Language - Chiac, Surzhyk, and the evolution of how we speak

Of moose in New Brunswick and Russian imperialism

We live in New Brunswick, home to tens of thousands of Acadians and likely an equal number of moose. Give or take.

As a lover of languages, I wondered upon moving here almost six years ago, “How do Acadians say the word ‘moose’ in French?” I found this to be a particularly pressing question for some reason.

Try to restrain your enthusiasm for the answer, but here’s some advice in the meantime: don’t use Google Translate. I’ll explain why in a bit.

Language is a compelling aspect of human existence. It holds significant power, so it’s no surprise that language has often been the first target over the centuries when one people attempts to oppress or subjugate another.

For instance, Russia – whether Imperial Russia or Soviet Russia – has forced its language upon Ukrainians for hundreds of years. In the 19^th century, the Russian Empire first denied that the Ukrainian language existed, then went all the way and made written Ukrainian mostly illegal. The so-called “Great Russians” deemed Ukrainian, or “Little Russian,” to be nothing more than a lowbrow rural dialect, not worthy of literature or of being spoken in polite company.

Today, of course, one of Vladimir Putin’s objectives in the invasion of Ukraine is to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian national identity, including, once again, the Ukrainian language. Russia is the same as it ever was.

Canadian linguistic imperialism, too

In Canada, where we often think we’re above doing things the Russians do, many generations of politicians and educators firmly believed that they should eradicate Indigenous identity and language. In residential schools, the “educators” beat children for speaking their native tongue, and Indigenous peoples continue to pay a dear price for this, not only those who attended the schools but subsequent generations as well.

And I haven’t even mentioned battles around the French-English question that have manifested in one form or another since the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.

The role and power of language are apparent, so it’s worth knowing a bit about how we come to use the language we do.

Language has always evolved in relation to what’s around it

Where we live and with whom we share space both influence language. Russian and Ukrainian, for instance, are two of the three East Slavic languages (Belarusian is the third); each has evolved differently due to historical and geographical influences.

At the risk of oversimplifying, the Russian language reflects, in part, influences from northern Finnic tribes and an extended period under the Mongols between the 13^th and 15^th centuries. In contrast, the Ukrainian language reflects the influences of the Turkic tribes to the south and west Slavic peoples in what is now Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Due to Russian subjugation over the centuries, much of central and eastern Ukraine has tended to speak either Russian or Surzhyk, a Russian-Ukrainian mix. This has started to change since the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022, as many from that part of Ukraine now make a specific effort to speak Ukrainian as a way of separating themselves from the aggressor Russians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose first language is Russian, is the best example of this.

Back to Canada…

Of course, we have our own examples of language particularities in Canada. Québec French has evolved separately from the French spoken in France, with many differences in accent, pronunciation, and vocabulary. And then there are the Acadians here in the Maritimes, whose French differs from that of either of the other two.

And if you think that Acadian French is the same throughout New Brunswick, you’d be dead wrong. Sometimes, it’s even radically different from one community to the next (I’m looking at you, Baie-Ste-Anne). Moreover, the French you hear anywhere will differ substantially from anything resembling formal written French.

If you’re trying to learn French when moving to New Brunswick, be prepared to learn two languages: formal French (“Je n’en sais rien pour l’instant” for “I don’t know right now”) and whatever form of Acadian French they speak in your community (“Chepas asteur,” as they would say the aforementioned phrase here in Pointe-Sapin). My advice: if you move here and want to learn French, stay in one place, or you might have to start all over again.

Chiac: Un type de vrai français

And it’s essential to know about Chiac, which is a mix of standard French, Acadian French (as it’s evolved over the past 420 years), and all manner of interspersed English. The further SE you go in New Brunswick, the more Chiac you’ll hear.

Note that the original Acadian French includes many words that a person would never hear in Québec or France today, even though many would have originated in the specific part of France from which the original settlers came.

One of my favourite Chiac stories is about the word “moose” (as in Bullwinkle). If you use Google Translate, it renders in French as “élan.” Well, there’s not a single New Brunswicker from Cape Tormentine to Edmundston who would ever use that word. When I asked my colleagues at the Service New Brunswick office where I was working how they say “moose” in French, the answer was telling.

“North of Richibucto, it’s ‘orignal’. South of Richibucto, it’s just ‘moose.’” Chiac in a nutshell. Take that, Google Translate.

“Ukrainian Chiac”

I’m a second-generation (i.e., children of immigrants) Ukrainian-Canadian whose first language is Ukrainian. My friends and I would often make fun of Ukrainian speakers whose families had been in Canada for much longer because their Ukrainian was so anglicized in both accent and interspersion of English words.

I realized only since moving to New Brunswick almost six years ago that this was, in reality, a type of “Ukrainian Chiac” and that it was quite natural for language to evolve that way for families who’d been in Canada for some years. Moreover, the fact that they were still carrying on the language in whatever form was something we should celebrate, not deride for its imperfections. The hubris of youth.

Now, of course, the shoe is on the other foot, as the Ukrainians who have recently arrived here often comment – kindly – on my “quaint” Ukrainian, with its anglicized accent and borrowed English (and sometimes French) words. “You sound just like my baba on the farm!” is what I often hear.

Natural justice of a sort.

Chiac, Surzhyk, accented, or unaccented – it doesn’t matter!

Language evolves everywhere based on the influences around it – some benign, some malign – including historical, temporal, geographical, and unquestionably political. When we speak, we draw upon who we are, where we are, and who is around us. There is no right or wrong way to speak (as opposed to write, but that’s fodder for another essay) – all that’s required is for us to communicate intelligibly.

And to suspend judgement. As was the case for me, there are plenty of times when you’ll be the one with the quaint accent and borrowed words.