The Magdalen Islands

Situated in the heart of the Atlantic Provinces, the Magdalen Islands are part of the province of Québec. The archipelago was uninhabited until the 18th century and the arrival of indentured workers engaged in the fisheries and families who survived the 1755-1758 Expulsion of the Acadians from their lands. Over the following centuries, Acadians from Miquelon and elsewhere in eastern North America, Québécois, skilled navigators, and deserters from the French navy settled here up until the turn of the 20th century. The population stabilized and underwent natural growth until it began to decline in the 1970s. Today the population is estimated at 12,000 inhabitants of whom 94% are francophone, the majority of which are descended from Acadians who had returned from exile following the Deportation.

Due to their isolation, Madelinots developed their own identity and culture. In addition, distance from both Québec and other Acadian communities allowed for the emergence of an Acadian koine known as « parler des Iles ». Since the initial settlement took place over a relatively long period and involved several waves of immigration, local language use includes dialectal features found in other North American and Metropolitan French varieties. In addition, Madelinots didn’t have sustained contact with English, as was the case for our other research communities. Some degree of French education was in place from the very beginning and linguistic assimilation to English did not take place.

The Magdalen Islands have become an important tourist destination since the establishment of ferry service to and from the mainland in the late 1960s. The Québec governmental infrastructure, coupled with the geographical isolation of the archipelago, has led to provision of local services including health and social services, colleges, and other government services. These developments, as well as the recent arrival of diaspora Madelinots and new residents from diverse regions, have contributed to the levelling of salient local dialectal features in favour of a supralocal Québécois linguistic norm. The consultants in our sample, born at the turn of the 20th century, allow us to document the beginnings of this important change.

References :

Carbonneau, P. (2009). Découverte et peuplement des Îles-de-la-Madeleine. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval.

Fortin, J.-C., & Larocque, P. (2003). Histoire des Îles-de-la-Madeleine. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval.

LeBlanc, C. L. (2013). Les interrogatives totales en français Madelinot: continuité dans la filiation. In A. Barysevich, A. D'Arcy, & D. Heap (Ed.), Proceedings of Methods XIV: Papers from the Fourteenth International Conference on Methods in Dialectology, 2011 (pp. 90–101). New York: Peter Lang.