Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yeah it's so weird what controlling a sovereign country of 90 million people with a millennial history of independence will do for a people's linguistic and cultural confidence.

There was no “Germany” until a few year after Canada became a country

[Architype]

Originally Posted by whatnext

There was no “Germany” until a few year after Canada became a country

They had a number of independent entities before that, same as Italy.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yeah it's so weird what controlling a sovereign country of 90 million people with a millennial history of independence will do for a people's linguistic and cultural confidence.

Quebec was last last independent from Anglo rule 260 years ago. That seems like plenty of time to assert their nationhood. Canada is officially bilingual, so it stands to reason that Quebec should be as well. We are now following a path towards independence from bilingualism again.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by blacktrojan3921

This OP-ed from the Montreal Gazette really highlights why I think the NHL will never return to Quebec City.
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/colu...al&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1707507953

it’s not a welcoming place for unilingual English speakers who have to spend eight months in a city with an anglo population of 1.5 per cent and shrinking. This is particularly difficult on wives, children and girlfriends who are left behind to fend for themselves when the players are off on a 10-day road trip.

What is fascinating is describing the experience of living in a foreign environment as some sort of hell, and not as an exhilarating way to discover a new culture and expand one's horizons. It speaks volume about the insularity of Anglophone North America.

Not all Americans are like that of course, and I know some who have great interest in French culture and language, but I cannot imagine something similar being written in Europe. It's just bizarre. Here soccer players move from country to country, and no one would write something like "Bilbao is not a welcoming place for non-Spanish speakers, this is particularly difficult on the wives of soccer players, bla bla bla".

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What is fascinating is describing the experience of living in a foreign environment as some sort of hell, and not as an exhilarating way to discover a new culture and expand one's horizons. It speaks volume about the insularity of Anglophone North America.

Why should the insularity of anglophone North America be a surprise to you?

The entire friggin' (white) anglosphere is insular (in every sense of the word)!!!!!

- Great Britain is an island
- Ireland is an island
- anglophone North America is an island, at least psychologically, (except for that pesky border with Mexico that Trump wants to build a wall on).
- Australia is a continent sized island.
- New Zealand is two islands.

Together, these countries encompass a land area of over 30,000,000 square kilometres - a world within the world.

You can live your entire life completely, and with significant life experiences and travel without ever having to step foot outside the anglosphere.

You live in continental France. In Europe, all you have to do is travel 100 km down the road and people are speaking a different language. Of course you would have a different attitude regarding language and culture.

Residents of the anglosphere are not bigots (a word with French derivation BTW), racists, dullards or self entitled. We just come from a different place and a different life experience.

Jeez..................

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Why should the insularity of anglophone North America be a surprise to you?

The entire friggin' (white) anglosphere is insular (in every sense of the word)!!!!!

- Great Britain is an island
- Ireland is an island
- anglophone North America is an island, at least psychologically, (except for that pesky border with Mexico that Trump wants to build a wall on).
- Australia is a continent sized island.
- New Zealand is two islands.

Together, these countries encompass a land area of over 30,000,000 square kilometres - a world within the world.

You can live your entire life completely, and with significant life experiences and travel without ever having to step foot outside the anglosphere.

You live in continental France. In Europe, all you have to do is travel 100 km down the road and people are speaking a different language. Of course you would have a different attitude regarding language and culture.

Residents of the anglosphere are not bigots (a word with French derivation BTW), racists, dullards or self entitled. We just come from a different place and a different life experience.

Jeez..................

And after that, Anglos will blame Québec for being insular...

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What is fascinating is describing the experience of living in a foreign environment as some sort of hell, and not as an exhilarating way to discover a new culture and expand one's horizons. It speaks volume about the insularity of Anglophone North America.

Not all Americans are like that of course, and I know some who have great interest in French culture and language, but I cannot imagine something similar being written in Europe. It's just bizarre. Here soccer players move from country to country, and no one would write something like "Bilbao is not a welcoming place for non-Spanish speakers, this is particularly difficult on the wives of soccer players, bla bla bla".

