A variationist study of /tʊt/ in Michif French

Abstract

This research focuses on the dissidence of Michif French, an endangered variety of Laurentian French spoken by a number of Métis in Western Canada. We examine the vernacular use of [tʊt] (tout/tous ‘all, every’) in a corpus of around 50 interviews collected in the Métis community of St. Laurent, Manitoba, in the 1980s. On the one hand, the internal analysis supports the hypothesis that it is related to the other varieties of Laurentian French. On the other hand, the external data reveal that [tʊt] is widely used, confirming the highly vernacular character of Michif French compared to the other varieties. Finally, the analysis of several interview extracts illustrates that the intensive use of vernacular variants acts as an identity marker, enabling speakers to lay claim not only to their culture, but also to a language they consider distinct from that of other French speakers.