Québécois (word)

In French, the word québécois generally refers to a resident of Quebec, Canada .

The word Quebecois in English can more specifically refer to a particular Francophone ethnicity and culture found in Quebec. This ethnicity traces its roots to the French colonists of Quebec.

The Quebecois are the most numerous group of French-Canadians, though communities of French-Canadians can be found across the country, especially in Manitoba, Ontario, and the Maritimes; French-Canadian cultural groupings elsewhere in Canada include the Métis and Acadians.

A related term, pure laine ("old stock", literally "pure wool"), is sometimes taken to be synonymous with Quebecois. This term refers to someone whose ancestry is almost entirely Quebecois. As with any ethnicity in a multicultural country such as Canada, few people can accurately claim to be pure laine. The idea of pure laine has been at the root of some heated polemic battles about ethnicity, culture, and belonging in recent years in Quebec; many find the idea and its linking with Quebecois identity and culture to be racist.

Many cultural items of the Quebecois are well known in Quebec and other parts of the world. Traditional aspects of Quebecois culture include a variety of folk songs and dances (many with Celtic roots, as the Catholic Quebecois intermarried a great deal with Irish immigrants), as well as items of cuisine such as tourtière (a name used for a number of different Quebecois meat dishes), maple sugar products, pea soup with ham, and the latter-day creation of poutine.

The Quebecois culture underwent a profound shift with the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, after the end of the Duplessis years and the wane of the influence of the Catholic church in the province. New movements in art, literature, and music sprang up: a revolutionary artistic movement, Les Automatistes, was born in Quebec as a response to the conformity of the Duplessis era. This included world-renowned artists like Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean-Paul Mousseau, and Marcelle Ferron.

The term Quebecois may also refer to the Québécois dialect of French, which is mostly oral but has been transcribed by many songwriters and playwrights such as Michel Tremblay. The best-known form of the Québécois dialect is joual, which combines traditional Quebec accent and vocabulary with a distinct vocabulary unto itself, including many adapted English words. Joual is spoken primarily in Montreal and specifically in its francophone east end.

Quebecois literature is an important part of the Canadian literary tradition and of worldwide Francophone heritage. Some important Québécois authors include Émile Nelligan, Octave Crémazie, Saint-Denys Garneau and Anne Hébert.

Of course, since Quebec is a multicultural province, Quebecois society is adapting to and enriching itself with the cultures of recent immigrants to Quebec. Haitian and francophone African cultures are among the most numerically significant populations of recent francophone immigrants. These cultures exert an especially important influence in Montreal.

Note that in French, the term québécois can also refer to a resident of Quebec City. When distinction is required, these become québécois de Québec instead of québécois du Québec.