Newfoundland French
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Newfoundland French is a regional dialect of French that was once spoken by French colonists on the island of Newfoundland. It is distinct from other French dialects in Canada, such as the Québécois and Acadian varieties.[citation needed]
France colonized portions of Newfoundland from 1662 until 1713, when it ceded the island to Britain as part of the Treaty of Utrecht. In 1763, French fishing rights on the west coast of Newfoundland were preserved by the Treaty of Paris, and French fishing villages existed there exclusively until 1904.
Since 1949, when Newfoundland became a province of Canada, the use of French on the island has been in decline. Newfoundland French is now only spoken by a handful of elderly residents. Other Franco-Newfoundlanders in Newfoundland now use Acadian French, rather than the Newfoundland dialect. Today, 15,000 descendants of French settlers live in the province and there is a movement to reestablish the Newfoundland dialect as the French language of education in the province. However, schoolchildren in the province are currently being introduced to either standard Canadian French, or an Acadian-influenced variety thereof.
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Some Acadian families came to the Stephenville/Bay St. George area from Cheticamp, Cape Breton around 1847-48 and they brought with them their acadian dialect. I know this because my father spoke an acadian dialect and his great grandfather and his family and his brother were two of the families that came over from Cheticamp. Names like - Aucoin, Cormier, Doucette, Gaudet and more are common names in the area.
Source: "Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland" by E.R.Seary
