Discussion between escarlate adamantine and Lambie

Lambie

14:23

@escarlateadamantine It is really too bad that you misunderstood what I said. I never said anything untoward at all. I guess it is hard to believe what an actual linguist says. It is extremely unusual for a loanword used as a verb to be pronounced in the loanword language in the middle of a group of utterances all of which are pronounced as usual in the language (here Québecois). Y

ou might want to read this answer to your question:french.stackexchange.com/questions/46991/…

In my experience, non-professional linguists often do not have the patience to see a question or issue through to the end, They lose patience quickly. Of course, if you believe for one second, I have something against Québecois, you would be unable to hear what I am actually saying.

In fact, let's just see if you can tell me what it is I'm saying. All the personal vitriol is a waste of time and downright silly.

Lambie

15:09

@silph Please do not misunderstand me: I am saying only one thing. That any loanword, when used as a verb is unlikely to be pronounced outside of the sound system the rest of the text uses. Ergo, that is unusual. And it caught my attention. I am not saying it is wrong; nothing people say is "wrong". **Nothing. People speak like they speak. Any linguist knows that.

So, if you want to hear a word in a corpus, listening to the individual pronunciation of a word out of context does not work for this purpose. The fact is I speak other languages as well and I have never ever heard a verb taken from one language into another pronounced on its own in a different way in the middle of a text.

Portuguese and Spanish have tons of loan words from English, many made into verbs. For example, the football (soccer) term to kick the ball in Portuguese is dar un shute na bola. shutar comes from shoot. And has been completely "Brazilianized"; In Spanish, there is chequear from check in English. Same thing.

So, the fact it caught my attention (parker/parquer) just means I am doing my job. Cheers.

silph

18:04

@Lambie it wasn't you who i was thinking of when i mentioned "C'est correct", but I was thinking of you for other prescriptivists stances. i'm trying to find the comment where you said something in response to escarlateadmantine that i did, indeed, feel that the tone of your response was implying that escarlate's own Québecois language was substandard, but i'm having trouble finding it. it's unfortunate that i can't find it, because it just sounds like i'm attacking you baselessly right now.

in general, i can say that i have benefitted from your responses. you feel that when you see an opp…

what i do notice, though, i find that your tone in writing sometimes comes across *to my ears* as a little aggressive or over-confident, but that doesn't bother me, personally. but it seems that other people are bothered by it. i suspect that you don't mean to sound aggressive or over-confident, but instead you're only trying to share the information you know.

i'm just an outsider, so i cannot say who is "in the right" or not; i merely can see that you and escarlate and others feel disrespected/unwelcomed, and i'm definitely not able to trace its origins or say who is justified and who is …

selfishly, i hope that French.SE continues to be active, and so i hope the tensions doesn't stop the contributors from contributing. i have nothing meaningful to say about the tensions; and all i can say is that, as a learner, i've benefited by both your contributions and escarlate's (especially by contributions that answer questions in depth and with step-by-step examples) and i hope you both continue to write answers.

escarlate gives answers (often in-depth answers!) from a Québecois perspective, which is especially useful given that i'm learning French from Québecois TV shows; but your contributions have also benefited me. i, selfishly, hope that both of you can continue writing answers to my questions.

(i wrote another paragraph about the "parker" pronunciation situation, but i fear i already wrote too much, so i'm leaving it out)

Lambie

@silph I doubt I said anything about substandard. People speak how they speak. The only thing one can qualify as "substandard" depends on the language game you are playing. If you go to interview to get into Harvard and say "He don't", they, the people at Harvard will say that is substandard. I am a linguist not a prescriptivist and sometimes people do not understand my analyses.

Unfortunately, people misunderstood what I said about the parker/parquer and jumped on me before they understood what I was actually saying.

escarlate adamantine

19:00

@Lambie I read what you wrote a few comments above. Blaming my understanding of what you said is easy. I may misconstrue some statements but like I told some time ago, ... a tree by its fruits. Maybe you mean well, but please consider what you wrote:

It's too bad he pronounces parque or park with such an American accent....

To switch an accent to an AmE phonemes so drastically just sounds un-French, Québecois or New Caledonian or any other French. Especially when it's possible to Frenchify it so easily.

I have never, repeat never heard, however, in everyday conversation in any of these languages, "loans" being pronounced using the original source language's sound system. Unless there is a special reason for it. And Québecois is no exception to what is essentially a fact.

You and I have a history. I hope we can remain civil. But please be nice with the other contributors.

Lots of it has to do with the manner people get treated. Like saying jiliagre's value added edit was unethical because it made your comment look bad. The same with that moderator there. You can't believe something like that.

Certainly you can tell the answer was going in the right direction and was pretty useful, but for using the term advocate. You can't have been wanting this inaccuracy to remain so that you exchange in the comments was validated etc.

Lambie

19:20

@escarlateadamantine Yes, I feel that it somehow wrecks it. Did you see what the person Anonymous wrote? She or he wrote: Anyway, the bottom line is, French Canadians do not pronounce English loanwords completely in English. It's just that their system of pronunciation for these words incorporates more English sounds than European French would use.

However, to my ear, he is pronouncing it in a completely AmE accent.

But that is not even my main point, which you failed to understand.

escarlate adamantine

Now, on a content related note, from our discussion you can now fully appreciate why this tendency to go as close as possible to AmE or generally English makes this code-switching tedious and reinforces my not wanting to use English in a more « regular » speech outside a few well-placed loanwords here and there. Always leveraging English language phonetics in French speech can become tiresome.

