Talk:metif

I am wondering if this definition is accurate. For example, I was recently transcribing historical journal entries from the early 1800s, and I couldn't figure out why they would spell "across" as "acrof," "crossing" as "crofing," "Messrs" as "Mefrs," and "Métis" as "Metifs." It turns out that what I thought was an "f" is actually an "ſ" (i.e. a long s), which is an archaic letter that is no longer being used in English. They look very similar, both in printing and in cursive, so I am wondering if this is some confusion that people are having about how this word is spelled in historical texts. Littlejohn657 (talk) 23:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

In subsequent discussions and reviewing published research on the origin of the Michif language, it appears that "Métif" was the linguistic rival to "Métis" in Middle French, and it would have been pronounced similar to "Michif," which is the language that developed among the Métis people of the Red River Settlement. My above comment, while factual about the long s (i.e., "ſ"), was wrong in my hypothesis about "Métiſ." Littlejohn657 (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2021 (UTC)