The Heart's Landscape takes place in Montreal, an eminently multilingual city. Language is a source of political tension on many different fronts in Canada, so I wanted to explain why I'm using it in the way that I am.
Marvel's solution in the comics has always been the good old pointy brackets. <I'm speaking French!> <Now I'm speaking Russian!> This is fine for comics, but in prose I find it awkward. So I've gone the traditional prose route of just mentioning it when it's relevant that characters are speaking a particular language. "I have a message for you," she said in Russian, to the consternation of the other botanists. I assume that readers can figure out that if language is not mentioned, then everyone is either speaking English or it doesn't matter much what language they're speaking.
Another language crime that Marvel has committed is describing the language spoken in Quebec as "joual." Some people in Quebec do speak joual, but it's important to understand that joual is not a creole or a language unto itself. Arguably, it isn't even a separate dialect. We might compare it to "ebonics" among black communities: a bit thicker than mere slang, but understandable by outsiders. A kid from the inner city does not speak ebonics instead of English, and if you asked him what language he spoke he would say he speaks English. Joual also faces some of the same biases that ebonics does (without the racial element), and many Quebecers would strenuously deny that they speak joual. So I have left the whole business alone, which is what Marvel should have done: the Beaubiers speak French because they are francophones. Period.
Nevertheless, I did want to include some of the flavour of Quebec without confusing unilingual readers or unnecessarily clogging up the page with italics. I decided to include the occasional bit of salty French, such as Aurora's "bout de viarge" in the first chapter, and some snippets of short, simple dialogue in French. I've avoided some slangy joual-ish spellings -- "Chu tanné" is not going to mean anything to an anglophone American no matter how much local colour it adds. The one that I did keep was "Ouais", because it's different in meaning from "oui" just as "yeah" is different from "yes." I kept the names of French institutions untranslated.
Final disclaimer: I am not a Quebecer. I'm an Ottawan, I've known a number of francophones, and I was in immersion for part of my schooling, but I'm not an expert and I'm not perfectly bilingual.
Arrière-court. Backyard.
Ayoye. The definition is "ouch", but all the francophones I've known use it more like "oy vey." Combine a Spanish ¡Ay! with the Yiddish Oy! and you have the right pronunciation.
Bon. Good, fine. Often nasalised to ben or banh.
Bout de viarge. Profanity concerning the Virgin Mary, for which I can't give a plausible English translation. An equivalently strong expression might be "fucking hell."
Câlisse de crisse. More profanity. Literal meaning is "chalice of Christ", but you can string together any number of religious terms (sacrés) with de—grammar and sense don't matter much.
C'est là que gît la lièvre. Literally, "That's where the rabbit lies." Figuratively, "There's the rub" or "That's the heart of the matter."
Dépanneur. Convenience store. Sells beer and wine.
Hein?, int. Eh? what? huh? (Pronounced like a more nasal "huh?")
Ouais. Generally a casual sort of affirmative like "yeah", but often a sighed, unenthusiastic one: "yeah, yeah, I'll do it."
Salut. Bye! and Hello!
T'sais? Y'know?
Zizi. Jocular term for the penis, like "dick" or "willy."
Back to Contents.