Quebec French Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

Around twelve different rhotics are used in Quebec, depending on region, age and education among other things. The uvular trill has lately been emerging as a provincial standard, whereas the alveolar trill was used before in and around Montreal. The voiced fricative can also be heard among younger people. As a matter of comparison, the voiced velar fricative or voiceless uvular fricative is more generally used in France.

The velar nasal is often found as an allophone of the palatal nasal .

Dental stops are very often affricated before high front vowels and semivowels: in other words, /ty/, /ti/, /dy/, /di/ are then pronounced, (e.g. except in Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Côte-Nord) . Depending on the speaker, the fricative may be more or less strong or sometimes even assimilate the stop in informal speech. For example, constitution could have any of the following pronunciations: → → .

In very informal speech, some final mute t's will sometimes be pronounced:

lit /li/ → .

There is also the special case of "debout" and, ici (sometimes actually written icitte). On the other hand, the t in but and août are not pronounced in Quebec, but they are in France (decreasingly for but). These often reflect centuries-old variation or constitute archaisms.

Many of the features of Quebec French are mistakenly attributed to English influence; however, the historical evidence shows that most of them either descend from earlier forms from specific dialects and are forms that have since changed in France, or internal developments (changes that have occurred in Canada alone but not necessarily in all parts).