Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[New Brisavoine]

The other day I was commenting that Ottawa seems to have translation issues, well India has the exact same translation issues. "Between our countries" (Justin Trudeau), or "between our nations" (Narendra Modi), is NOT "entre nos pays/nations" in French. It should be translated "entre nos DEUX pays/nations". "Entre nos pays/nations" without "deux" seems to imply there are more than 2 here. That's something you'd say at the European level: "entre nos pays" (i.e. between the 27 EU member states).

The beginning of the tweet is also faulty in French. "my friend X" is not "mon ami X" in French, but should be translated as "cher ami X", and no "le" before "président". Anglophones always have this tendency to add unnecessary "le", as if it made sentences look "more French". Titles in particular never (or rarely) have "le", but Anglophones always insist on adding the unnecessary "le" in titles.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/sta...60352046030893

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Interesting but I think there are some likely breakdowns that merit some caveats.

In Quebec itself there are probably anglophones of various origins (say English-Scottish-Irish or even English-Irish-French Canadian origins, who simply mark down "Canadian" as their ethnic origin. These people are not francophones culturally.

Also, outside Quebec about half of the 2 million people who list "French" as their ethnic origins aren't francophones, as the francophone population outside Quebec is only about 1 million people. Probably even higher as there are no doubt quite a few francophones outside Quebec who checked off "Canadian" as ethnic origin.

My guess as well is that Cameron Deladurantaye who lives in Medicine Hat and speaks no French is extremely likely to identify as an unhyphenated "Canadian".

In all honesty, all these ancestry questions in North American censuses make no sense. I don't even know why they are still there. We in Europe often make fun of it.

At the end of the day, as Renan said in the 19th century, a nation is a daily plebiscite, not something that comes from long dead ancestors. Francophones are those who speak French today and see themselves as Francophone, period.

For those unfamiliar with Renan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_a_Nation%3F

[Acajack]

Ancestry.com and 23 and Me DNA ethnicity testing for consumers are actually banned in France, and French people find ancestry interest and businesses bizarre I know.

Note that at least part of this is politically-motivated in France and even the public attitudes are simply the citizenry internalizing the policy.

EDIT: And yes I know Renan.

[New Brisavoine]

It's not just the French. Most Europeans find it ridiculous when Americans say they are 1/8th Norwegian, half Italian, etc. That means absolutely nothing. They are just Americans, with American culture (for better or for worse), and know none of the languages, cultures, and current situation of the countries of their supposed "ancestries".

It's quite different for the Francophone Canadians, because language sets them appart and allows them to keep more in touch with France (especially for those who live in Québec). But a guy from NYC telling me he's "half-Italian" because his great-grand-parents landed in NYC 120 years ago? Please! I know Italy probably more than he does.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's not just the French. Most Europeans find it ridiculous when Americans say they are 1/8th Norwegian, half Italian, etc. That means absolutely nothing. They are just Americans, with American culture (for better or for worse), and know none of the languages, cultures, and current situation of the countries of their supposed "ancestries".

It's quite different for the Francophone Canadians, because language sets them appart and allows them to keep more in touch with France (especially for those who live in Québec). But a guy from NYC telling me he's "half-Italian" because his great-grand-parents landed in NYC 120 years ago? Please! I know Italy probably more than he does.

In my experience Italians generally don't feel that much kinship with Italian-Americans, with the possible exception of their own relatives provided that family ties have been maintained across the Atlantic. But if you go into a random restaurant in Italy and say "hey we're eye-talians from New Jersey!", they probably won't treat you much differently from any other foreign tourist. (EDIT: Though I suppose if you speak Italian really really well, something that is increasingly rare among Italian-Americans, that probably can make a difference.)

As you say, for francophone Canadians the situation is quite a bit different when we go to France, due to the language and other cultural traits having been maintained.

I also have a number of sub-Saharan African friends and they also don't generally see African-Americans as long-lost cousins, and mostly see them as "Americans", point final.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I also have a number of sub-Saharan African friends and they also don't generally see African-Americans as long-lost cousins, and mostly see them as "Americans", point final.

Do they actually see you, Francophone Québécois, as closer to them than African-Americans?

[1overcosc]

The obsession that Anglo-Saxons have with "ancestry" goes very deep.

If anyone has British ancestry they can usually trace their British ancestors back for centuries, often to the Middle Ages, through nothing more than a few online searches, because in the UK, local municipalities have spent millions in taxpayer funds to digitize millions of old church baptism and marriage records for the benefit of the Ancestry.com crowd. Has any other country anywhere in the world ever done that?

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The obsession that Anglo-Saxons have with "ancestry" goes very deep.

It's unusual to me, a North American Anglo through-and-through. People seemingly very obsessed with 'ancestry', but not beyond a superficial level. I'm a Canadian, for all it entails. American-lite, if one wants to throw barbs.

