Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by harls

Nice strawman. Go sip some wine from your vineyard before Trump slaps a tariff on it.

It's a strawman only when it's embarrassing to answer honestly.

And I'm a teetotal these days. Sorry.

[harls]

I can picture Acajack, Lio and New Brisavoine on his yacht in the Mediterranean, sampling some vintage French wine, yucking it up at harls. In English, of course.

NB non-alcoholic of course

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

And I'm a teetotal these days. Sorry.

Speaking of which, Trump's tariffs may very well be helpful in that matter too, if they ever came into effect. I wouldn't mind.
Just like he is unintentionally starting to help our arms industry in a serious manner.
That old silly man is actually so awkward...

We produce too much booze and not enough weapons in our country.
You know I'm not taking about stupid guns carried by crazy people on the street like they do in the US.
I mean advanced weapons for our professional soldiers, those who will actually protect and defend us.

Thank you, dear Donald!


https://giphy.com/gifs/mkhMTALnrYRLnuoe5P

Ahhh, that's my good Donald.
I like him when he plays golf too.

[New Brisavoine]

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's not just hesitancy, it's also the pronunciation of words which is just atrocious. When English speakers speak French as bad as him, I usually prefer they stick to English, as it makes it difficult to listen to them in French.

On a side note, Ursual von der Leyen speaks better French than him. That says a lot.

I haven’t heard him in French yet, but could it be worse than Stephen Harper’s “erections” federale?

Besides that you sound a wee bit snobby as someone from France. I am fully bilingual and recall a couple instances in cafes that were very insulting while traveling. I had fucking barristas switch to terrible pigeon english because I have a Quebecois accent when I speak french. There is a disdain for french Canadian accents that I noticed both times I visited. Or maybe it’s just us colonial Canadians in general. One pig even told one of my anglophone highschool classmates who wasn’t bilingual to her face “J’ai entendue que les femmes Canadienne fond de l’amour come des betes.” Pardon the missing accents (writing on my phone).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I haven’t heard him in French yet, but could it be worse than Stephen Harper’s “erections” federale? .

The Francophones know Gustave Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas.

Here is his definition of erection: "Only used for monuments".

[Acajack]

One of the greatest mysteries of my life is why Canadians who are so concerned about distinguishing themselves from the US (it started way before Trump) have not embraced French a lot more.

There are so many reasons that could justify it, from the fact it’s historically relevant and essential to Canadianity to the fact that it’s a useful international language to the vehicle for some pretty interesting culture.

But for most people… nope.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

One of the greatest mysteries of my life is why Canadians who are so concerned about distinguishing themselves from the US (it started way before Trump) have not embraced French a lot more.

I have wondered this too. The reality is that a very significant portion of Canadians have some kind of personal connection to French, and some practical use for it if they did want to travel to a nearby province. It goes beyond native speakers and adoption for performative cultural distinctiveness purposes, although that can be a reason.

When you hear "51st state" talk, Quebec is typically ignored and the French-speaking minority outside of Quebec is never mentioned, likely due to ignorance.

And of course it's a smaller region but Atlantic Canada is also home to a lot of distinctive culture and history that isn't really appreciated. For example, you hear about the "burning the White House" story but actually the general who led that is interred in Halifax and you can visit his tomb there, yet it's quite obscure and won't generally be covered outside of NS media. A person like Viola Desmond does get covered due to the racism angle but is misrepresented somewhat as "Canada's Rosa Parks" (with NS playing the role of "Canada's Alabama" and not really being understood as its own place with an older and distinct history). Her story played out before Rosa Parks and it was about a different, more liberal legal question. And you won't hear at all about Dalhousie's first black law school graduate, an event from 1898...

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Acajack

One of the greatest mysteries of my life is why Canadians who are so concerned about distinguishing themselves from the US (it started way before Trump) have not embraced French a lot more.

There are so many reasons that could justify it, from the fact it’s historically relevant and essential to Canadianity to the fact that it’s a useful international language to the vehicle for some pretty interesting culture.

But for most people… nope.

Learning another language requires vast amounts of time and effort. Even then you have moments where you feel stupid or frustrated because you feel you should be further along than you are. Most people are kind of lazy, in general, and staying within the comfort zone of their native tongue is so much easier.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, you are correct to point this out. He is not exactly the most engaging speaker in English either.

Being that way to begin with, and speaking in one's second language you haven't practised much, only exacerbates things.

He comes across as very measured, thoughtful, and reassuring in English. I wouldn’t classify that as the most engaging style but it is appealing, especially now.

I understand when he speaks in French but it’s so slow and basic at times. I feel like I’m watching paint dry. Plus the mispronunciation of some basic sounds and leaving out critical words to complete his thought feels amateur. I felt less cringey the last time I heard him, though, so maybe regularly using it is having some effect. This was after the visit with Macron.