American NBA players think Toronto is too exotic, so Quebec City would be like an anthropologist living amongst an Amazonian tribe. Plus, they’re professional athletes. Life is sport is life. They’ve been groomed since childhood to avoid diversions and concentrate monomaniacally on excelling in their sport and to be a competitive prospect in their professional league. If they learn another language, it’s in the pursuit of that goal. It’s not in their interest to take weeks off of their training schedule to learn a language for a single market they’ll most likely be traded away from.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

American NBA players think Toronto is too exotic, so Quebec City would be like an anthropologist living amongst an Amazonian tribe. Plus, they’re professional athletes. Life is sport is life. They’ve been groomed since childhood to avoid diversions and concentrate monomaniacally on excelling in their sport and to be a competitive prospect in their professional league. If they learn another language, it’s in the pursuit of that goal. It’s not in their interest to take weeks off of their training schedule to learn a language for a single market they’ll most likely be traded away from.

Yeah, on this one, New Brisavoine's European experience doesn't translate across the Atlantic. It's normal for a pro soccer player to have to expect to follow opportunities within the ethnoculturallolinguistic patchwork of Western-Central Europe, but you can't hold the typical North American NHLer to the same standard.

Even if Quebec didn't exist at all, the issue "NHL players are picky and it's harder to get them to go to Winnipeg or Edmonton when they can be in the U.S. Sunbelt instead" would still be there. Not all markets are equally attractive.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

I wouldn't take it personally. Many people can understand a language well enough and yet not be confident enough to respond in it, especially in an environment where they're not necessarily expecting it. I had minimal problems understanding French-, Spanish- or German-speaking customers back in my service industry days but struggled to respond in anything other than English, especially if it was busy and I was frantically multitasking. I wasn't refusing to speak the customer's language or trying to make a point, just not in the headspace to take on the challenge.

As for "dirty looks"—this might be a bit of a cultural misunderstanding. I can see the facial expression that says Könnten Sie das bitte wiederholen? to a German coming across as What's wrong with this guy? to an English-speaking North American.

Yea we didn't take it personally. Rather, we appreciated the fact that not every place in the world readily accepts English as the global lingua franca, and that's something special in its own right.

I did dust off my rusty German, but stumbled too much to make any coherent sense. I personally think German is a beautiful language and studied it for several years in university... but it was my 4/5th language by then and I'm not a natural polygot. It's also bloody difficult with the spelling, pronunciations, conjugations, genders, word-order. If anyone thinks French is too hard to master, try German..

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

American NBA players think Toronto is too exotic, so Quebec City would be like an anthropologist living amongst an Amazonian tribe. Plus, they’re professional athletes. Life is sport is life. They’ve been groomed since childhood to avoid diversions and concentrate monomaniacally on excelling in their sport and to be a competitive prospect in their professional league. If they learn another language, it’s in the pursuit of that goal. It’s not in their interest to take weeks off of their training schedule to learn a language for a single market they’ll most likely be traded away from.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in Mexico City, if the NFL and NBA succeeds in expanding there.

Montreal's bilingual advantage will probably mean it'll see another league setting up shop in the city before Quebec City ever lands the NHL.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

And after that, Anglos will blame Québec for being insular...

Du pain béni pour la propagande du PQ.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Du pain béni pour la propagande du PQ.

Shit disturber as usual. Why don’t you concentrate closer to home and stir the pot about restive Algerians in the Paris suburbs. That would seem more relevant to you, wouldn’t it?

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

And after that, Anglos will blame Québec for being insular...

To be clear, the "ROC" isn't insular. There are two official languages in the "ROC", plus many other languages in common usage among various cultures. Indigenous languages don't have official status, but are recognized and supported by the government.

Quebec also has two official languages, but if the discussion in this thread is to be taken seriously, is striving to reduce that to one. And to be clear again, I recently stated that the discussion in this thread has become insular... not Quebec.

Just so that we can all get this straight (except that NB person from "France", who would never admit that he/she/pronoun of choice understood, even if they did)...

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in Mexico City, if the NFL and NBA succeeds in expanding there.

