Francias en Lewiston ?

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by Audry524

Ditto what everyone else said but just reinforcing the fact that the French spoken in Maine is not the French spoken in France.

My parents are from northern Maine and always speak french to each other, not English. As a child we had a foreign exchange student from France visit our house and my parents and him had a real hard time understanding what the other was saying.

When we were in Fort Kent, half the folks in town were speaking French.

My stepmother speaks fluent French. She grew up just outside Paris. She can communicate just fine with folks from Quebec. The accent and some of the vocabulary is certainly different, but they can still understand one another just fine.

[dramamama6685]

I used to speak fluent French. It was my major in college..maybe I'll be able to brush up on my French when we head up in September. I hope I can still understand it(it's been almost 20 years... gosh am I old or what?).

[Soxfan64]

My parents both grew up in Northern Maine. My father in Frenchville my mom in Fort Kent. Although I never learned french, my oldest brother did. He learned it from my parents and some in school. When he went to France he was told that the dialect he was speaking was the "old peasant french". People in France do not use that dialect any longer. My brother likened it to a deep southern accent and dialect vs. a northern accent in the United States.

[MRVphotog]

Originally Posted by DavidoftheNorth

This is often stated. But neither is Maine (or American) English the same as British English. I've heard it said that the Maine accent, what little still exists, is similar to the English spoken in England at the time the English colonists left England. If you listen to British speakers today, for example, they usually drop their "r"s, similar to Mainers and some Bostonians. Similarly, the French spoken in northern Maine, Acadian French, was the French spoken mainly in Normandy in the 1600s when their ancestors set off for the New World. In those days, before TV and radio, regional dialects in European countries were more pronounced, also. Lewiston French is mostly derived from Quebec, is of different origins than Acadian French, and therefore is different again. It may be that French snobs are attuned to the fact that Maine French is markedly different from "Upper-Class" Parisian French and never was part of that distinctive and identifying dialect. Remember, class distinctions still exist in Europe. That might be the case, I don't know.

By the way, "francais" is spelled "francais", not "francias" - I'm sure it was just a typo, but just in case...

That's exactly what I was told years ago......French spoken in Canada is similar to 17th centurey French in France.