Process: Mother tongue

The expression 'I lost my French' intrigues me as it suggests that the ability to say, speak french, is like an object that can be lost and recovered. This interests me as a francophone from Northern Ontario who has lived in the largely English-speaking Maritimes for several years. My move to Montreal was triggered in part by a wish to 'recover' the language that I have 'lost' somewhat through lack of use.

The notion of a lost language also refers to a parallel, dormant, mother tongue. While I was raised bi-culturally (my adoptive parents are French-Canadian and English-Scottish), my birth father was of Swedish and Austrian origin. These languages and cultures are alien to me. Can I have 'lost' a tongue that I never used? If mother tongue is related to one's maternal language, how do we speak of paternal language?

And so I would like to trace the history of the placenames back to their original names when possible. I will be particularly interested in the names people who live in the area give to places — names that are sometimes undocumented. As a name of a landmark can reflect local history the chronology of changes to this name can tell an even bigger story.

Lac Panache / Penage Lake, Whitefish, Ontario

An example: my paternal grandmother has a family cottage in Whitefish on Lac Panache. The word Panache — which means flair, elegance (fière allure) — refers in this case to a moose's antlers which branch out impressively. From the top of a mountain, on a map, or an aerial view, the Panache lake is seen to be full of bays and islands, spread out like antlers. The word Panache is the ideal metaphor.

Over the years the lake name has been changed to Penage which does not reflect the history of the original word Panache and carries no particular meaning in English. Because our cottage borders Whitefish First Nation (Atikameksheng Anishnawbik), my intuition is that Panache supplanted an Ojibwa word for the same lake. I would like to explore similar stories of shifting placenames, of hidden vernacular expressions with this project.