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Pastagate (The word "pasta" was not French enough) (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/wikipedia@lemmy.world
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Quebec language policy jumpscare

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[–] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This article had me wondering what the “French equivalents” are of the Italian words mentioned.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    I think pâte is pasta in French; I don’t know the rest.

    EDIT: looking it up, it looks like:

    Pasta = pâtes
    Antipasti = antipasti
    Calamari = calamar

    So, as a native English speaker, it seems like really dumb stuff to make a big deal out of. Turns out words in one Romance language will be really similar to or the same as equivalent words in another Romance language. Maybe the Quebecker Office of the French Language wanted them to say «  entrée » instead of antipasti? Entree in French refers to the appetizer or first course, but for some reason in English (or at least US English) entree has become the name for the main course; I don’t know how we screwed that up.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I believe the political problem to be solved was to make something that was built to stop the encroachment of English into Quebec French more language neutral. That may have been important because Quebec has a sizeable English-only-speaking minority locals and an aggressive stance against English-only encroachment politically unwise.

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