Quebec language policy jumpscare
You must log in or register to comment.
This article had me wondering what the “French equivalents” are of the Italian words mentioned.
I think pâte is pasta in French; I don’t know the rest.
EDIT: looking it up, it looks like:
Pasta = pâtes
Antipasti = antipasti
Calamari = calamarSo, as a native English speaker, it seems like really dumb stuff to make a big deal out of. Turns out words in one Romance language will be really similar to or the same as equivalent words in another Romance language. Maybe the Quebecker Office of the French Language wanted them to say « entrée » instead of antipasti? Entree in French refers to the appetizer or first course, but for some reason in English (or at least US English) entree has become the name for the main course; I don’t know how we screwed that up.
I believe the political problem to be solved was to make something that was built to stop the encroachment of English into Quebec French more language neutral. That may have been important because Quebec has a sizeable English-only-speaking minority locals and an aggressive stance against English-only encroachment politically unwise.
Spanish has that problem. One example is pasta. One meaning is pasta like macaroni the other meaning is paste like toothpaste.
As far as I am aware, it is only US English that changes this. In AU, and UK, Entree is appetizer.
Good to know!
They used to dub The Simpsons into French separately in France and Quebec. In France they were secure enough to let Homer like “les donuts”, but in Quebec, forever under siege by the threat of Coca-Colonisation by American English, they replaced them with a French pastry.
