Language is powerful
Language is a fascinating aspect of human existence. It evolves – sometimes in ways many of us wish it didn’t – and changes in response to its surroundings. It is obviously a tool of expression but has very often also been a tool of oppression.
For instance, the Russians have forced their language upon Ukrainians for hundreds of years: in the 19th century, Russia first denied that the Ukrainian language existed, then went all the way and made written Ukrainian mostly illegal. Today, of course, one of Putin’s objectives in the invasion of Ukraine is to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian national identity, including once again the Ukrainian language. Unlike in the 19th century, though, Ukrainians are capable of fighting back this time and the Ukrainian language is flourishing in ways it has never done before.
In Canada, where we often think we’re above doing some of the things the Russians do, many generations of so-called educators took to heart the dictum that they should eradicate Indigenous identity and language among the unfortunate souls whom the government forced to attend residential schools. Children were beaten for speaking their native tongue and Indigenous peoples continue to pay the price for this, not only those who actually attended the schools but subsequent generations as well.
Language is therefore obviously a powerful tool, so it’s worth knowing a bit about how we come to use the language that we do.
Language has always evolved in relation to what’s around it
Where we live and with whom we share space influences the evolution of any given language, especially spoken language. Russian and Ukrainian, for instance, are two of the three East Slavic languages (Belorussian is the third) but each has evolved differently as a result of 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 while Ukrainian reflects the influence of the Turkic tribes to the south and west Slavic peoples in what is now Poland, Slovakia, and Czechia.
In contrast, as a result of Russian subjugation over the centuries, much of central and eastern Ukraine has tended to speak either Russian or Surzhyk, which is essentially a Russian-Ukrainian mix. This has started to change since the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022, as many Ukrainians from that part of Ukraine now make a specific effort to speak as much Ukrainian as possible as a way of separating themselves from the aggressor Russians. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whose first language was Russian, is the primary exemplar of this.
But it’s not easy to turn on a dime and all of a sudden live your life in a spoken language that’s different from what history, geography, and politics have determined you would speak. Not easy at all.
Back to Canada…
We have our own examples of language particularities in Canada, of course. For a number of reasons, the French spoken in Québec has evolved separately from the French in France, so there are many differences in accent and pronunciation, to be sure, but also even in vocabulary. And then there are our friends and neighbours here on the Northumberland coast, the New Brunswick Acadians, whose French is different from that of either of the other two.
And if you think that Acadian French is the same throughout the province, you’d be dead wrong (of course, the same is true for any language in any country). Sometimes, it’s radically different even from one community to the very next (I’m looking at you, Baie-Ste Anne) and virtually any of the French you hear anywhere will be very different from anything resembling formal written French even at its most basic level, and certainly different from anything that you learned in school.
If you’re trying to learn French when moving to New Brunswick, be prepared to learn three languages: formal French (“Je n’en sais rien pour l’instant” for “I don’t know right now”), Acadian French (“Chepas asteur”), and whatever version of the latter they speak in your community. My advice: if you move to NB and want to learn French, best to stay in that one place and not move to a different part of the province or you might have to start all over again!
Chiac: Un type de vrai français
The more southeast you are in New Brunswick, the more you’ll encounter Chiac, which is a mix of standard French, original Acadian French (they’ve been in this part of the world for 420 years, despite Great Britain’s best efforts to “relocate” them in 1755 – I’m being kind here), and all manner of interspersed English. Note that the original Acadian French includes many words that a person would never hear in Québec or France today, although many of those words originated in the specific part of France whence the original settlers came.
One of my favourite Chiac stories is about the word “moose” (as in Bullwinkle). If you enter this word into 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 at the time how they say “moose” in French, the answer was telling.
“North of Richibucto, it’s ‘orignal’ (which is, interestingly, of Basque origin – JI). South of Richibucto, it’s just ‘moose’.” That’s Chiac in a nutshell!
“Ukrainian Chiac”
I’m a second-generation Ukrainian-Canadian whose first language was actually Ukrainian. Other kids in my second-generation (i.e., children of immigrants) cohort would often make fun of Ukrainian speakers whose families had been in Canada for much longer because their Ukrainian was so anglicized in terms of both accent and interspersion of English words.
I realized only since moving to New Brunswick five years ago that this was in reality a type of Ukrainian Chiac and that it was quite natural for their language to evolve that way for Ukrainian 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 to be celebrated, not derided for its imperfections – as if my own Ukrainian was so pristine.
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. Natural justice of a sort.
Chiac, Surzhyk, accented, or unaccented – it doesn’t matter!
The bottom line is that language evolves everywhere based on the influences around it, including historical, temporal, geographical, and certainly political. When we speak, we draw upon who we are, or who we are told to be, in many cases, but also upon where we are and who is around us. There is no right or wrong way (I think there are rules when using formal written language, but that is fodder for another essay) – all that’s required is for good communication to occur.
And for judgement to be suspended. After all, there are plenty of times when you’ll be the one with the quaint accent and borrowed words.