Lambie

About ch't'à, OK, so you provided the chart. I believe you. OK, I had no idea about that.

escarlate adamantine

I understand but consider I needed to provide research whereas with many things you claim you don't yourself. Yet your statements would be authoritative.

I call on that double-standard and react to it.

Yes in QC some speakers come very close.

But they're not native speakers of the English language, by definition.

So yeah. Later.

Lambie

Did you understand my main point about parker and a complete context and sound system? Or not? It is extremely unusualto have a verb in the middle of an otherwise completely Québecois accent be switched like that to AmE. Bear in mind: I am above all an interpreter who listens to speech very closely. In my 35 years of listening to three languages and their loan words and verbs, I have never ever heard a sound code switch like that for a VERB in a sentence. The likelihood is very very low.

There are tons of verbs in Spanish and Portuguese taken from English. On the Mexico/US border the Spanish is filled with AmE-type words. The accent is always Spanish.

That is why it came as a complete shock.

As for surface roads, you may not like my translation. I asked people to suggest something else. However, I am 100% sure of the meaning. And no one who who lives in the banlieue parisienne can possibly know better than I in this particular case. I have direct experience of it. Even the master mathematician Peter Shor did not know that surface road was now the name of a road in Boston

escarlate adamantine

I read everything. I just explained that's why constantly having loanwards is annoying, because of the code-switch. I'm a native speaker of the variety. I've come to terms with the fact that European French speakers pronounce many of those loanwords differently. Also, as explained by this contributor, in Easter QC it would be more like that indeed.

I can't be blamed for not knowing that how I pronounce these words feels unnatural to you. That's how I speak my own language. I'm no linguist.

Lambie

19:34

named that way because there used to be an overpass right over it. Right directly above it. In NY too. surface road only exist because there were overpasses over them before and sometimes still are.

escarlate adamantine

The only experience I have is speaking my own language.

Please don't feed me another surface road.

Lambie

Do you code switch your pronunciation in the middle of a thing you are saying in Québecois to an AmE accent? I doubt it.

escarlate adamantine

It never was really about that anyways, that's a question for ELU.

Lambie

What is a question for ELU?

escarlate adamantine

After all we've been talking you still ask me "Do you code switch your pronunciation in the middle of a thing you are saying in Québecois to an AmE accent? I doubt it."

I wrote that twice already. After all this it's pretty obvious. When I say something like: passe-moi ton smartphone, that word is very much like in English.

I explained that already. Whereas someone who is French says s-marthe-fun.

So yeah, I do code switch like that Cowboys f. singer with je parke.

And those other words I've highlighted for you in the comments to that answer..

Within the constraints of what was explained to you in the answer and research paper.

Lambie

19:41

Ok, well, that is very unusual. Generally, one has one or another underlying sound system. To me, that's an anomaly. That Anonymous person said that French Canadians do not pronounce loanwords completely in English. So, now, I can say to you: someone else seems to see what I am saying.

escarlate adamantine

It's phonetically tiresome when it becomes franglais when it's extreme. Also note we're talking of familiar speech. Usually I'll avoid most of these loanwords.

I never said completely in English, I said like what was explained and like the Cowboy f.

Lambie

But why is franglais with a French accent tiresome?

escarlate adamantine

That is no anomaly. The anomaly is claiming you know anything about this.

Ok, you can't be serious @Lambie.

Sorry but the answer goes against everything you've been saying from the very beginning and which I quoted.

Lambie

No, it isn't. If you have other methods of comparison (which I do), then, I do say it is an anomaly. Generally, loanwords are taken into any language and pronounced the way the language is pronounced. Not the way the OTHER language pronounces it.

escarlate adamantine

You've been shown the opposite in the comments from Anonymous. Bon appétit in English for instance, with some speakers they can come close. Consider Anthony Hopkins in Red Dragon.

No Lambie. You're twisting this answer's content to fit what you claim.

Lambie

19:46

Anonymous and I do not agree on everything. Bon appétit is not a loanword. It is a French expression USED by English speakers/.

escarlate adamantine

OMG.

Lambie

I have no reason for twisting anything. And English speakers often pronounce the t at the end.

escarlate adamantine

Ok, I'm flagging your repeated statement associating the way a group of native Quebec French speakers speak their native language to an anomaly and deal with some loanwoards.

Lambie

I'm talking about verbs, loanword VERBS. Not stand-alone expressions.

It is an anomaly COMPARED to other languages like Spanish and Portuguese that have verb loanwords and do not keep an English accent when they use those verbs.

escarlate adamantine

In the comments, this was much more nuanced and the person provided you with explanations. You simply don't agree with them is all.

I don't have expertise with phonetics so I must rely on them.

And the research I provided.

I'm afraid we're done for now.

Lambie

19:53

Look, a native speaker of any language, when using loanwords will ADAPT the loanword to the sound system in their own language. Even more so, when the loanword is a verb. Go ask some Chinese speaker living next to the Russian border. Or a Mexican Spanish speaker living on the Mexico-US border. Anomaly is not a bad word.

This does not require phonetics. I requires an ear for the accents. :)

This is generally true. This holds true for whatever the person's dominant accent is. If however they code switch for a single word or verb in the middle of a sentence, that is an anomaly and actually very interesting linguistically.

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