Acadian French

Acadian French is a dialect of French dialect spoken by the Acadians in the Canadian Maritimes. Like other Canadian French dialects, it diverged from the French of France about 400 years ago at the time of the French colonization of the Americas, and therefore sounds archaic and Old World to many non-Canadian listeners, characterized by vocabulary and other traits reminiscent of the language of Rabelais and Molière.

It is descended from the dialects in France of Anjou and Poitou, and retains features obliterated during the French standardization efforts of the 19th century, including an alveolar r, and the pronunciation of the final syllable in the third-person plural verb form.

Many speakers of other dialects of French, such as the French of France and even other Canadian dialects, have difficulty understanding Acadian speech.

Acadian French is the ancestor of Cajun, a French dialect of Louisiana, where the British colonial government deported many Acadians after winning Acadia from France.

See also Chiaque, a related but distinct English-French creole language.