Acadian French is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has seven regional accents, including Chiac and Brayon.

Phonology

Since there was relatively little linguistic contact with France from the late 18th century to the 20th century, Acadian French retained features that died out during the French standardization efforts of the 19th century such as these: According to Wiesmath (2006), some characteristics of Acadian are: These features typically occur in the speech of older people. Many aspects of Acadian French (vocabulary and "trill r", etc.) are still common in rural areas in the South West of France. Speakers of Metropolitan French and even of other Canadian varieties of French sometimes have difficulty understanding Acadian French. Within North America, its closest relative is Louisiana French spoken in Southern Louisiana since both were born out of the same population that were affected during the Expulsion of the Acadians. See also Chiac, a variety with strong English influence, and St. Marys Bay French, a distinct variety of Acadian French spoken around Clare, Tusket, Nova Scotia and also Moncton, New Brunswick.

Palatalization

not to be confused with affrication typical of Quebec French.

Metathesis

Metathesis is quite common. For example, mercredi ('Wednesday') is mercordi, and pauvreté ('poverty') is pauveurté. Je (the pronoun 'I') is frequently pronounced euj and Le is frequently pronounced eul. In words, "re" is often pronounced "er". For instance :

Vowels

Elision of final consonants

Vocabulary and grammar

Yves Cormier's Dictionnaire du français acadien (ComiersAcad) includes the majority of Acadian regionalisms. From a syntactic point of view, a major feature is the use of je for the first-person singular and plural; the same phenomenon takes place with i for the third persons. Acadian still differentiates the vous form from the tu form. The following words and expressions are most commonly restricted to Acadian French south of the Miramichi River, but some are also used north of the Miramichi River and in Quebec French (also known as Québécois) or Joual for the Montreal version of Quebec French. The Miramichi line is an isogloss separating South Acadian (archaic or "true" Acadian) from the Canadian French dialects to the north, North Acadian, Brayon (Madawaskan) and Quebec French (Laurentian French). South Acadian typically has morphosyntactic features such as [je [V [-on] … ]] (as in je parlons "we speak") that distinguishes it from dialects to the north or elsewhere in the Americas such as Cajun French, Saint-Barthélemy French or Métis French that have [nouzot [on- [V …]]] (as in nous-autres on parle). Geddes (1908), the oldest authority on any variety of French spoken in Northern Acadia, records of the morphosyntactic characteristics of "true" Acadian spoken in the South and adjacent islands to the West. Some examples of "true" Acadian French are:

Numerals

Passé simple

St. Marys Bay French, a conservative dialect of Acadian French spoken in the St. Marys Bay, Nova Scotia region, is notable for maintaining use of the passé simple in spoken conversation. In most modern dialects of French, the tense is only used in formal writing and formal speech.