Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
That's awesome. This is probably the 10th time this has happened to me in recent years, where someone with the appropriate linguistic knowledge has noted that something in our dialect is actually a holdover from the past, rather than something we created ourselves. I love it.
In Winnipeg last summer, I learned that our adding "tell" to certain phrases is just archaic English:
"I never heard tell of it." (I never heard a word about it).
And here on SSP I learned from an Irish forumer that our, "How's she cuttin'?" (How are you?) is a common phrase there.
And Francois is definitely French. I have a friend from there with the surname LeDrew. And, via him and his family, I've noticed that - like many Greek islands - residents of Francois have noticeably shorter limbs than people from less isolated parts of the Newfoundland mainland.
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Still with the pronounciation of Francois, and to follow up on what Begratto said...
The old French pronounciation of the "oi" sound (modern is "wah") is still alive in Quebec slang for words like "moi" and "toi", which are officially "mwah" and "twah", but colloquially are often heard as "mway" and "tway". Written in French as "moé" and "toé".
And taking it even further, I have Acadian cousins in the Maritmes who when joking around will pronounce the "oi" sound as "way" for words that no Québécois would ever pronounce that way. This includes the names François (Fran-sway) and also Françoise (Fran-swayz). Also "quoi" - "kway". (Sort of in the way anglophones will jokingly say anyhoo instead of anyhow.)
This is odd because generally Acadians pronounce the "oi" sound quite distinctively, and for people from Quebec this is often the giveway that a person is Acadian.
For example, Moi is "mwah" or colloquially "mway" in Quebec, but "twuh" in Acadia. Quoi is kwuh, toi is twuh, François is fran-swuh.
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