Chiac


Chiac is a dialect of the Acadian French language with influences from English and to a lesser extent from various Canadian aboriginal languages. It is spoken by many Acadians in southeast New Brunswick, especially among youth near Moncton, Dieppe, Memramcook and Shediac.

History

Chiac is a relatively recent development of the French language whose growth was spurred in the 1960s by the dominance of English-language media in Canada, the lack of French-language primary and secondary education, increased urbanization of Moncton, and contact with the dominant Anglophone community in the area. The word 'Chiac' is believed to be derived from "Shediac". University of Orléans linguist Marie‑Ève Perrot describes Chiac as "the integration and transformation of English lexical, syntactic, morphological, and phonetic forms into French structures".

Background

The roots and base of Chiac are Acadian French, a spoken French often tinged with nautical terms, reflecting the historical importance of the sea to the local economy and culture. Chiac also contains many older French words which are now deemed archaic by the Académie Française, as well as aboriginal-derived terms, notably from Mi'kmaq, evident in words such as matues'', meaning 'porcupine'. Chiac uses primarily French syntax with French-English vocabulary and phrase forms.
Chiac is often deprecated by both French and English speakers as an ill-conceived hybrid language — either as "bad" French or as "bad" English — like franglais.

In the arts

Acadian writers, poets and musicians such as France Daigle, Cayouche, Zero Celsius, Radio Radio, Paul Bossé, Fayo, Lisa LeBlanc, Les Hay Babies, and 1755 have produced works in Chiac.
Chiac is also featured in Acadieman, a comedy about "The world's first Acadian Superhero" by Dano Leblanc. The animated series, also a comic book, contains a mixture of Anglophone, Francophone, and "Chiacophone" characters.

Example sentences