Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Arrête ça, c'est qu'une blague idiote. Vous ne voyez donc pas ?

Quebecers just making fun of themselves, because they're gifted with a superego and can do so.

Who knows whether English speakers are able of the same when it comes to strangers?
A lot of them go paranoid when they set a toe in foreign territory, like it's funny.

Oh my Gosh!! Aliens everywhere! Foes all around!! To arms! Help! HELP!!

Bwa ha ha.

Where is the 4th Reich? Please, let me laugh out loud...

Cette vidéo date de plusieurs décennies. Ce n'est pas de l'humour "actuel".

[Binour]

I have a close friend, from Anjou region in France. (No need to say that I gladly showed him «les Galeries d'Anjou» here in Montreal...... ). However, we never had any problems to communicate, and, frankly, it is really funny to notice our differences, and the deep roots of French spoken here. I know that many Anglophones like to believe that we are mutually unintelligible, but it is just not true.

I suppose that when you order a BigMac in a «service center» along the 401, you ear the English of the Queen? not too much and I don't mind. I have traveled a lot in Canada and USA. Let me give you a flower. Canadians have a better pronunciation, for me at least.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Binour

I have traveled a lot in Canada and USA. Let me give you a flower. Canadians have a better pronunciation, for me at least.

Merci buckets <English slang expression>.

[Acajack]

For some reason, people (including many of someone123's acquaintances) have trouble understanding that a Parisian talking with a Québécois lawyer who lives on Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal is the same experience as a Londoner talking to a lawyer from the north side of Chicago.

A Londoner talking with a Texas rancher will have a similar experience to a Parisian talking with a fisherman from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

[bobi]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Cette vidéo date de plusieurs décennies. Ce n'est pas de l'humour "actuel".

Mais c'est toujours d'actualité pour ceux qui parlent de génocide culturel et qui hurlent (hurl) dans des porte-voix à longue portée.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

A Londoner talking with a Texas rancher will have a similar experience to a Parisian talking with a fisherman from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

I can understand this journalist from Toulouse even though an actual French politician can't.

• Video Link

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

For some reason, people (including many of someone123's acquaintances) have trouble understanding that a Parisian talking with a Québécois lawyer who lives on Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal is the same experience as a Londoner talking to a lawyer from the north side of Chicago.

I'd say it's less about trouble understanding and more that people just don't think about it much but there are these little bits of received wisdom floating around. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them date back many decades and started with classist connotations. It is insidious because when it comes to say politics these little things, spread out over a large population, can have an impact. It feels to me like when it comes to French language (minority) issues in Canada, 1992 views are still acceptable whereas things have moved on in other areas to the point where even comparatively benign silliness is not tolerated at all ("they get free gas").

Another example in the same ballpark is how many people here know that there is no such thing as "Chinese", there's Mandarin and Cantonese. If you say people in Beijing were speaking Chinese, you may get corrected. In my experience a lot of Americans know "some Canadians speak French, but it's a special/worse kind of French" and that's about it. BC and AB are almost at that level but with some political baggage added.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by someone123

I can understand this journalist from Toulouse even though an actual French politician can't.

Mélenchon is a worst asshole full of egotrip.
He's the typical Stalinist, self-centered far-left leader good friend with dictators and hating on all Western democracies because he doesn't have a chance to be elected at the French presidency.
Thank God, otherwise France would turn into a Pol Pot like concentration camp.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, he was still praising Putin, nostalgic as he is about the old USSR.
Then he suddenly had to change his mind before the French public opinion... You see?

He is ugly as sin. An insult to the French people.
I bet even your great great grandma wouldn't fuck him in her grave.
He is repulsive.

[Binour]

A favorite of mine on Youtube. His videos are really worth it. But for now, jus have a little earing of how he speaks, should I say how he sings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEiBerJZZ0

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

OK, let's put it another way. If in the fullness of time, and with increasing restrictions of the usage of the English language in Quebec; that in, say 50 years, the native anglophone population in the province has been completely extirpated, would the Quebec people be sad???

Discuss.

You may say that cultural genocide is not being perpetrated, but if the end goal is to eliminate English as a viable language in Quebec, then what exactly is going on???

Are Canadians sad that restriction of French usage in Canada almost extirpated francophones west of Ontario and eliminated French as a viable language there?

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by someone123

I can understand this journalist from Toulouse even though an actual French politician can't.

