Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by AverageMonctonEnjoyr

Here in Acadie the vous is simply nonexistent, because « tout le monde se connaît ».

Jacques à Pierre à Gaston à Lucien à Théophile à Bernard à Adélard à Faustin…

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It was in 1800, but in the 21st century seriously?

You explore the structure without giving a thought to its foundations?

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

There. See! There's nothing more American than saying "Jesus". A Brit would never do it. (they'd say "Blimey!", "Mate!", or the likes)

I thought I had already stated that I am not British. It’s good to see by the strong reactions I’m getting that my posts have gotten people thinking…

(And yes, I recognize the humour in your comment!)

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by AverageMonctonEnjoyr

I apologize for taking this low hanging fruit & sending a very obvious ragebait. There was a humoristic undertone to the comment ( well at least in my eyes )

Oh no worries… I was a little sickened and concerned that my comment was taken out of context, and possibly perceived to be inappropriate, as I would never intend to create an uncomfortable situation for anyone. This is just conversation, and at times we may get in a jab or toss out something provocative, but at least for myself, I do not take this very seriously, and my ultimate goal is to learn more from people with a different life experience than my own, and hopefully share some of my experiences and ideas such that we may understand each other a little better than before. Sometimes we may get caught up in the “debate” aspect a little, but mostly it’s just tossing out ideas and seeing what comes back.

But never do I truly want to offend anybody.

And sorry that I missed the humorous aspect of your comment. I’ll try to pay better attention in the future.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ontario and Quebec were certainly much more developed than the Maritimes both economically and demographically for most of Canada's history. Pre- and post-Confederation.

I don't really agree with this. Development is not the same as population. See Denmark vs. Nigeria. A lot of important firsts in Canada happened in the Maritimes, like the first democracy, printing press, or steel making. I wonder if this is true of the down and out parts of the US people like to compare the Maritimes to (for example it turns out that Alabama is the land of firsts for the US). I also wonder how much of a prosperity gap there really is or was across history between parts of the Maritimes and similar parts of Quebec or Ontario. People point out that PEI is small and undeveloped for example but it's just around 5,000 square km of mostly farmland with one sizeable town. Is it really so much worse than a similar area around Brantford or Chilliwack? I'd argue Charlottetown seems nicer than those places.

And sure Loyalists moved to the Maritimes but they're just one group, almost certainly smaller than the migrations from Scotland and Ireland. The Annapolis Valley was resettled by New England Planters, not Loyalists. Saint John is the Loyalist city but isn't so prominent today. The rest of the region is mostly other groups, and the elites in NS, PEI, or NL were never from the US. Furthermore there has been some divergence north and south of the border during the past 250 or so years.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I can't speak for our friend who goes to or went to Mathieu-Martin in Dieppe (Moncton) but in my case I am not really that resentful that the Acadien deportation happened. But I do react when people make light of it, diminish its significance or are simply ignorant of it and say things reflective of that ignorance.

In my case, it depends entirely on who's asking. If it's someone who's from the Government and who's here to give me a big fat Reparations check, then yeah, I have permanent multi-generational scars from the deportation

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

You explore the structure without giving a thought to its foundations?

What foundations are left in this woke age? Young people don't even know what happened barely 30 years ago...

I often have a feeling we are returning to the Low Roman Empire.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by someone123

See Denmark vs. Nigeria.

Silly comparison. Neither Denmark nor Nigeria are New World settlement colonies. In settlement colonies, the level of population reflects the level of development of the colony, at least in the first decades.

Originally Posted by someone123

A lot of important firsts in Canada happened in the Maritimes, like the first democracy, printing press

This is what the Swedish visitor of whom I talked yesterday said about his visit to French Canada in 1749 (I'm translating):

Most of the inhabitants of Canada, men and women, can read a text, but they also write quite well. I've met women who wrote as well as the best professional writers, and I'm blushing for not being able to write as well as them. Their quality in this art comes from the fact that in Canada, people only have to learn two sorts of characters to write, that is to say those of Latin and French. Moreover, every young maid eagerly wishes to write letters to her lover without the recourse to some outside help.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

This is what the Swedish visitor of whom I talked yesterday said about his visit to French Canada in 1749 (I'm translating):

Moreover, every young maid eagerly wishes to write letters to her lover without the recourse to some outside help.

