Richmond, B.C., considers banning Chinese-only signage

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

But yeah, none of this really applies to Quebec. Quebec wants to operate as an Old World Continental European nation state, and that's fine..

I don't think that is really true. Quebec models itself societally as much on the U.S. as it does, say, France.

In any event, not sure what's wrong with European countries. There are millions of Turkish-Germans, Afro-French, Indo-Brits, Surinamese-Dutch, Balkan-Swedes happily living there.

[MolsonExport]

Last I checked people didn't look down on Swizerland as being a cultural barren wasteland just because they have 4 official languages and accepted many immigrants from a diverse set of countries.

Sorry but why doesn't Switzerland get rid of Romansch (37,000 speakers), and adopt English (278,407 speakers) as an official language?

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Sorry but why doesn't Switzerland get rid of Romansch (37,000 speakers), and adopt English (278,407 speakers) as an official language?

I don't know, that sounds like a question for Swiss people? You seem to be implying there is some deep over-reaching grand wisdom in the fact that Switzerland hasn't adopted English as an official language. I don't see it.

[kool maudit]

i immigrated to denmark in may. my paperwork was done by august, and now i am a resident.

it does not strike me as accurate, though, to say that i am now as danish as lars jespersen from odense or steen jensen whose grandfather used to have a dairy farm in jutland or whatever. i can't even imagine feeling that. i think i'd really need an ideology of some kind to help me along with that, because i am clearly just... not as danish as these guys.

i totally get the theory of why i should be — i mean, i understand the claim — but it almost strikes me as a triumph of legal logic over obvious fact, or like something only an intellectual could believe.

as an honest statement, were i standing next to an old-stock dane and you asked a third party "which guy is more danish"... i mean, why would you pick me?

i'm very clearly a guy from canada who just moved here.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It would indeed be unique in the world as once a country or a region of a country is "settled" by the group that sets up the society, there is almost never any talk of granting official status to the languages of subsequent waves of contemporary immigrants.

If anyone is aware of such an instance, I'd really like to hear about it.

At the very least I am not aware of any countries in the world where there is currently any talk of making a contemporary immigrant language official. Anyone wanna chime in?

So yeah, this would make Canada extremely unique.

Amazing use of rhetoric good sir. Only in this thread can polemic language be used to paint education as "concession" and cultural uniqueness as an evil negative that should be avoided at all costs.

We will just have to agree to disagree. Personally I will never see eye to eye with someone who starts from the position that embracing a culture and language is somehow a cultural net negative that subtracts something from all of us.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I don't know, that sounds like a question for Swiss people? You seem to be implying there is some deep over-reaching grand wisdom in the fact that Switzerland hasn't adopted English as an official language. I don't see it.

he is pointing out that switzerland makes languages official based on history rather than demographic weight.

in any case, it's really not the country i'd pick if i were grasping for an archetypical nation-of-immigrants.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Amazing use of rhetoric good sir. Only in this thread can polemic language be used to paint education as "concession" and cultural uniqueness as an evil negative that should be avoided at all costs.

We will just have to agree to disagree. Personally I will never see eye to eye with someone who starts from the position that embracing a culture and language is somehow a cultural net negative that subtracts something from all of us.

Funny you should lecture me on education and cultural and linguistic openness as I am writing in my second of three languages that I can speak. I can also get by in two more.

BTW, how's your French? What about Cree? Inuktitut?

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Funny you should lecture me on education and cultural and linguistic openness as I am writing in my second of three languages that I can speak. I can also get by in two more.

BTW, how's your French? What about Cree? Inuktitut?

One can be a bigoted polyglot, or an open-minded culturally and linguistically sensitive unilingual person, or vice-versa.

I am multilingual.

[saffronleaf]

What happened to the forum?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

One can be a bigoted polyglot, or an open-minded culturally and linguistically sensitive unilingual person, or vice-versa.

I am multilingual.

Kinda like how multilingual, globalist, educated 20-somethings descended from immigrants to one of the world's most diverse cities can sometimes be advocates for racial segregation, eh?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

What happened to the forum?

All of a sudden this evening I can't see any of the threads listed in the subforum (I use Chrome)... I suspect others might be having this problem.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

What happened to the forum?