• Video Link

I remember when that came out, and I was amazed by it. I can't think of another Western country where something like that could possibly happen, or where a politician would feel so free and entitled to act so pompously. Actually, that kind of thing would be imposible in Northeast Asia, too.

Trump is the rare exception, of course, though for him it wasn't snooty patrician pomposity, but rather, the sneering contempt of the schoolyard twerp with bullies for friends.

Can you imagine Boris Johnson or anyone else at No. 10 being rude like that to a Geordie or a Scouser? It would simply never, ever happen. It's utterly inconceivable.

France is unique.

[Binour]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

Are Canadians sad that restriction of French usage in Canada almost extirpated francophones west of Ontario and eliminated French as a viable language there?

Don't forget «l'infâme règlement 17», for witch Kathleen Wynne officially apologized a few years ago. The linguistic cleansing in Ontario is an historic fact.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Binour

"witch" Kathleen Wynne .

Freudian slip???

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ironic that even with Bill 96, anglophones in Quebec will still have more services, more institutions and more ability to live their entire lives in their language than any other francophone minority group in the country (in large part due to Quebec government services and policies), with the possible exception of those living in northeastern and northwestern New Brunswick.

Oh, I don't know. Bill 96 states that all businesses (even small businesses with few employees) must now conduct their affairs entirely in French.

This means that a small English language bookstore in Westmount, serving an almost entirely English speaking clientele, must maintain their books in French, conduct all business related conversations in French, and deal with the provincial government exclusively in French. This new policy can be strictly enforced by compliance officers who can seize office computers and business cellphones without warrant to ensure that no English words have been typed on screen or filed in business documents.

Compare this situation to a small depanneur in Timmins, which, while serving their bilingual clientele in the language of their choice, can maintain their books in whatever manner they want, and the employees are free to speak whichever language they want.

Which of these two situations seems most oppressive to you???

As for Acadians on la peninsule here in NB. They can live their lives almost as if they were living in Quebec. The French speaking population in large parts of the peninsula approaches 100% and almost no English is to be heard. People who live there are far, far more free to conduct their lives in French than most English Montrealers (especially now that Bill 96 has been passed).

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Oh, I don't know. Bill 96 states that all businesses (even small businesses with few employees) must now conduct their affairs entirely in French.

I'm not understanding the furor.

This isn't 1970. Anyone with a pulse who lives in this country knows that Quebec zealously guards its language protections, and has a government predisposed to heavy regulation. They have been doing that for 40-50 years now.

Admittedly, those who refuse to yield to the concept that communication of the predominant language of a country/region is a necessity is going to have to re-evaluate their life choices. Most already have. English-speaking regions just have the luxury of not requiring law and government to force the issue, as sheer inertia makes the point moot.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by thewave46

I'm not understanding the furor.

This isn't 1970. Anyone with a pulse who lives in this country knows that Quebec zealously guards its language protections, and has a government predisposed to heavy regulation. They have been doing that for 40-50 years now.

Admittedly, those who refuse to yield to the concept that communication of the predominant language of a country/region is a necessity is going to have to re-evaluate their life choices. Most already have. English-speaking regions just have the luxury of not requiring law and government to force the issue, as sheer inertia makes the point moot.

What furor? Outside a few of the chattering class, I’ve not had the impression that folks outside QC care much.

[blacktrojan3921]

I can't help but feel bad for anglophones who have a hard time learning a second language; let alone being forced to learn french as a pre-requisite in Quebec.

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by blacktrojan3921

I can't help but feel bad for anglophones who have a hard time learning a second language; let alone being forced to learn french as a pre-requisite in Quebec.

I can't help but feel bad for francophones who have a hard time learning a second language; let alone being forced to learn English as a pre-requisite in English Canada.

[le calmar]

There was a column in La Presse this morning (in French) on this subject.

La dérive conservatrice du nationalisme québécois.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by thewave46

I'm not understanding the furor.

This isn't 1970. Anyone with a pulse who lives in this country knows that Quebec zealously guards its language protections, and has a government predisposed to heavy regulation. They have been doing that for 40-50 years now.

Admittedly, those who refuse to yield to the concept that communication of the predominant language of a country/region is a necessity is going to have to re-evaluate their life choices. Most already have. English-speaking regions just have the luxury of not requiring law and government to force the issue, as sheer inertia makes the point moot.

In much of Canada, that luxury of inertia which "naturally" favours English is the result of a century or more of suppressing French (and Indigenous languages too).