BY LAURENT D’ENTREMONT
Those who are very loyal at promoting and preserving the French language may not be too keen at admitting it: we are, without a doubt, slowly losing the ancient language in my part of the province.
Many households these days have one parent who does not speak French and, normally, the children will grow up speaking English. Children at Acadian schools will learn the two official languages as part of their schooling; in many cases though, they will have little opportunity to practice both.
When I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, things were very much as in my grandparents’ days: we spoke French as our everyday language but, unlike someof our grandparents - we understood English very well. We were exposed to the local radio station CJLS, and we read English publications like The Yarmouth Light, Family Herald and others on regular basis. I could understand English when I was very young, although I did not dare to speak it until I was 10 or so. Adults would speak English when they did not want children to understand, but usually it was wasted effort.
My grandfather often spoke about the first time he had gone to Yarmouth at 13 years of age aboard the vessel, “Senora.” Living aboard the fishing schooner for a few days was a great adventure. Trying to communicate with the Yarmouth merchants was an even greater adventure. Before he left for Yarmouth, a two- or three-day trip, his Aunt Martine and other women living nearby gave him the task of collecting calendars from shopkeepers.
My grandfather’s English was very limited, his well-rehearsed line was: “Got-nee-calendars?” One storekeeper, Levi Robichaud, was kind to the children and would give them dried peanuts along with the calendars. Seventy-five years later, he would describe the calendars he brought back for the women of the neighbourhood: they all had pictures of tall ships in full sail, square-riggers. One could almost feel the breeze and taste the salt.
It is no secret those of us who still speak French have the habit of throwing in English words anywhere we feel like it. We are losing it, too.
Sometimes a person will speak one language while the other person answers in the other. A good example of this: I was talking with my niece at the shopping center in Barrington: I spoke French and she answered in English, as it is her first language. Eventually, I switched to English and she automatically switched to French at about the same time. Later, a clerk nearby asked me, “How do you guys know when to switch?” Of course, in my area, we no longer pay much attention to which of the official languages we speak, as we are equally at ease with both.
Of course, at LeVillage Acadien and Le Museum Acadien, we have to do our best to preserve the language of our ancestors, along with their way of life. It is always amusing when we get visitors from the United States and the first question they ask is: “Can you people speak English?” A good question, but they should be asking it the other way around: “Can you still speak French, or have you lost it completely?”
Visitors from Quebec can really put me to the test, and I have to struggle to understand what they are saying. They talk too fast for me.
When doing my little comedy gig, I sometime joke I kept my French accent only to add to my act as a comedian. Here’s a story I often told the audience in Canning, a place I dearly love: “Growing up in West Pubnico, we were surrounded by English-speaking villages. When we ventured out, they made fun of our accent. It never bothered me, but I had a brother who resented that, so he studied languages until he was perfect in English. He came back to Yarmouth and entered a store and, in perfect English, he said: “I would like a loaf of bread, please, a pound of butter and a quart of milk.” The clerk said: “You must be a French guy from West Pubnico.” My brother said, “How on earth do you know that?” To which the clerk replied: “This is a Canadian Tire store”
Perhaps I exaggerate a bit here, but it is no exaggeration we are losing our French. I will not pass judgement on this: as we all know, history is the story of change. At one time, the language along our shores was Mi’kmaq.