[Loco101]

I curious to see what BQ leader Y-F Blanchet will do in the upcoming campaign. His party's traditional issues will not be front and centre. It will be strange having a pro-sovereignty leader try to argue for independence when all of Canada is being threatened by annexation from Trump. Polls are showing that the Bloc could lose quite a few seats.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Learning another language requires vast amounts of time and effort. Even then you have moments where you feel stupid or frustrated because you feel you should be further along than you are. Most people are kind of lazy, in general, and staying within the comfort zone of their native tongue is so much easier.

All true but I don't think learning the language is necessary. For example, Canadians could watch more French-language media from Quebec (like how they watched Squid Game) or be more aware of Québécois culture. This could be a grassroots thing or encouraged by, say, the CBC or CRTC and arts funding.

There are also programs like Katimavik. Not sure what the status of that is or how effective it was, but I think exchange programs for young people could have an impact as far as increasing cross-regional understanding.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Acajack

One of the greatest mysteries of my life is why Canadians who are so concerned about distinguishing themselves from the US (it started way before Trump) have not embraced French a lot more.

There are so many reasons that could justify it, from the fact it’s historically relevant and essential to Canadianity to the fact that it’s a useful international language to the vehicle for some pretty interesting culture.

But for most people… nope.

French is hard to learn. I like French cinema and French pop music from the 60's. I like visiting French parts of New Brunswick, like the Acadien Peninsula and North Shore... it really feels like another country almost.

• Video Link



I think its cool New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province, but I think it's been implemented very poorly, and it's morphed into a political boogeyman of sorts. It's also interesting how different different parts of French New Brunswick can be... like Edmundston versus Caraquet. It's also interesting meeting French speaking New Brunswickers, which now includes a lot of newcomers from Françafrique and other French speaking regions around the world.

Quebec offers free intensive Quebecois French classes to Francophone immigrants, which anglophone Canadians don't qualify for. The rest of the provinces should definitely do more to improve bilingualism in Canada... especially since Canada joining the EU has a slight chance of actually happening. I think Quebec should offer these classes to English speaking Canadians who move to Quebec. . . how many extra people do they really think would move to Quebec if they started allowing them to take the same classes for free that immigrants qualify for? New Brisavoine could move to Montreal and get free classes to learn proper Quebecois French that most English speaking Canadians don't qualify for. It's just never seemed right to me.

New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province, but our French immersion school system is worse than Saskatchewan's. Our former premier, Blaine Higgs, a guy I didn't like at all, did have one good idea, imo, and it was his idea to make the Anglophone school system bilingual. He was roundly attacked for messing with the French Immersion system, and they folded to public pressure and gave up on the idea. New Brunswick should basically have the same bilingual public school system that exists for Anglophones in Montreal.

Currently, parents in New Brunswick can enrol their children in the French public school if at least one parent is not a native English speaker. The French school system in New Brunswick is good, but it risks being overloaded if enough non Francophone newcomers enrol their kids in the French school system.

Blaine Higgs's bilingual schools plan had lots of issues, but it was still the kernel of a great idea... considering NB's French immersion system starts in grade 3, while it starts as early as Kindergarten in other provinces, I never got why people got so defensive about Higgs wanting to replace the French immersion system and English school system with one bilingual school system, without touching the French system, which is protected by the Charter.

If 80% of NB high school graduates had some level of French fluency... they will be set up to learn French at their leisure over the next 10 years of their life. Some will, a lot won't, but it would still have been a huge step in the right direction for Canada's only bilingual province, and still an idea worth looking at by the current government, who no one in their right mind would ever accuse of being anti French. A plan for a better bilingual public school system than what Higgs proposed is something the NB Liberals should consider. Higgs had very, very few good ideas, and bilingual public schools instead of French Immersion and English schools was one of those few good ideas. With how advanced language learning software and teaching methods have become, high school graduates will be set up to succeed to become fluent in French, should they continue to learn the language after they graduate... or move to Montreal.

[MolsonExport]

Vergonha

In Occitan, vergonha (Occitan pronunciation: [beɾˈɣuɲo̞, veʀˈɡuɲo̞], meaning "shame") refers to the effects of various language discriminatory policies of the government of France on its minorities whose native language was deemed a patois, where a Romance language spoken in the country other than Standard French, such as Occitan or the langues d'oïl, as well as other non-Romance languages such as Alsatian and Basque, were suppressed. Vergonha is imagined as a process of "being made to reject and feel ashamed of one's (or one's parents') mother tongue through official exclusion, humiliation at school and rejection from the media", as organized and sanctioned by French political leaders from Henri Grégoire onward.

Vergonha is still a controversial topic in modern French public discourse, where some, including successive French governments, have denied discrimination ever existed or downplayed its effects; it is a commonly cited example of sanctioned systematic linguicide and cultural genocide. In 1860, before French schooling was made compulsory, native Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population, as opposed to 52% for francophones proper; their share of the population declined to 26–36% by the late 1920s. Since the end of World War II, it experienced another sharp decline, to less than 7% by 1993.

France has also continuously refused to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and native non-French languages in France continue to be denied official recognition, with Occitans, Basques, Corsicans, Catalans, Flemings, Bretons, Alsatians, Savoyards along with langues d'oïl speakers still having no explicit legal right to conduct public affairs in their regional languages within their home lands.

