If both Québec and francophone Belgium seem to present a similar linguistic situation featuring rivalry between two languages and marginalisation vis-a-vis France – the Francophone linguistic, literary and cultural centre par excellence – more detailed analysis discloses not insignificant differences. Dissimilarities are revealed in the treatment of the language in the novel. The following article proposes an analysis of the textual transmission of identitarian and linguistic hybridity in the Belgian and Québécois novel during the period 1830 to 1913. To begin, a statistic analysis of the language from a representative selection of French language Québécois and Belgian novels published over the course of this period reveal a linguistic landscape more problematized in Belgium than in Québec, where the local variants of the language appear more naturally. The language and its representations are then studied in a corpus composed of 10 novels – five Belgian and 5 Québécois – which have acquired emblematic value in their respective national literature. This textual analysis shows that the Québécois literary institution features more texts wherein language use is problematized by the author than the Belgian literary institution, a finding which is at odds with the results of the statistical analysis. This double analysis allows consideration of the two institutions within the context of linguistic insecurity and hybridity.