Ahhh, c'est charmant!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't really agree with this. Development is not the same as population. See Denmark vs. Nigeria. A lot of important firsts in Canada happened in the Maritimes, like the first democracy, printing press, or steel making. .
.

As you know I am very pro-Maritimes on here, but I do think it's pretty much a given that Ontario and Quebec had more development than the Maritimes back in the day, given their much larger populations and the fact that there wasn't a Denmark vs. Nigeria disparity in economic development and standard of living between the colonies of British North America.

I've always been critical (I even sort of was yesterday) of how Confederation treated Atlantic Canada for a very long time, in a number of ways including Macdonald's National Policy of course.

Canada at its beginnings was really set up so that Ontario and Golden Square Mile (Montreal) businesspeople could be the Great Providers of Everything to everyone from Prince Rupert to Ingonish.

It wouldn't be the first country to be a primarily mercantile enterprise but in our case spreading the development across the country wasn't a priority. It may even have been discouraged as competition from the regions would have affected the bottom line of Macdonald's friends in central Canada.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ahhh, c'est charmant!

^^In parenthesis, it shows how the standards of livings and socioeconomic indicators of the French Canadians declined after the British conquest. What was the percentage of French Canadians who could read and write in the 19th century?

Elisée Reclus writing in 1890 also shows how the death rate of the French Canadians in Montréal was largely superior to the death rates of both the English and the Irish.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^In parenthesis, it shows how the standards of livings and socioeconomic indicators of the French Canadians declined after the British conquest. What was the percentage of French Canadians who could read and write in the 19th century?

Elisée Reclus writing in 1890 also shows how the death rate of the French Canadians in Montréal was largely superior to the death rates of both the English and the Irish.

I don't know the exact figures but I can say that illiteracy definitely had not disappeared from French Canada in the late 20th century, and hasn't even completely been resolved as an issue today. (We're not the only western society where this is an issue though.)

I also know that the federal Dunton-Laurendeau commission in the 1960s on bilingualism and biculturalism found that francophones in Quebec were something like next to last in socio-economic status among all groups in the province, ahead of Indigenous people only and behind Jews, Italians, Blacks, Hungarians and of course Anglos.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

People point out that PEI is small and undeveloped for example but it's just around 5,000 square km of mostly farmland with one sizeable town. Is it really so much worse than a similar area around Brantford or Chilliwack? I'd argue Charlottetown seems nicer than those places.

.

PEI and of course Charlottetown are definitely much nicer than Brantford (not sure about Chilliwack) but there are literally people in my extended family who moved from PEI to Brantford in the 1960s, because that is where the jobs were.

Moving to cities like Moncton or Halifax generally wasn't always that much of a step up in terms of economic opportunity for Maritimers either, which is why so many of them left the region entirely for places like Toronto and Montreal, and the West.

It's only in the past 20-30 years that this has changed, and that Maritime cities have become much more significant regional migration hubs.

Which is a great thing.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

And sure Loyalists moved to the Maritimes but they're just one group, almost certainly smaller than the migrations from Scotland and Ireland. The Annapolis Valley was resettled by New England Planters, not Loyalists. Saint John is the Loyalist city but isn't so prominent today. The rest of the region is mostly other groups, and the elites in NS, PEI, or NL were never from the US. Furthermore there has been some divergence north and south of the border during the past 250 or so years.

All of my posts (which also referenced the New England Planters who settled on my family's original land) were about British origin people coming to Canada and setting up the society and tone of what became English-speaking Canada. Not that all or most Anglo-Canadians today are descended from those people. Though quite a few of them are, depending on the region of the country you find yourself in.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

PEI and of course Charlottetown are definitely much nicer than Brantford (not sure about Chilliwack) but there are literally people in my extended family who moved from PEI to Brantford in the 1960s, because that is where the jobs were.

Moving to cities like Moncton or Halifax generally wasn't always that much of a step up in terms of economic opportunity for Maritimers either, which is why so many of them left the region entirely for places like Toronto and Montreal, and the West.

It's only in the past 20-30 years that this has changed, and that Maritime cities have become much more significant regional migration hubs.

Which is a great thing.

I can't speak for other areas, but if you look back at the history of Halifax, that ebb and flow of people has almost been a state of normalcy for the city.

