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Test your knowledge of voyageur vocabulary, and try to keep the canoe afloat!

Since most voyageurs were of French-Canadian origin, French was the main language among them. Even the bourgeois, English speakers themselves, spoke French with the hired men. French was the working language of the fur trade.

A multilingual world

Distribution of indigenous language groups in Canada

Distribution of indigenous language groups in Canada

During the French regime, interpreters had to know one or more Native languages. After arriving in New France, these young men went off alone to live in Native communities and learn their language. Wintering voyageurs with Native wives, as well as their mixed-blood children, were often bilingual or even trilingual.

The Native languages voyageurs spoke most often were Ojibwa and Cree, belonging to the Algonquian family, and Chippewyan of the Athabascan family. As the North West Company pushed further west in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the linguistic world of the voyageur expanded to include languages such as Athapaskan and Salishan.

Influences of Native languages

During the fur trade era, close contact between Europeans and Natives led to language crossover. Canadian place names show many examples of this Aboriginal influence. Canada, Quebec, Manitoba and Winnipeg are all of Native origin, as are many names for everyday objects such as tepee, toboggan and moccasin. In most cases, the wintering voyageurs integrated these terms into their spoken language. These people and their descendants also developed the Chinook jargon, the Michif language and Métis French.

European trading with Natives

European trading with Natives

Chinook Jargon, a mix of the Nootka, Chinook and French languages, was not a language in the full sense, but rather a pidgin used for trade. Michif was a real language that developed from the Cree, Ojibwa and French languages. Meanwhile, French Métis was based on the French of Lower Canada and incorporated Cree words and expressions.

Influence of French

Intérieur d'une tente crie, Manitoba

Inside a Cree tepee, Manitoba

The predominance of French, especially before the Conquest of New France in 1760, was due in part to the greater number of French-speaking voyageurs and their renowned skills in all aspects of the fur trade.

The influence of French-speaking voyageurs and traders is also widespread among place names in the areas where they did business, as well as in the terms for plants and animals in these regions. English speakers later borrowed these words and incorporated them into their vocabulary.

French influence continued into the first few decades of British rule. Since many interpreters of Native languages knew only how to translate into French - and relations with Natives were vital - many Anglophones were actually required to learn the basics of this language.


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