wosh pen. vague What if the words and expressions of young Quebecers contributed to the wealth of French, rather than endangering it as the Legault government believes? This idea is represented by the singer Jérôme 50, who has been working on a dictionary dedicated to their language for several years and will publish a podcast on Friday documenting his approach.
“It’s not new that young people are accused of bad speaking, but that ignores the linguistic genius they display. We must welcome, even highlight, this change with a good eye, rather than deny, reject or criticize it. This is the only way to ensure the survival of French in Quebec,” says the young singer-songwriter of the popular song Tokébakicitte.
The word-loving man, who has started a master’s degree in linguistics at Université Laval in recent years, finds it hard to understand the terrible fear the political class fuels at the way younger generations speak, embellishing their French with words that borrowed from English and other languages.
He takes as an example the Legault government’s controversial ad, launched last March to challenge the public about the decline of French. The advertisement took the form of a parody of a wildlife account using numerous Anglicisms. Opposition parties and the fringes of society were quick to complain that the Coalition Avenir Québec is unfairly targeting young people, despite the party’s refusal to target this generation.
“Messages like this repel young people. It is a moralizing and uninviting awareness,” comments Jérôme 50.
Especially since these lexical borrowings are harmless, he explains. “There is no study that proves that the competition of two lexical items can lead to the disappearance of one of the two terms. For example: parking and parking, both are still used in Quebec, they live together. »
The tapped slang
It’s also a topic he discusses in more detail on his podcast, So be chill, available Friday on OHdio, where he examines the various phenomena shaping the linguistic identity of young people today.
The project is an audio extension of his collaborative dictionary Le petit chilleur, which he worked on for three years as his master’s thesis. Through the episodes, he gives a direct voice to the young people he meets in the field, but also to language experts to analyze and contextualize his observations.
In Thus be chill, the artist is particularly interested in Montreal slang, different accents, new swear words or Verlan. He begins the series by considering the conjugation of verbs borrowed from English. When traditionally granted like the verbs in French of the first group (in ER), adolescents tend to omit the ending “é” to approximate the original model. So you’re more likely to say “I chill” than “I chilled”; “I have a bad trip” instead of “bad tripé”.
We must welcome, even highlight, this change with a good eye, rather than deny, reject or criticize it. This is the only way to ensure the survival of French in Quebec.
Jérôme 50 also goes back to the origins of these new popular words like “patnais” (friend), “vag” (let it go), “wesh” (hello) or even “stife” (girl), which are actually borrowings from other languages, mainly Haitian Creole and Arabic.
We also learn that this phenomenon is as old as the world and has long shaped the French language. For example, the word “couch” comes from Arabic, “robot” from Czech, “quilt” from Danish and “liner” from English.
“It showcases all the lexical creativity of young people today who continue that tradition. But it’s a phenomenon that unfortunately we’re not very interested in, except to criticize it,” regrets Jérôme, 50.
This prompted him to create a dictionary of young people’s language and by extension the podcast. “I hope it will help open the eyes of politicians, teachers and many others to the contribution young people make to preserving our language. […] With these changes, we must learn to love our French language again. »
So keep cool
A podcast hosted by Jérôme 50 and directed by Catherine-Eve Gadoury. Available Friday, May 12 on Radio-Canada’s OHdio platform.