I've been to some of countries my ancestors were from. They were nice countries, nice people, a nice holiday. At the end of the day, I was a tourist, not a local even in the most superficial sense. Sure, if I never opened my mouth, I could be confused for a local on first look, but after the first few syllables escaped my mouth, the jig was up.

Even in countries where I shared a language (the United States being the exception, obviously), the kinship was...more distant than I expected. Oh sure, one's not fighting the language barrier anymore, but the UK was farther away from Canada than I expected in terms of home. Not a bad thing, but definitely something to remember.

Not sure how Quebec and France perceive each other when visiting the other. Is it more Anglo Canada-USA or Anglo Canada-UK in feel?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's not just the French. Most Europeans find it ridiculous when Americans say they are 1/8th Norwegian, half Italian, etc. That means absolutely nothing. They are just Americans, with American culture (for better or for worse), and know none of the languages, cultures, and current situation of the countries of their supposed "ancestries".

It's quite different for the Francophone Canadians, because language sets them appart and allows them to keep more in touch with France (especially for those who live in Québec). But a guy from NYC telling me he's "half-Italian" because his great-grand-parents landed in NYC 120 years ago? Please! I know Italy probably more than he does.

Do they not find it ridiculous when Canadians or Australians do it?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Interesting but I think there are some likely breakdowns that merit some caveats.

In Quebec itself there are probably anglophones of various origins (say English-Scottish-Irish or even English-Irish-French Canadian origins, who simply mark down "Canadian" as their ethnic origin. These people are not francophones culturally.

Also, outside Quebec about half of the 2 million people who list "French" as their ethnic origins aren't francophones, as the francophone population outside Quebec is only about 1 million people. Probably even higher as there are no doubt quite a few francophones outside Quebec who checked off "Canadian" as ethnic origin.

My guess as well is that Cameron Deladurantaye who lives in Medicine Hat and speaks no French is extremely likely to identify as an unhyphenated "Canadian".

Language is obviously easier to tally - and is less of a subjective measure - than ancestry.

My guess is around half of "Canadian" respondents are of French Canadian origin (at least partially) but it's impossible to know precisely.

The US Census Bureau got rid of "American" responses in the 2020 census. Maybe we should follow their lead?

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In my experience Italians generally don't feel that much kinship with Italian-Americans, with the possible exception of their own relatives provided that family ties have been maintained across the Atlantic. But if you go into a random restaurant in Italy and say "hey we're eye-talians from New Jersey!", they probably won't treat you much differently from any other foreign tourist. (EDIT: Though I suppose if you speak Italian really really well, something that is increasingly rare among Italian-Americans, that probably can make a difference.)

Interesting anecdote: I have an American friend whose dad is of Sicilian origin. He did a master's degree in Milan and told me he would sometimes encounter snooty attitudes or outright prejudice when people saw his distinctly Sicilian surname – prejudice that would evaporate as soon as they realized he was American.

[Docere]

The north-south difference in Italy is very stark. In a way, like going from Switzerland to Greece.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's not just the French. Most Europeans find it ridiculous when Americans say they are 1/8th Norwegian, half Italian, etc. That means absolutely nothing. They are just Americans, with American culture (for better or for worse), and know none of the languages, cultures, and current situation of the countries of their supposed "ancestries".

It's quite different for the Francophone Canadians, because language sets them appart and allows them to keep more in touch with France (especially for those who live in Québec). But a guy from NYC telling me he's "half-Italian" because his great-grand-parents landed in NYC 120 years ago? Please! I know Italy probably more than he does.

Most Europeans are indigenous to Europe so it's not a surprise that they aren't very interested in their ancestry. But North America is a settler colonial society where the vast majority of people have roots elsewhere in the world, so it's natural to be curious about those origins. Maybe it's a typically American thing to be super prideful of those origins (aren't Americans a prideful people in general?) but it's certainly normal to wonder where your earliest ancestors came from, because it clearly wasn't from just down the road.

Maybe it's a peculiarly European trait to be unconcerned about ancestry. Many people in China can trace their ancestry back hundreds or even thousands of years. Every village has an ancestral hall that documents exactly this.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Docere

The north-south difference in Italy is very stark. In a way, like going from Switzerland to Greece.

Not surprising considering that Milan is an hour by train from Switzerland and the southern party of Italy is at the same latitude as Greece (and was in fact home to Greek colonies that date back thousands of years).

I have another friend who is Italian-Austrian. He told me his Milanese grandmother refused to eat pizza because it was "immigrant food."

