Métis French is a variety of
Canadian French with some added characters such as
Ññ,
Áá,
Óó, and
Ææ (from older French spellings) (example, English: "there is no birthmark on this boy") and words loaned from indigenous languages such as
Ojibwe,
Beaver and
Cree. Like Michif, Métis French is spoken in Manitoba and North Dakota and adjacent provinces or states. As a general rule, Métis individuals speak one or the other, rarely both. Métis French and Michif share a common
phonology and
morphosyntax for the
noun phrase but differ as to their sources for the
verb phrase which is
Ojibwe-
Cree based in Michif,
French-based in Métis French. Examples of this loaning can be found in words such as
, from the Cree word
kakwe, meaning "to try/attempt", which maintains its Cree meaning with the additional colloquial use of "to wander" as in (English: "he wandered there"), which suggests that the subject wandered with little control of his own feet; in the word
, meaning "wolf" or "loyal" (in a pack-like sense) when used as an adjective, from the word for "wolf" in Beaver, ''ch'one
; in the word , meaning "white/non-Métis" person, from the Ojibwe word zhaganash
; and in the word , from the Cree word for "good person", miyo-nâpêw
, though in Métis French it is closer to the word mec''' ("guy") and implies that the word refers to someone that the speaker knows personally. ==Phonology==