Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[rousseau]

https://x.com/ksituan/status/1831017647254970609

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Gatineau can't even hold a candle to non-touristy cities in Europe that are half its size like Helsingborg and Amiens.

Gatineau is really only a suburb of Ottawa though. It's not a "full-fledged" city so to speak. You'd have to compare it to another European suburb of same size, say Mostoles in the suburbs of Madrid. You're not going to find Mostoles much more exciting than Gatineau... (true, they must have good tapas, but not much else besides)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Gatineau is really only a suburb of Ottawa though. It's not a "full-fledged" city so to speak. You'd have to compare it to another European suburb of same size, say Mostoles in the suburbs of Madrid. You're not going to find Mostoles much more exciting than Gatineau... (true, they must have good tapas, but not much else besides)

We're actually older than Ottawa, but yeah.

Think of Mestre near Venice!

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Due to the anglo presence and pressure, Montreal is probably a bit more different from the régions than your typical metropolis-hinterland differences.

That said, ethnic French Canadians are actually a larger share of the population in Montreal than ethnic Anglo-Canadians are in Toronto and Vancouver. By quite a bit in fact.

Do "ethnic Anglo-Canadians" even exist? What even does that mean?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Do "ethnic Anglo-Canadians" even exist? What even does that mean?

You know that English is named after a place right?

It would include anyone British and you might add anyone white or at least protestant who arrived before say WW2 or soon after when they basically asimilated into the British culture dominant in English Canada at the time.

[Kilgore Trout]

Wow I take the afternoon to enjoy the sun and this thread exploded!

Acajack — sorry I misinterpreted your meaning.

Rousseau — love that map. Spanish is becoming very common in many parts of the city. This is completely anecdotal, but I was fascinated to read a post on Reddit by someone visting from Boston who was keen to try out her French. But to her surprise she ended up having a lot of conversations in Spanish (which she speaks fluently as a second language) which she said never happens back home in Boston, because despite the very large Latin American community, Spanish there has a real insider/outsider dynamic and it's not common for non-Latinos to speak it. When I visit the Latin American supermarket on my corner, it's not uncommon to see people who seem to be French Canadian chatting in Spanish with the staff because they want to practice their second/third language.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What's the schedule of the train? Does it run late at night? Do I have to wait for 20 or 30 minutes before getting a train? Is it safe and clean inside? Is it air conditioned in summer? Do I have to stand next to lousy and impolite people during my commute in the train? Etc. Etc.

Nothing beats a private vehicle in terms of flexibility, convenience, comfort.


Spanish cities are both very dynamic and lively, AND made practical for car drivers (with no blocked streets and tons of easy underground car parks). I think people who don't like cars in the cities in fact don't like cities. They probably would not have liked carts and horses in the cities back in the days. "Les embarras de Paris" was a famous book published in the 1780s. If you don't like "les embarras" of a city, then perhaps move to the countryside instead of forcing the city to ressemble a sleepy countryside?

To your first point, wow — are suburbanites made of sugar? Do they melt in the rain? Because they sound very delicate.

To your second point, Spanish cities are full of pedestrianized streets and areas that highly restrict motor vehicles. Yes, they also have large boulevards, but when I think of Madrid or Barcelona or Valencia I certainly don't think of especially car-centric cities.

And finally I don't see what exactly is rural about a teeming pedestrian street filled wall-to-wall with people and activity. There's a strange kind of Stockholm syndrome that leads certain people to think that streets congested with cars are lively, whereas streets filled with people, terrasses and street musicians are somehow... not alive? I see this kind of thinking all the time on boomer Facebook groups.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

You know that English is named after a place right?

It would include anyone British and you might add anyone white or at least protestant who arrived before say WW2 or soon after when they basically asimilated into the British culture dominant in English Canada at the time.

Correct. You know em when you see em.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, I agree with that.

In all honesty, I find some people overstate how Spanish Miami is and sometimes equate French in Montreal with Spanish in Miami. (And some people also have told me they think Miami is more Spanish than Montreal is French!)

This is greatly overstating the presence of Spanish in Miami. Which is significant, but it's not like French in Montreal.

In Miami the cops, paramedics and firefighters talk on the radio in English. In Montreal they communicate in French. In Miami the little printout receipt from McDonald's or any business will be in English. In Montreal it will be in French. In Montreal around 90% of schoolkids go to K-12 in French. In Miami there is no public K-12 education in Spanish. If Spanish is taught it's to bring kids along in a bilingual environment until they're ready to switch over to all English.