[Acajack]

This program was just aired, and focuses on our favourite topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4PvBzkQayg

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This program was just aired, and focuses on our favourite topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4PvBzkQayg

I wish our national broadcaster used the same approach for its news broadcasts.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I wish our national broadcaster used the same approach for its news broadcasts.

I've recently noticed that the francophone Belgian national newscast now carries a segment with reports in Flemish (subtitled in French) from their sister network.

Yes, it would be good if CBC/Radio-Canada did something similar. Actually, I've long said that both networks should long ago have put subtitles in the other language on all of their programming.

(We get newscasts from multiple francophone countries on TV5, the global francophone network, due at least in part to Quebec's role in international affairs! )

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

French is hard to learn. I like French cinema and French pop music from the 60's. I like visiting French parts of New Brunswick, like the Acadien Peninsula and North Shore... it really feels like another country almost.

• Video Link



I think its cool New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province, but I think it's been implemented very poorly, and it's morphed into a political boogeyman of sorts. It's also interesting how different different parts of French New Brunswick can be... like Edmundston versus Caraquet. It's also interesting meeting French speaking New Brunswickers, which now includes a lot of newcomers from Françafrique and other French speaking regions around the world.

Quebec offers free intensive Quebecois French classes to Francophone immigrants, which anglophone Canadians don't qualify for. The rest of the provinces should definitely do more to improve bilingualism in Canada... especially since Canada joining the EU has a slight chance of actually happening. I think Quebec should offer these classes to English speaking Canadians who move to Quebec. . . how many extra people do they really think would move to Quebec if they started allowing them to take the same classes for free that immigrants qualify for? New Brisavoine could move to Montreal and get free classes to learn proper Quebecois French that most English speaking Canadians don't qualify for. It's just never seemed right to me.

New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province, but our French immersion school system is worse than Saskatchewan's. Our former premier, Blaine Higgs, a guy I didn't like at all, did have one good idea, imo, and it was his idea to make the Anglophone school system bilingual. He was roundly attacked for messing with the French Immersion system, and they folded to public pressure and gave up on the idea. New Brunswick should basically have the same bilingual public school system that exists for Anglophones in Montreal.

Currently, parents in New Brunswick can enrol their children in the French public school if at least one parent is not a native English speaker. The French school system in New Brunswick is good, but it risks being overloaded if enough non Francophone newcomers enrol their kids in the French school system.

Blaine Higgs's bilingual schools plan had lots of issues, but it was still the kernel of a great idea... considering NB's French immersion system starts in grade 3, while it starts as early as Kindergarten in other provinces, I never got why people got so defensive about Higgs wanting to replace the French immersion system and English school system with one bilingual school system, without touching the French system, which is protected by the Charter.

If 80% of NB high school graduates had some level of French fluency... they will be set up to learn French at their leisure over the next 10 years of their life. Some will, a lot won't, but it would still have been a huge step in the right direction for Canada's only bilingual province, and still an idea worth looking at by the current government, who no one in their right mind would ever accuse of being anti French. A plan for a better bilingual public school system than what Higgs proposed is something the NB Liberals should consider. Higgs had very, very few good ideas, and bilingual public schools instead of French Immersion and English schools was one of those few good ideas. With how advanced language learning software and teaching methods have become, high school graduates will be set up to succeed to become fluent in French, should they continue to learn the language after they graduate... or move to Montreal.

You are quite right to bring up education, which has been a huge factor. Not just in New Brunswick, but across the country.

Of course it would also have been a huge Catch-22.

While a cross-Canada education system might have yielded a more bilingual population across the country, one can also argue that the 1867 Confederation that included Quebec might not have happened had there been insistence on centralized education, as opposed to leaving it to the provinces.

I am pretty sure that would have been a deal-breaker for Quebec.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by someone123

All true but I don't think learning the language is necessary. For example, Canadians could watch more French-language media from Quebec (like how they watched Squid Game) or be more aware of Québécois culture. This could be a grassroots thing or encouraged by, say, the CBC or CRTC and arts funding.

There are also programs like Katimavik. Not sure what the status of that is or how effective it was, but I think exchange programs for young people could have an impact as far as increasing cross-regional understanding.

I spent a summer in Montreal on the federal government’s summer language boursary program. It was an awesome experience. Those kinds of programs seem to have no overall impact though. They only reinforce bilingualism for someone like me who already values that. French immersion is similarly important but only among some English Canadians. How we shift the larger culture is more of a mystery and perhaps impossible.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've recently noticed that the francophone Belgian national newscast now carries a segment with reports in Flemish (subtitled in French) from their sister network.

Yes, it would be good if CBC/Radio-Canada did something similar. Actually, I've long said that both networks should long ago have put subtitles in the other language on all of their programming.

(We get newscasts from multiple francophone countries on TV5, the global francophone network, due at least in part to Quebec's role in international affairs! )

When I lived in South Africa, a number of programs were bilingual English/Afrikaans and the national news was one language or the other on alternate nights, with no subtitles that I recall. The main benefit for Canada, imo, would be a single news source for all Canadians, something we currently lack.