liberal" is, then we're doomed.
- Depends on where in Ontario we're talking about .... everything south of Orillia is basically the United States, between Orillia and North Bay is like the Ozarks, between North Bay and Thunder Bay is equal parts socialist and capitalist, and the entire France sized north is the chaotic frontier (I know because I'm indigenous and this is where my family is from).
  Ontario isn't one mentality and every election cycle, there is more and more of a need to break up the regions because the south doesn't represent the north and the north is constantly in conflict with the south.
- Does Ontario only look liberal in comparison with Alberta?
Yeah real french is skipping french class and forgetting that quebec exists :)
As a resident of Ontario....
Fuck you.
Also, very accurate, and I hate it. Take your upvote and get out.
*Canada outside of Quebec and some parts of New Brunswick

I once encountered a theory that North American english was potentially closer to historical english because it was less influenced by neighboring countries. I doubt that, now. But it's an interesting idea.

North American French is like that
It is much more formal and traditional compared to France French (No idea about Haiti)
Because of laws preventing loan words
As a yank who lived in the UK (East Sussex) for several years, I can share the sentiments of my mates there that they believe we Americans still speak a more traditional version of the language than they do now. Specifically pronunciation of words.
For example, Americans have retained the pronunciation of the final “r” in words like “father” and “mother,” while the UK has dropped it. Americans have maintained the “flat a” sound of cat in words like “path” and “class” whereas the UK has mostly replaced that sound with the “broad a” of “father.”
It's not an exact science, but the rate of change in the language there has gone beyond the 18th century version we Americans still speak today and thus, it can be said American English, at least pronunciation, is more traditional.
- On the class/path a: it depends where you are in the UK. In the north, it tends to be the flat a, in the south it tends to be the broad a. There's a lot of variation in accent within the UK, to the point that you can identify pretty accurately where someone is from using something this quiz: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html.
  Anecdotally, I think it is becoming a bit more uniform than it used to be, due to people moving around more than they did historically, though
https://theinternetsaysitstrue.com/2022/08/08/is-the-original-english-accent-still-alive-in-parts-of-the-united-states/ an interesting article on the subject that includes videos
Then there's the people who say Shakespeare makes much more sense, flows better, and better play on words when spoken with an older UK accent (or Irish?), so nothing like North American.
(Lots of search results but no easy blurb to read on what it was. But I recall hearing some and it was nothing like North American accent.)
- To bea or not to bea ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M

Are we talking the language? West of Quebec French is rare.

Ontario has some significant pockets of french Canadians
- Ottawa comes to mind.
Yeah in Sask I've encountered two french speaking people (first language Quebecers)in the last decade. Both spoke English.
Both commented on how people's expressions turn negative when they hear the accent. Which I can understand as it sounds very gutteral and unpleasant to the ear to me as well.
- Plenty in Manitoba but they'll also speak English. St Boniface is an entire neighborhood in Winnipeg where French is primary, including the arret signs. There's a number of towns around the province where it's the primary language as well. Bilingual of course but French is the usual spoken language.

true France is actually Cameroon

Baguette Baguette!
- Tabarnac

Mon très cher « La manœuvre Picard », bien que je partage absolument votre avis ; je me dois, à mon plus amer regret, de vous informer que vous avez irrémédiablement et royalement fucked up votre carte.

Haut-vote pour l'un des seuls commentaires en français il me semble
C'est quoi le problème avec la carte ?
- Présenter que français est parlé dans la majorité du territoire canadien est très loin de la réalité

Look at stop signs in France and Quebec, then you know whats up.

I have a love/hate relationship with the people of Quebec.

It's mostly hate....

Ahhhh the French

CUT!

I need conclusive Lemmy anecdata on a key question: is Quebecois French considered antiquated by continental (both European and African) French speakers? Are the differences subtle or not?

It's not considered antiquated. The Quebecoise's accent is considered exotic. Their effort to create new French words instead of just taking over the English one is also very cool. E.g: téléverser (download), divulgâcher (spoiler).
- Clavarder grace à son butineur
Not antiquated, they just sound a little like hillbillies.