Day 23: What did he say?

[mousme]

For today's topic, miseri asked me what the wackiest thing about New Brunswick was.

Now, there is a long list of wacky things, but I have to say that the local French dialect is really what stood out for me. Remember, my work is done over the phone, so people's voice and language are usually all I have to go on. So getting calls from people speaking Chiac (I don't even know if that's how it's spelled, but the internet tells me I'm right) was a heck of an adventure.

I am a francophone by birth. A French Canadian, born speaking la Langue de Molière and the whole nine yards. Going to New Brunswick is a lesson in an entirely new language, or at least a new dialect. Most of the time, I had no idea what people were saying. Chiac seems to be comprised of 50% French, 30% English, and 20% mashing all your words together and speaking three times faster than the average person, so that every sentence comes out as one giant garbled string of syllables.

Everyone who came from out of province had the same trouble I did, so we all commiserated with each other about the incomprehensible local dialect, and muddled through as best we could. After all, when you're working 911, you can't just shrug and move on to the next caller. You have a responsibility to find out where the caller is, what they need, and get them the appropriate help. A lot of my calls involved getting people to repeat themselves over and over and over and over. "Slow down," I'd tell them. "Say it again, please. Can you spell that for me? More slowly. No, even MORE slowly. Okay, where is that? What? No, you're going too fast again."

Obviously some callers were stressed and frustrated, but for the most part they were really great with us. Most callers knew that we were there from other provinces doing relief work, and so they were incredibly patient.

My favourite name from the region was Elsipogtog. Pronounced EL-SEE-BOOK-TOOK, more or less, and depending on who you ask. It just sounds funny. :)

Best phone call was from a man whose wife had injured herself.

"Ma femme ah fallé en bas d'la steppe!" he informed me, sounding rather concerned. "Ah enfargée dans l'chien!"

Luckily this was toward the end of my stint there, so I understood immediately that he meant: "Ma femme est tombée dans les escaliers. Elle s'est enfargée sur le chien!" Which translates to: "My wife fell down the stairs. She tripped over the dog."

As I was getting his information, he kept holding the phone away to tell his wife: "Grouille pas plus qu'y faut, là!" Which was adorable. It sounded like she kept trying to get up, and he was exhorting her to stay still, but "grouiller" is a very particular kind of verb, which I'd never heard used in that particular context.

Anyway, it all worked out. I got them an ambulance and first responders, and all was well.

The other really cool and unusual thing about New Brunswick and the areas around there are the incredible tides, but alas I didn't get to witness any of them first hand this time around. Next time I will go and blog extensively about them!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not surprised that the dialect gave you problems. Please don't throw anything at me ;) - but that's only one of the dialects in the province. The northwest corner, Madawaska County, has a more French-containing dialect, but you are likely to find some of the vocabulary, and possibly grammar, would be more antiquated than you're used to hearing. And it's different again in the northeast corner, colloquially called the North Shore.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Oh, I realise there are multiple dialects. That was just the one I heard the most. :)

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Ack! The anonymous entry was mine. Would you believe I've never seen the tides in the Bay of Fundy either? One day I hope to.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I've seen them. I almost drowned in one when I was twelve. /o\

They are super impressive!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

My bestfriend is a native Acadian speaker from the North-West part of New Brunswick (Grand Falls/Edmunston - I'd write Campbellton, but apparently Campbellton has it's own accent) and I actually got quite good at understanding him and his family. (don't know if I'd still be good, since I haven't been exposed to it again for a while now.)

I loved the sound of it. I think it's probably pretty different still from Chiac though. Gab told me that he didn't like the way the Acadian sounded in the Moncton area - he thought it had too much English and, ironically, given what you just wrote, he thought it was too SLOW.

I don't speak french, so I can't explain how he talks, besides that it's like happy mountains and valleys... or incredulous mountains and valleys, depending on the mood... but only ever those two. :P

I actually kind of loved it, though I knew I had no chance of ever understanding the rules of how they put sentences together.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

The Acadian spoken in Moncton proper is actually slower than the Chiac I got over the phone. I was able to understand people from Moncton much better than people from, say, Tracadie Sheila.

And I know what you mean. The language has lovely musical tones to it.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. He was probably talking about Moncton proper. :)

I do miss the East sometimes for ridiculous reasons - I don't even speak the language, nor understand it all that well, but I miss listening to it.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that. I miss the East too sometimes. :)

Unrelatedly, I am thinking of renting a house near Ottawa rather than buying, if you're still looking for a roommate in the event of your coming back to these parts. :)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Oh cool! My life is still all up in the air right now, but I will keep that in mind. :)

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of Chiac, how fascinating! I remember just enough of my French to comprehend how weird that is, wow. I love the pseudo-English stuff like "fallé". I'm reminded of the bit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "Fetchez la vache!" Maybe the French knights were actually from New Brunswick. ;)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

LOL

Maybe they were! That's a great thought.