[Docere]

North American Italian culture represents an element of Italy, not the society as a whole. It's rooted in the Southern Italian peasant culture, and never had anything to do with Milan or Venice.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

If anyone has British ancestry they can usually trace their British ancestors back for centuries, often to the Middle Ages, through nothing more than a few online searches, because in the UK, local municipalities have spent millions in taxpayer funds to digitize millions of old church baptism and marriage records for the benefit of the Ancestry.com crowd.

Yeah, but that's because the population of England was very small in the past (England had only 5 million people when France had 20 million), and now their descendance has ballooned to more than 200 million worldwide. So you have, lots of people (200+ million), who are ready to commercialize and buy (as Anglo-Saxons always do more than other Westerners), some information from a limited pool of human records (a mere 5 million people in the 17th century), which means they have enough money and people to reconstruct all ancestral lines.

By the way it's the same in Québec (12+ million people descending from only 5,000 settlers, which means their genealogists could reconstruct all ancestral lines, because many people with high revenues and free time on their hands are interested in a small pool of human records).

For the French it wouldn't work, because you have only maybe 50 million people today descending from 20 million French people in the 17th century. So it's too little people today to generate enough of a market to reconstruct the millions of ancestral lines from what used to be the demographic giant of Europe, with the largest collection of archives in Europe.

Basically, in France there's too much to search, and too few people doing the search, whereas in the Anglo-Saxon world it's the opposite: tons of people searching a very small pool of archive material.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Not sure how Quebec and France perceive each other when visiting the other. Is it more Anglo Canada-USA or Anglo Canada-UK in feel?

I'd say Québec sits half way between both. On some matters, it's very American of course (and not European like the French), but on other matters it can be closer to the French than to the other North Americans (think of the veil, secularism, etc). The language plays of course a big role. If the Québécois were English speakers, they'd have almost close to nothing in common with the French, and all in common with the Americans. But language keeps the two people still close culturally in many ways (and much more so than is the case for Americans and Brits, because Québec is small and can only look to France in terms of Francophone culture, whereas Americans stopped looking to Britain for culture a long time ago, as they are large enough not to need Britain anymore culturally).

Which goes back to the original point of this thread: language is what defines the Québécois identity, and without the French language there is simply no Québec (there's just a province of Lower Canada). And quite a few Québécois believe only believe independence can keep the language (and therefore their nationhood) alive in the long term.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Docere

Do they not find it ridiculous when Canadians or Australians do it?

I'd say in France a Canadian is essentially a Québécois. I don't think the French people can even picture in their mind what an Anglophone Canadian is. I don't think there's any Anglophone Canadian TV series in France for example.

Even Australia is largely unknown beyond a few superficial clichés. The three Anglophone people that the French know are the English, the Scots, and the Americans. The Irish also to a smaller extent. Welsh, Anglophone Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders are not well known in France, and I suspect it's the same in the rest of Europe.

For example an acquaintance of mine who has family in Australia and goes there every year was explaining to me that Australians are rather bigoted (his family is in Queensland), and have lots of British traits (like accent, things they do or like, slang, beer drinking, etc it's just the lower classes of Manchester or Birmingham really). This is really not the idea I had of the Australians (in France we tend to fantasize them as some sorts of Californians, young blond tanned surfers, because in truth we don't know the Australians).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Interesting anecdote: I have an American friend whose dad is of Sicilian origin. He did a master's degree in Milan and told me he would sometimes encounter snooty attitudes or outright prejudice when people saw his distinctly Sicilian surname – prejudice that would evaporate as soon as they realized he was American.

Yeah, Southern Italians are considered poorly in Northern Italy. It's really two different countries. Many Southern Italians migrated to the North after WW2 to find jobs, but Northerners see them as they would see North African immigrants. In the Milan region, there's a consonant in the local Lombard dialect that Southerners cannot pronounce. They use a word (forgot which) that has this consonant as a shibboleth to immediately spot a Southerner. The first time I heard that I was like wow... This would never happen in France.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Most Europeans are indigenous to Europe so it's not a surprise that they aren't very interested in their ancestry. But North America is a settler colonial society where the vast majority of people have roots elsewhere in the world, so it's natural to be curious about those origins.

That's a misconception. European countries have become very diverse now. Yet no European country asks questions about ancestry in their census as far as I know (except the UK of course). France and Switzerland are the two countries with the most diverse White population, with their White people having ancestry in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany (I mean people who descend from immigrants who arrived in France and Switzerland since 1850), Poland, Serbia, Albania, etc. etc.

You're not gonna hear a Frenchman or a Swiss tell you "I'm a quarter Italian", "I'm 1/8th Polish", etc. That's not something you bring forward. You're "French", and you're "Swiss", period. But of course people are interested in their ancestors (their "ancestors", not their "ancestry"), and genealogical research is popular in France and Switzerland, but you don't hear people defining themselves with their ancestry (except for the most recently arrived non-European immigrants).