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Chiac is a contact language consisting of Acadian French heavily mixed and structured with English. It is spoken as the native and dominant language of most Acadians in southeast New Brunswick, especially among youth, near Moncton, Dieppe, Memramcook and Shediac. It is a more recent evolution of the French language, spurred by exposure to dominant English language media (radio, television, internet) and increased urbanization to Moncton and contact with the dominant Anglophone community in the area since the 1960s especially. The word itself is generally considered a derivation of the name "Shediac," a town in the area.[citation needed]
The roots and base of Chiac are Acadian French, a spoken French often tinged with nautical terms (e.g. haler, embarquer), reflecting the historic importance of the sea to the local economy, as well as older French words (e.g., bailler, quérir, hucher, gosier), many deemed archaic by the Académie Française, testimony to three centuries of relative isolation of Acadian communities from French influence. The collected works of Goncourt Prize-winner Antonine Maillet, and her play La Sagouine in particular, illustrate well this variation of French. What sets Chiac apart from Acadian French is that it is a vernacular French mixed with English. It uses primarily French syntax with French-English vocabulary and phrase forms (see below). It is often deprecated by both French and English speakers as an ill-conceived hybrid — either "bad" French or "bad" English.[citation needed] See franglais for a wider discussion of this phenomenon.
Chiac has been embraced in recent years by some Acadian groups as a living and evolving language, and part of their collective culture. Acadian writers, poets and musicians such as Dano Leblanc,[1] Zero Celsius, Paul Bossé,[2] Fayo[3] and 1755[4] have produced works in Chiac.
Recently, Chiac has also made its way onto local television with Acadieman, a comedy about "The world's first Acadian Superhero." The animated series, also a comic book, contains a mixture of Anglophone, Francophone, and "Chiacophone" characters. The popular Acadian rap group Radio Radio have also raised the profile of Chiac by rapping almost exclusively in that language.
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