Quebec English

Quebec English is the common term for the set of various linguistic and social phenomena affecting the use of English in the predominantly French-speaking Canadian Province of Quebec.

There are few distinctive phonological features and very few restricted lexical features common among English-speaking Quebecers. The English spoken in Quebec generally belongs to West/Central Canadian English whose Sprachraum comprises one of the largest and most homogeneous dialect areas in North America. The dialect is common in Montreal, where the vast majority of anglophones in Quebec live, as well as in large metropolitan areas of Ontario and Western Canada. It is very similar to General American English. English-speaking Montrealers also have established ethnic groups that retain distinct lexical features: Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Greek communities all speak discernible varieties of English. Given that these communities have considerable mobility within Canada, they retain traits common in many Canadian cities.

Important regional variations also occur in rural and remote regions near Quebec's borders and are associated with local cross-border contact. Rural Townshippers and Châteauguay Valley residents in southern Quebec are reported by some to have a dialect more similar to that of Vermont English. Isolated fishing villages on the Lower North Shore of Quebec speak Newfoundland English, and many Gaspesian anglophones speak Maritime English. Finally, the Kahnawake Mohawks of south shore Montreal and the Cree and Inuit of Northern Quebec speak English with their own distinctive accents, word usage and expressions stemming from their respective Indigenous languages. Over centuries of contact, numerous English and French words have also been incorporated into their languages.

Francophone second-language speakers of English use an interlanguage with varying degrees of French-accented pronunciation. Since French-speaking Quebecers greatly outnumber English-speakers in most regions of Quebec, it is more common to hear this in public areas. Some English-speakers in overwhelmingly francophone areas exhibit some of these features (such as replacement of and by and ), but their English is remarkably similar to that of other varieties of English in Canada (Poplack, Walker, & Malcolmson 2006 ).

All of these variations constitute what is commonly perceived as Quebec English.

Note: The following practices are denoted by the symbol N@, as they are not deemed acceptable in English-language writing and broadcasting in Quebec. The same lack of acceptability holds true by standards of English outside Quebec.