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Do the Québécois really call hamburgers “hambourgeois”? (#1048)

8 November 2015 by OffQc

The OQLF favours two words for hamburger: un hamburger and un hambourgeois, and they recognise an informal usage: un burger.

The thing about words favoured by the OQLF, though, is that they aren’t necessarily the words in use. Hambourgeois was created to replace hamburger, but it never took on. So, in actual usage, we really only have:

  • un hamburger
  • un burger

Use caution if you consult the Grand dictionnaire terminologique. It doesn’t reflect how French is really spoken in Québec — it reflects how the OQLF would like to see French spoken in Québec. It’s a collection of a) words in use that they approve, b) words in use that they disapprove, and c) words that are used little or not at all but that ideally they’d like to see catch on, like hambourgeois.

A hamburger restaurant called Harvey’s has this as its slogan in Québec:

Harvey’s,
à chacun son burger

À chacun son burger literally means to each his (own) burger, but more naturally it means something like your burger, your way. That’s because you can choose what you want on your burger at Harvey’s.

Burger is pronounced as in English (beurgueur), with English r‘s and all. It still uses normal French stress, though (i.e., stress on the second syllable).

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Posted in Entries #1001-1050 | Tagged burger, français québécois, hambourgeois, hamburger, Harveys, Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), Québécois French | 7 Comments

7 Responses

  1. on 8 November 2015 at 09:26 Richard

    j’ai vu une fois le mot hambourgeois écrit dans un menu.. c’était dans un restaurant à Baie-Saint-Paul.


    • on 8 November 2015 at 09:37 OffQc

      Oui, on le trouve occasionnellement sous forme écrite, mais il est très rarement employé dans la langue parlée.


      • on 12 November 2015 at 23:56 Neil Wick

        I’m sure that I’ve seen hambourgeois written on a food truck or something, but in English, I see things in writing such as “facial tissue” that would probably never be used in spoken language.


        • on 13 November 2015 at 00:02 OffQc

          That’s right. You might see hambourgeois very occasionally on a sign (probably an older one), but that’s about it. Its use is very limited.


  2. on 8 November 2015 at 16:42 lisamnoble

    My students were fascinated by the French Harvey’s slogan last year. In English, it’s “Harvey’s makes a hamburger a beautiful thing”. My kids actually thought the French slogan was far more reflective of what makes Harvey’s unique – that it’s your burger, your way, and it also played on “to each his own”. Thanks, as always for the relevant spoken usage.


  3. on 10 November 2015 at 10:04 armand

    the oqlf is exact to le francais au micro in that respect. eh ben, a chacun son gout je crois


  4. on 23 August 2017 at 09:28 egosumabbas

    I heard the man behind the counter at a poutine stand at Fort Coulonge use the word hambourgeois to describe a burger. It stuck with me because the was the first time I’ve ever heard that word before. It reminded me of hamburguese in Spanish. This is at the far western edge of French speaking Québec. It’s possible that since I speak standard French he was switching to “standard” québécois to match my register?



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