Some people will move to Toronto (I had several friends do so) for opportunity, but then you have to live in Toronto (a no-go for me). Recently Halifax is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, which indicates that there are more economic opportunities, or that some people have realized that it's better to live in a nice place than just one where you can get the job you want.

I had the choice to move to Toronto for a job with more room to 'climb the ladder' and higher salary, but I chose to live where I wanted to live, and the lower cost of living didn't make the lesser salary as much of a hit as it appeared on paper. Looking back, I'm incredibly happy that I decided to stay here. I can still visit any city that I want to, but also have a beautiful province in which to live... it's the best of both worlds. When I see my friends from Toronto, they never seem to speak so highly about living there... they just seem to have numbed themselves to it.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

All of my posts (which also referenced the New England Planters who settled on my family's original land) were about British origin people coming to Canada and setting up the society and tone of what became English-speaking Canada. Not that all or most Anglo-Canadians today are descended from those people. Though quite a few of them are, depending on the region of the country you find yourself in.

You didn't say it, but it was suggested that this was the case, and therefore we are basically Americans separated by a border.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

You didn't say it, but it was suggested that this was the case, and therefore we are basically Americans separated by a border.

Hypothetically speaking, Anglo-Canadians don't really need to be primarily descended from Loyalists (and other people from the US) in order to be "basically Americans separated by a border".

My guess is that the US-descended stock is probably highest among anglophones in the Maritimes, and yet it's far from being the most American-feeling part of the country.

Much of Western Canada and Southern Ontario feel much more American to me than the Maritimes, which in comparison definitely feel more uniquely "Canadian", and even a tad more British (UK).

Of course, Ontario in particular did receive tons of Loyalists from the US at one time but they have been outnumbered many times over by people who came directly from the British Isles, and later from all over the world.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't know the exact figures but I can say that illiteracy definitely had not disappeared from French Canada in the late 20th century, and hasn't even completely been resolved as an issue today. (We're not the only western society where this is an issue though.)

I also know that the federal Dunton-Laurendeau commission in the 1960s on bilingualism and biculturalism found that francophones in Quebec were something like next to last in socio-economic status among all groups in the province, ahead of Indigenous people only and behind Jews, Italians, Blacks, Hungarians and of course Anglos.

Wasn't there a study done a few years ago that suggested that up to 50% of francophones in Quebec were functionally illiterate? Don't know whether there's a standard for establishing functional illiteracy.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Wasn't there a study done a few years ago that suggested that up to 50% of francophones in Quebec were functionally illiterate? Don't know whether there's a standard for establishing functional illiteracy.

Yes, that's sort of what I was alluding to. You get these studies from time to time in an number of places (not just Quebec), usually with these conclusions that make a big splash and are meant to set off alarm bells. In support of a specific agenda of course.

Surely there is a lot of wiggle room between saying that 50% of the population is functionally illiterate, and the usual official statistics that show that 98-99% of the population here can read and write. (As you see most everywhere in the western world.)

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

** Canadian food has diverged considerably from American food due to each country's immigration patterns and the rise of the US South. American food is mostly Tex-Mex and Southern these days. Again, before the 1970s, I think standard American and English Canadian food were much closer. If you're a white Vancouverite under 45, you probably know what Xiao Long Baos are. If you're a Torontonian you've had a beef patty or Roti.

This was a really good post, but I have to take issue with this. It makes it sound as though Canadians are these enormously varied eaters while Americans are stuck in the 1970s.

Cities like New York, Los Angeles, DC or Houston have been transformed by their immigration experiences just like Toronto and Vancouver have. I am in Toronto and Southern California for extended periods every year, and that's been the case for over two decades. I really don't think one is any more gastronomically varied than the other, although both places are more so than they were in 2004.

You could say, sure, but Southern California isn't the US, which is true. But it is home to like 25 million people and is certainly a key US "node" like Toronto or Vancouver are for Canada.

We can't compare residents of two of our largest, most cosmopolitan cities with a vague idea of "middle America". Los Angeles and New York have lots of things and lots of communities as well, and while Toronto or Vancouver might outshine them with this or that diaspora, NY/LA surely do with others.

There are ways in which Los Angeles can feel quite a bit more varied than Toronto. And beef patties and roti (whether Guyanese or Indian) are hardly scarce in New York.