Re: USAGE: Louis? C'est lui (was Re: Russian orthography (was: A perfect day ...))

At 23:31 03/02/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>One of the most striking French-isms that *no* book tells you is the
>palatal consonant after high vowels.  Actually, I suspect it may be
>Québecois, because I definitely heard it there, but all my French
>teachers but one have it.  On words ending in /i/ (esp /yi/) or /y/,
>there is usually a /C/ tacked on, often very prominently.  Sometimes
>(rarely) it's almost an /S/.  After /u/ it's much fainter and more of a
>/x/.
>
>So Christophe, what's the word?  Is this a hick pronunciation, or
>Québecois, or what?
>
It's definitely Québécois (that's one of the distinctive features of Quebec
French compared to "French" French I know of). But I'm not sure about the
use of /C/ or /x/. Or maybe it depends on the consonnant. I know that
"petit" is pronounced in Québec /p@tsi/, whereas in France it's more /p@ti/
or slightly /p@t'i/ (with ' being palatalization). AFAIK, the pronunciation
in Québec is more or less the same as the pronunciation of "French" French
in the beginning of the XIXth century, so maybe the palatalization was more
important at that time. But in French of France, there is no palatalization
like the one you're talking about (the palatalization I discussed about
with Vasiliy is rather light and generally unnoticed).

                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

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