Weird and Worthless Trivia

[greg334]

My mother-in-law is from Maine and her family moved from Quebec to Maine in the 20’s and she still considers herself French-Canadian but speaks Arcadian. Apparently in her town there was a big population of French speaking residents as with many towns in Maine at that time.

I would think that this would still be true after 60 years but I ran across a couple articles on the French language in the US that said that North Miami Florida has more of French speaking people than does all of Maine. I am trying to prove this but can’t find much about it.

 

[louixo]

Maybe not Arcadians, but Acadians who went down to the bayou, and established cajun country. If I remember correctly,they came from western France and settled into western Canada back in the 1700´s, and then migrated down to bayou country. Here is something more extensive. Many cajuns still have Acadian surnames.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Back in the 1755 the Acadians that settled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick were seen by the British as a threat because of the war with France. Were forced unto British warships and sent south or wherever. They went house to house and forcibly ejected them.

In 1604, settlers from France crossed the ocean and established communities along Canada's east coast in present day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, known as "l'Acadie." More immigrants came over the next few years to develop the fertile lands. Tension mounted as France and Britain each made territorial claims on this same stretch of land. Britain assumed control of the region with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

http://www.cbc.ca/acadian/

http://www.cbc.ca/acadian/timeline.html

 

[silverdollar]

Louixo, I think that it is wonderful that you can remember all the way back to the 1700s.

 

[louixo]

Silverdollar...that´s how long I´ve been trucking. Back then I had a wagon. A big one. Used to run Boston to Pittsburgh in 32 days.

 

[greg334]

Well Sorry for the typo and I stand corrected with the difference.

But outside of the Cajun connection, it seems that North Miami is still has a larger population of French speaking people according all that I can find, and this excludes Cajun for some reason. I don't know why there is such a difference between the two, but maybe it is the same between Chiac and Walloon?

All I know is when we were in Vegas, she could converse with a couple from Quebec but not a couple from Lousiana.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

yep..there are many different dialics of French in North America why even Northern Ontario French is somewhat different then Quebec French and downeast is different again. I guess kinda like the different accents in the U.S Like the New Yorker, Mass. and down south.