Métis French (french: français métis), along with

Michif Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona) ...

and

Bungi Bungi (also called Bungee, Bungie, Bungay, Bangay, or the Red River Dialect) is a dialect of English with substratal influence from Scottish English, the Orcadian dialect of Scots, Norn, Scottish Gaelic, French, Cree, and Ojibwe (Saulteaux). ...

, is one of the traditional languages of the

Métis people The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...

, and the French-dialect source of Michif.Bakker. (1997: 85).

Features

Métis French is a variety of

Canadian French Canadian French (french: français canadien) is the French language as it is spoken in Canada. It includes Varieties of French#Canada, multiple varieties, the most prominent of which is Quebec French, Québécois (Quebec French). Formerly ''Can ...

with some added characters such as Ññ, Áá, Óó, and Ææ (from older French spellings) (example, English: "there is no birthmark on this boy") and words loaned from indigenous languages such as

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

Beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

and

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

. Like Michif, Métis French is spoken in Manitoba and North Dakota and adjacent provinces or states. As a general rule, Métis individuals speak one or the other, rarely both. Métis French and Michif share a common

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

and

morphosyntax In linguistics, morphology () is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morph ...

for the

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

but differ as to their sources for the

verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''quic ...

which is

based in Michif, French-based in Métis French. Examples of this loaning can be found in words such as from the Cree word, kakwe "to try/attempt" which maintains its Cree meaning with the additional colloquial use of "to wander" as in English: "he wandered there" which suggests that the subject wandered with little control of his own feet; in the word meaning "wolf" or "loyal" (in a pack-like sense) when used as an adjective from the word for wolf in Beaver, ch'one or in the words meaning "white/non-Métis" person from the Ojibwe word zhaganash and from the Cree word for "good person", miyo-nâpêw though in Métis French it is closer to the word "mec" (guy) and implies that the word refers someone that the speaker knows personally.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

References

Citations

Bibliography

*Bakker, Peter
A language of our own: the genesis of Michif, the mixed Cree-French language
*Douaud, Patrick C. 1980. "Métis: A case of triadic linguistic economy." ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 22.392–414. *–––. 1983. "An example of suprasegmental convergence." ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 49.91–93. *–––. 1985. ''Ethnolinguistic profile of the Canadian Métis''. Ottawa: National Museum of Man, Mercury Series 99. *Edwards, John R
Language in Canada
*Jackson, Michael. 1974. "" ' 19.121–33. *Lincoln, Neville J. ''Phonology of the Métis French dialect of St. Paul, Alberta''. University of Alberta in Edmonton Thesis. *Lussier, Antoine S. 1980. "" ''The other natives: Les Métis'', ed. A. Lussier & B. Sealy, 3.167–70. Winnipeg: Manitoba Métis Federation Press. *Papen, Robert. 1979. "" *–––. 1984. "" ' () 14:1.113–139. *–––. 1993. "" ' 3.25–38. *–––. 1998. "" ', ed. P. Brasseur, 147–161. Avignon: CECAV. *–––. 1998. "French: Canadian varieties." ''Language in Canada'', ed. J. Edwards, 160–176. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *–––. 2004. "" ', ed. A. Coveney & C. Sanders. Paris: L’Harmattan. *–––. 2004. "" ', , vol. 14. *Préfontaine, R. 1980. "" ''The other natives: '', ed. A. Lussier & B. Sealy, 3.162–66. Winnipeg: Manitoba Métis Federation Press. *Thogmartin, Clyde. 1974. "The phonology of three varieties of French in Manitoba." ''Orbis'' 23.335–49. *Wittmann, Henri. 1995. "" ', ed. Robert Fournier & Henri Wittmann, 281–334. {{DEFAULTSORT:Metis French Canadian French Languages of Canada French