Montreal's bilingual advantage will probably mean it'll see another league setting up shop in the city before Quebec City ever lands the NHL.

Interesting to think what's the next league. NBA, MLB or another NHL team?

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Quebec also has two official languages, but if the discussion in this thread is to be taken seriously, is striving to reduce that to one. And to be clear again, I recently stated that the discussion in this thread has become insular... not Quebec.

French is the only official language of Quebec.

[lio45]

Yep, correct. New Brunswick is Canada's one and only bilingual province.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

French is the only official language of Quebec.

Originally Posted by lio45

Yep, correct. New Brunswick is Canada's one and only bilingual province.

I was meaning that as being part of an officially bilingual Canada, each province has two official languages by default. I see if you want to look at provinces as separate entities, as if they are not part of Canada, it's more complicated than that. Thanks for the correction.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in Mexico City, if the NFL and NBA succeeds in expanding there.

Montreal's bilingual advantage will probably mean it'll see another league setting up shop in the city before Quebec City ever lands the NHL.

Though Montreal in spite of its bilingual character is still too exotic for many Anglo-American athletes. It was (something of) an issue when the Expos were there.

As mentioned already, even Toronto is too exotic for some of these guys, and was an issue in Vancouver as well when it had an NBA team.

Soccer players are a different breed and I know it's not uncommon for a Serbian guy who's played a few years in France, Italy and Spain to be able to get by with the basics in those languages (in addition to English of course) by the end of his career.

BTW though, I don't actually think this is a major reason preventing the Nordiques from returning to the NHL. It wasn't really that bad when they were in the league before and they had some fairly competitive teams over the years.

Plus the NHL player base is even more diverse than it used to be back then and European players aren't as culturally insular as North American ones.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I was meaning that as being part of an officially bilingual Canada, each province has two official languages by default. I see if you want to look at provinces as separate entities, as if they are not part of Canada, it's more complicated than that. Thanks for the correction.

True to a point. The federal government doesn't set language policy for the provinces. It only sets language policy for itself and its institutions and services. The provinces are more or less free to operate in the language of their choice with some federally-mandated requirements for services in the "other" language like K-12 schooling. (Actually this is arguably the only thing provinces are required to provide in the official minority language.)

Aside from that, all of the provinces are unilingual with varying levels of services in the "other" language. Except for New Brunswick as Molson said. Ontario is English only with an appreciable level of services in French. Quebec is French only but with an even higher degree of services in English. (Yeah I know what you guys think but it's true.)

All of the other provinces are English only with a sprinkling of services in French ranging from noticeable in Manitoba, Nova Scotia and PEI to barely there in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

To be clear, the "ROC" isn't insular. There are two official languages in the "ROC", plus many other languages in common usage among various cultures. Indigenous languages don't have official status, but are recognized and supported by the government.

MonctonRad (an anglo if there ever was one!) is right though that the Anglosphere tends to be pretty insular, and he gave a good explanation as to why that is.

The Anglosphere countries, at least in the western world, are the least penetrable to music, movies, TV, theatre, books, etc. from other languages and cultures. By a longshot.

Whereas everyone else in the west consumes each other's stuff (including tons of Anglosphere stuff of course), Anglosphere people typically just consume anglo stuff.

That's why for example Italian movies would play in theatres in small town Quebec but not in medium-sized cities in the ROC.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Architype

They had a number of independent entities before that, same as Italy.



Quebec was last last independent from Anglo rule 260 years ago. That seems like plenty of time to assert their nationhood. Canada is officially bilingual, so it stands to reason that Quebec should be as well. We are now following a path towards independence from bilingualism again.

Not sure what point you are making here. Quebec is already the most bilingual part of Canada so if Canada is supposed to be "bilingual" as you say then it's not really up to Quebec to up its bilingual game. It's the ROC that is lagging behind.

Also not sure what you mean by "asserting their nationhood"? Are you saying that Quebec should have declared independence earlier, at some point over those 260 years? Well, they were under colonial or quasi-colonial rule for a good portion of those 260 years. They also tried via rebellion in 1837-1838 but it was crushed by the British.