A Summary of “Newfoundlandese If You Please,” Diane Mooney captures the diverse language of the Newfoundlanders in her essay “Newfoundlanse, If You Please”. She explains how the language has evolved and the different way of speaking in all the communities of Newfoundland. The Southern part of the Island is mostly predominant by the Catholic-Irish and they have a unique “dialect”. On the other side of the Island, live the Anglicans-Irish and their speed of speaking makes even harder to understand.
In Central area of Newfoundland the dialect can be quite mixed and confused. It is an area where she finds settlers coming from all other parts of the province to make up one community during winter. Newfoundlanders from the West Coast of the Island have a “slight twang in their speech” and this may be due to the influence of French. There are not too many people living in the Northern part and the ones who live closer to Quebec, adapt some of the French dialect.
Any visitor who comes to Newfoundland can capture the diverse language of the people and different dialect being used in each community. A Summary of “Crystal Balls,” In her essay, “Crystal Balls” Kim is having dinner with her parents and guests on a New Year’s Eve of 1979 in New Brunswick. She envisions herself being a Journalist, a Movie Director and having a husband and children in the year 2000. Twenty years later, here she is in Halifax, 35 years old and without any kids or husband, can’t direct any movie, only working as a Journalist.
And she is fully convinced that “the future belongs to women”. She thinks that women have the capacity of thinking a lot better than men. Women are versatile in executing tasks whereas men tend to do one thing at a time. She compares the evolution and emancipation of women. During her grandmothers’ generation, women could only be hired to do a man’s job because men were at war. In her mother’s life time, there was a substantial progress in fighting for equality “Equal pay for work of equal value”.
Kim still thinks that women have a long way to go in order for the change to take effect. A friend of hers who is in her 20’s has a different view; she doesn’t use gender to define her terms. She sees the differences but prefers to ignore them and instead let her voice be heard. In deed the future belongs to women and Kim’s predictions for 2020 is to be able to do what she could not do in the past: Directing a movie and giving birth to her first child.