The Canada forum vanished like a fart in the wind, or perhaps views are restricted? Maybe the mods are swamping the forum deck.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The Canada forum vanished like a fart in the wind, or perhaps views are restricted? Maybe the mods are swamping the forum deck.

Glad it's not just me... at first I thought maybe I was in the process of being banned for my many ill-tempered and injudicious comments over the years.

[Acajack]

Likely a technical problem. I can't see it either and of course they would never ban me!

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Amazing use of rhetoric good sir. Only in this thread can polemic language be used to paint education as "concession" and cultural uniqueness as an evil negative that should be avoided at all costs.

We will just have to agree to disagree. Personally I will never see eye to eye with someone who starts from the position that embracing a culture and language is somehow a cultural net negative that subtracts something from all of us.

One can embrace a culture and language while still worrying about it taking over your own. There's a limit to how much we embrace these things.

[kool maudit]

strange forum behavior. anyway, this is coming down to the ordinary difference, which is not between full-on nativism and globalism but is rather between full-on globalism and mild skepticism towards such.

in the absence of actual nativists, the pejoratives that might usually be applied to them get applied to the mild skeptics; has acajack even said that he has a position on this sign's business? i haven't. i really don't know. because a big part of me thinks that, if you don't want these sorts of events, you don't have canada-esque levels of immigration, and that since we do we should put up with it.

[kool maudit]

imagine if other government policies were like immigration, where you either favored a specific maximalism or were some horrible form of bigot? taxes, infrastructure, etc.?

"opponents of the new bypass road are nothing more than a collection of lynch mob-descended monsters!"

how would you ever discuss anything?

[tremblay]

A new documentary just coming out is making a strong case on how Quebec society was influenced by native american societies a lot more than we might think. Not only physically (as a vast majority of "de souche" Québécois have native ancestors) but also "spiritually". For instance, our politics are consensual and often involve "tables de concertations", "comité parlementaires" which originate -unsurprisingly- from our native side more than our French one. Same goes for a lot of other things we wouldn't suspect. Le Devoir has an article on it. http://www.ledevoir.com/culture/cinema/422178/la-conquete-des-origines.

To stay on topic, it would make more sense for me to add Cree/Innu/Inuktiku/Attikamec/... as official languages of Canada or Quebec than Mandarin let's say. It would also bear more deep-rooted political signification.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by tremblay

A new documentary just coming out is making a strong case on how Quebec society was influenced by native american societies a lot more than we might think. Not only physically (as a vast majority of "de souche" Québécois have native ancestors) but also "spiritually". For instance, our politics are consensual and often involve "tables de concertations", "comité parlementaires" which originate -unsurprisingly- from our native side more than our French one. Same goes for a lot of other things we wouldn't suspect. Le Devoir has an article on it. http://www.ledevoir.com/culture/cinema/422178/la-conquete-des-origines.

I am eager to see this film. The old stock French Canadian population is probably considerably more métis than is readily acknowledged.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

strange forum behavior. anyway, this is coming down to the ordinary difference, which is not between full-on nativism and globalism but is rather between full-on globalism and mild skepticism towards such.

in the absence of actual nativists, the pejoratives that might usually be applied to them get applied to the mild skeptics; has acajack even said that he has a position on this sign's business? i haven't. i really don't know. because a big part of me thinks that, if you don't want these sorts of events, you don't have canada-esque levels of immigration, and that since we do we should put up with it.

Thanks for the dose of reason.

I mean, although no one is suggesting this here, totally closing our borders to immigration is an option that can be legally and even morally pursued. Canada has done it before and may do it again at some point in the future.

Not offering language bridging for certain public services as is currently done is also an option. We choose to do otherwise and that's fine, but it's also true that in the case of the myriad of extra languages offered for certain services in Toronto and Vancouver, some languages are left out and therefore there is an imbalance between the services offered in languages like Hindi and Mandarin, and say... Nepalese whose speakers are left to fend for themselves.

A society can't realistically be all things to everyone. What we are hearing on here is that apparently Anglo-Canada is as close as possible to being all things to everyone. We are supposed to believe that it's pretty close to perfection.

Anyway, in case you are wondering why I have so much time on my hands to reply to this thread, it's because I've been waiting all this time to be served in French at a federal border crossing in Western Canada!