This is a very good point. I've never been to Miami, but from what I can tell, being 60-70% Latino means very little in the US when all the levers of power are anglophone. It gives the city a certain flavour and it means non-Spanish-speaking outsiders will be excluded from a certain amount of informal life, but it's a far cry from being an actual hispanophone city.

Incidentally the question of which language police communications are in has always fascinated me. There's very little information about this online. What language do they use in Barcelona and Brussels?

It makes me think of Hong Kong, where even in the colonial era, Cantonese was the language of verbal communication on the police force, so that even the whitest, blokiest English officer recruited from the ass end of the UK would end up speaking fluent Cantonese. (Written communications on the other hand were mostly in English or at least bilingual English-Chinese.)

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Rousseau — love that map. Spanish is becoming very common in many parts of the city. This is completely anecdotal, but I was fascinated to read a post on Reddit by someone visting from Boston who was keen to try out her French. But to her surprise she ended up having a lot of conversations in Spanish (which she speaks fluently as a second language) which she said never happens back home in Boston, because despite the very large Latin American community, Spanish there has a real insider/outsider dynamic and it's not common for non-Latinos to speak it. When I visit the Latin American supermarket on my corner, it's not uncommon to see people who seem to be French Canadian chatting in Spanish with the staff because they want to practice their second/third language.

The Yiddish in Mile End is exactly what you would expect to see, though perhaps it's a bit surprising that it's held on for so long. But I didn't know about the Côte Saint-Luc Yiddish.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

...Spanish cities are full of pedestrianized streets and areas that highly restrict motor vehicles.

Anecdote: I spent several days in Barcelona in the winter of 2007. It was 20 degrees at the time and sunny, so very pleasant. I was impressed by the careful infrastucture and overall integrity of the bike lane system, but I'm not telling a lie when I say that literally the only cyclist my wife and I saw there during our stay was the one who screamed at us in Catalan to get the eff out of the way because we'd stupidly stopped in the middle of a bike lane to look up at a building or something.

I found it rather mystifying. My guess was that the combination of rampant theft (of everything), the lack of space to bring and store bikes inside (those elevators and staircases are tiny) and the excellent public transit made cycling to work less appealing or practical. Don't know if things have changed since then, though.

[Kilgore Trout]

From what I hear Barcelona is a big cycling city now. I haven't been there but I have been to Valencia, which based on my visit in 2018 is also a real cycling town. Lots of bike everywhere, lots of protected bike paths, good bike share system.

As for Yiddish, it's not going anywhere. The Hassidim have enormous amounts of children and the ones in Montreal are even more Yiddish-oriented than their brethren in New York. There's a whole ultra-Orthodox belt from Mile End west through Outremont, Côte-des-Neiges and Snowdon into CSL.

The area around Victoria Avenue in Côte-des-Neiges is particularly fascinating. It may quite well be the only Orthodox Jewish/Filipino/Anglo-Caribbean/Sri Lankan neighbourhood in the world. Check it out on censusmapper.ca, the demographics are wild.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Incidentally the question of which language police communications are in has always fascinated me. There's very little information about this online. What language do they use in Barcelona and Brussels?

I don't know about Barcelona. Their website says something about knowledge of Catalan being mandatory to work in the police but doesn't mention Spanish I think. My guess is that Catalan is the official operating language but that in practice officers use a mix of both between each other. Or maybe the police is a bit of an ethnic Catalan fiefdom and so it's almost exclusively that language that they use?

As for Brussels, I'm almost certain they use French and virtually French only. Brussels is almost a mirror image of Ottawa: with Flemish (in Brussels) being in the place of French (in Ottawa). Everything in terms of signage and in theory is bilingual but in practice the city's public life goes on only in one language. French in Brussels and English in Ottawa.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You know em when you see em.

Sounds like a prejudicial comment to me. tsk. tsk.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Correct. You know em when you see em.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Sounds like a prejudicial comment to me. tsk. tsk.

Not really. In any event, YOWetal's explanation was pretty good I thought.

I guess maybe the "ethnic" word could be taken out, but that said I'd think most people would consider guys like Wayne Gretzky to be fully part of Anglo-Canada. Regardless of his specific origins.

As such, I consider lots of people with last names such as Setlakwe, Ryan or Franke to be fully French Canadians, even in the ethnic sense honestly. Given that they are otherwise indistinguishable from people with names like Tremblay and Gagnon.

Note that half of my extended family (an entire side of it) are totally Acadien culturally and identity-wise (and considered as such by everyone), but don't have an Acadien or even a French or even a European surname.

