Quebec: French Or English?

[Guest Prosis]

In Quebec, there has been a battle to keep French as the main language since the English have invaded.

 

Some (paranoid) people still think the English are trying to assimilate the French into becoming English so that we have a country that is English from coast to coast. Others like me think that the English have better things to do.

 

But here, Quebec is becoming, apparently, more and more English.

 

So, should Quebec just stop fighting it and become English or keep French as the main language.

 

Before answering (I know there are some anti-french people here so) keep the following thing in mind:

 

Tomorrow, the Germans arrive to Canada and invade (of course it wouldn't be exactly like when the English invaded for historical reasons, but bear with me) would you guys give in and learn German or fight to keep your English?

[decomposinglight]

I think French should be their language, and English as secondary. There is a heritage of Quebec speaking French, lots of French ancestry in the people, etc. I don't agree with Quebec becoming separate from Canada like a New France or anything though.

 

Language is a VERY strong aspect of culture. I don't think it's purposeful that "the English" are getting rid of French, as English is more of a business language and becoming more prominent everywhere (there might be some wackjobs who want to diminish Quebec's voice, but that's not a majority). Still, French language means something to these people and it's part of their identity (whether you believe Sapir-Whorf's langauge relativity theory or not).

 

It should stay a part of Quebec, although someday I'm sure it won't be. That's just the way things are.

 

On another note, if somebody came in and tried to tear my language away, I'd beat their ass.

Edited March 20, 2008 by decomposinglight

[ToadMan]

I don't see any reason why French should be outlawed, likewise I see no reason to require it. If the french languages diminishes, then it is unfortunate. Though we should note that the french in quebec isn't really french...

 

I've found that Quebec's approach to preserving it's language borders on being anti-english. It seems like equality between the languages is treated by Quebec people as an affront to french. In context, if a store owner her in my hometown wanted to open a store that conducted business only in french, I wouldn't feel that english was been attacked.

[Guest Prosis]

Yes that's a historical thing. If there's one thing I noticed in Quebec is that the people of Quebec are very paranoid in general. They're afraid of many things including "losing their culture" which they don't even know exactly what it is themselves.

 

Edit: I say it's a historical thing because there was a time when the English people actually wanted to get rid of the French (not kill them but just eliminate the French culture in Canada). But that disappeared with time and the English people could care less if the French exist or not. But Quebecers keep that fear alive for some reason...probably because they heard their parents talk against the English and so on...

 

They're afraid of losing their language and yet they don't speak it properly themselves. I'm a French speaker in my day to day life and I have to "correct" people sometimes because they say the weirdest things. How many times have I seen people saying that we have to protect French when they don't speak it properly themselves.

 

And one problem that we have as well is that immigrants who come to Canada think they can speak English. Then they come to Quebec and get told they HAVE to speak French. So they either keep speaking English or move to another province which is a shame because there's nothing like multiculturalism as far as I'm concerned.

Edited March 22, 2008 by Prosis

[Sparq]

Just like when France started making up their own words for things thta only had an english equivalent (e-mail = courriele), they are missing the point. Languages evolve over time. You can try to preserve it by continuing to speak it and passing it on to your children and all that mess, but I don't think this should even be a high-profile official issue.

Edited March 22, 2008 by Sparq

[Guest Prosis]

Yeah but the French equivalent to words isn't a bad thing. Like you said, languages evolve over time and they just found a word for something that didn't exist before (in your example I mean).

[Sparq]

No, it's not a bad thing. Words are added to languages all the time. It's just that in that instance, the French government (or whoever handles these things) stated that the current word was "too English" and actively went out to make up a different word instead of just assimilating. Assimilation is how languages evolve. Generally a word will come into common usage on it's own, then be 'officially' added to the dictionary, etc. this time they said "Here's the new word, everyone stop saying e-mail right now".

Edited March 22, 2008 by Sparq

[decomposinglight]

The French aren't the only ones who do that making up new words thing, too. Iceland does it, and there are others. As I said before, language is serious business. For example: Basques.

 

I agree that the Quebecer definition of French might be awry, and that the paranoia and lack of multiculturalism is a shame, but people should know that Quebec is like that. It's pretty evident even down here in the US. Don't move there unless you plan to speak some French, especially in rural places.

 

Just you guys wait. With time Quebec will be English. You can watch from your grave, because it might take a while, but it's gonna happen.

[supercanuk]

It'sa language issue but its a bit more then that in my opinion. The language is attached to the history of quite a lot of oppression in Quebec by an anglo-dominated federal government. I'm not saying its like that today, but early in Canadian history right up until the 1950's a lot of Quebecers were denied internal self-determination. By that i mean control over their own federal affairs within Parliament, there also weren't a lot of French in federal government up until then as well. I mean its not the oppression of say South Africa during the same period, im not saying the Canadian government were the absolute worst, im just saying that there is a history here of some pretty unfair treatment, so the paranoia isn't entirely unfounded. Now, many argue that Quebec is more powerful then ever before, especially in government, and whether that is true or not I don't know, i don't know what the evidence for that even is.

 

Returning to the language issue i think that even if they don't speak Parisian French they have a tie to their language and culture because of anglo-domination. This is in there view, and whether we agree with it or not is totally irrelevant. If Germans came and dominated my country for 200 years i'd probably hold onto anything i could that reminded me of how things were before the Germans came, my language being just one of the things i'd hang onto. I think that's a pretty understandable position.

[hum-an-ole]

Our friend in Montr

[Guest Prosis]

Amanda: I agree...unfortunately, that's inevitable...because French's worst enemy in Quebec is the French people...not the English people. Because the French people speak bad French, because when they meet an English person, they don't expect them to speak in French so they switch to English, etc.

 

Erik: I agree with you

 

Christine: Yeah there's something I didn't know existed between the French and the Irish. I have a very close and recent Irish background and am mainly a French speaker. Last week, during the parade for St-Patrick's, a French group went to support the Irish and they got mad at them because they thought that they were coming to protest against that issue. It's pretty sad.

[decomposinglight]

Last week, during the parade for St-Patrick's, a French group went to support the Irish and they got mad at them because they thought that they were coming to protest against that issue. It's pretty sad.

What douchebags! You'd think that these tensions would lessen as time goes on.. It seems that sometimes they hold on even more vehemently.