Acoustic analysis of the variety of French spoken in Newfoundland

This study presents the results of an acoustic analysis of the seven vowels considered most characteristic of the French from Newfoundland. The study is centred on a corpus of semi-spontaneous interviews with male speakers representing the francophone community on the Port-au-Port peninsula in Newfoundland. The results garnered empirically document and characterise the variety. Specifically, they indicate that NF high vowels /i/ and /y/, but not /u/, have open variants [I] and [Y], that mid unrounded vowels follow the orthoepic norm, and that the low vowels maintain their phonological opposition. The presence of diphthongs has also been noted. The data also show shared traits with varieties of French from France, Quebec, and Acadia. The characterisation is then rounded-out with a discussion of its living potential within Fishman’s RLS framework.