[Acajack]

David Suzuki is 100% of Japanese ethnic origin. He doesn't speak Japanese and he himself admits he has almost no personal Japanese culture whatsoever.

Is he any less a full member of Anglo-Canadian society than someone who is directly descended from United Empire Loyalists?

I think not.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Note that half of my extended family (an entire side of it) are totally Acadien culturally and identity-wise (and considered as such by everyone), but don't have an Acadien or even a French or even a European surname.

You have me intrigued now.

I was wondering what you were getting at. The percentage of pur laine "old stock" British Isles types in the greater Canadian population is dropping like a stone, what with recent immigrations trends, intermarriage and whatnot. Within a hundred years, the purebred anglo population of the country will likely be nearly extirpated. This will be different than the situation in Quebec (at least hors Montreal), where pur laine Quebecois(e) will still be easy to find.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not really. In any event, YOWetal's explanation was pretty good I thought.

I guess maybe the "ethnic" word could be taken out, but that said I'd think most people would consider guys like Wayne Gretzky to be fully part of Anglo-Canada. Regardless of his specific origins.

As such, I consider lots of people with last names such as Setlakwe, Ryan or Franke to be fully French Canadians, even in the ethnic sense honestly. Given that they are otherwise indistinguishable from people with names like Tremblay and Gagnon.

Note that half of my extended family (an entire side of it) are totally Acadien culturally and identity-wise (and considered as such by everyone), but don't have an Acadien or even a French or even a European surname.

If you drop the ethnic and include David Suzuki I guess you are talking about something different and the percentage of Anglo-Canada people in Toronto is much higher. That's basically anyone who came to Canada before age 16 ish. It's also almost all immigrants from India Pakistan, Hong Kong along with places of course where English is official language.

I thought you were comparing more old stock francophones vs old stock Anglos and here is where I think a lot of people who aren't Empire loyalists still have an affintity for British traditions or some form of Canada that is related to that at least.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

If you drop the ethnic and include David Suzuki I guess you are talking about something different and the percentage of Anglo-Canada people in Toronto is much higher. That's basically anyone who came to Canada before age 16 ish. It's also almost all immigrants from India Pakistan, Hong Kong along with places of course where English is official language.

I thought you were comparing more old stock francophones vs old stock Anglos and here is where I think a lot of people who aren't Empire loyalists still have an affintity for British traditions or some form of Canada that is related to that at least.

OK thanks for the clarification.

[niwell]

Anglo-Canadian as a cultural phenom only really makes sense as a broader agglomeration of "anglo" culture as opposed to simply stemming from British origins. Which is absolutely apparent on the ground in Canadian cities with a varied ethnic makeup but broadly consuming the same media and cultural output (even if some are plugged into secondary sources) and having similar lifestyles.

Even looking at British immigration trends you have multiple waves over time to various areas in Canada. My relatives who came to Toronto from London post-WWII and hate both the Royals and British class structure don't exactly have a similar background to Loyalists who have been here for centuries. But both are certainly part of the broader anglo culture. As opposed to Quebec which can trace a decent proportion of lineage to a much more discreet point and time in history.

We of course aren't alone in this. Bringing up South Africa again there's a noticeable cultural difference between English/Anglo South Africans - which has become a general catch-all describing people of many backgrounds (generally middle to upper-class) - as compared to Afrikaners which remain a distinct cultural group.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by niwell

Anglo-Canadian as a cultural phenom only really makes sense as a broader agglomeration of "anglo" culture as opposed to simply stemming from British origins. Which is absolutely apparent on the ground in Canadian cities with a varied ethnic makeup but broadly consuming the same media and cultural output (even if some are plugged into secondary sources) and having similar lifestyles.

Even looking at British immigration trends you have multiple waves over time to various areas in Canada. My relatives who came to Toronto from London post-WWII and hate both the Royals and British class structure don't exactly have a similar background to Loyalists who have been here for centuries. But both are certainly part of the broader anglo culture. As opposed to Quebec which can trace a decent proportion of lineage to a much more discreet point and time in history.

We of course aren't alone in this. Bringing up South Africa again there's a noticeable cultural difference between English/Anglo South Africans - which has become a general catch-all describing people of many backgrounds (generally middle to upper-class) - as compared to Afrikaners which remain a distinct cultural group.

Exactly. British immigration to Canada is continuous. And happened in distinct waves in different regions.

Even now, the UK is on the top 10 list for most common countries of origin for immigrants to Canada in the last census period (2016-2021). I don't believe it has ever left that list in any five year period. 2021-2026 might be the very first time. The UK was also the most common country of birth for foreign-born Canadians all the way into the early 21st century.