Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Québécois French Canadian kids here don't have that accent you're referring to (yet) but they do have a lot of the vocabulary as they hang out in diverse groups. But French-language hiphop/rap from Montreal, France and Belgium, which is extremely popular here (I hear it blaring out of cars all the time) uses that language a lot.

The accent you described as transatlantic (I might call it "international francophonie") you definitely hear among young people here and I instantly recognized what you're talking about, but only really among minority kids: in our case they're very predominantly Black and Arab as these are the main immigrant groups.

My kids and their friends, all of them Montrealers, speak with this mid-atlantic accent. Not quite French, not quite the same accent as their cousins who live in the 3e couronne suburbs and further away. I'd say it's becoming the standard accent in French for young Montrealers.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by wave46

I think my question becomes this: Do you think a shared cultural identity that a majority of Canadians identify with should be a goal we aspire to? Something we should be interested in pursuing?

Depending on your political orientation, this question either sounds like a quaint relic or the suggestion of a racist, ethnocentric imposition upon minorities that would inevitably lead to gas ovens.

Though Anglo-Canadians clearly aren't disposed to the sort of top-down cultural identity project that Quebeckers wholeheartedly embrace anyway. I think the guiding principle (whether explicitly articulated or not) has always been that, well, if you have to ask if you have a completely distinctive cultural identity, then you probably don't.

Followed by: and who cares? Japanese tourists probably can't rattle off Canadian cultural markers aside from northern lights and polar bears. Ho hum.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jamincan

Would you consider French an ethnicity?

Gave it some thought and yeah, I definitely would.

Since I had to answer you, I have realized we can see there two "levels" of "ethnicity".

There's the level where people also share a lot of their genetic makeup (Portuguese ethnicity, Finnish ethnicity, Armenian ethnicity, etc.) but also a "lesser" (for lack of a better way to put this) level where people share culture and language but aren't that genetically interchangeable (French ethnicity, Russian ethnicity, Italian ethnicity, etc.) and people's looks are going to vary depending on where in the culturalolinguistic region their ancestry roots are.

Usually, the bigger countries are going to be in the latter category and the smaller countries in the former. (For obvious reasons.)

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by wave46

I think my question becomes this: Do you think a shared cultural identity that a majority of Canadians identify with should be a goal we aspire to? Something we should be interested in pursuing?

I'm not really sure *how* a government could pursue a shared cultural identity. It just happens.

I'm a third generation Canadian (Dutch ancestry) and you'd have a hard time knowing unless you knew my name or got a glimpse at some family traditions and food. When my grandparents moved here, they barely spoke English and they all congregated together in a tight-knit community. By my parent's generation, they were taking them camping and my dad played hockey and my mom joined a swim team. I see similar trends with newer immigrant communities. Go to any provincial or national park in Ontario, and it shows a pretty good cross-section of who you might find in the GTA.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In fact, you can pretty much make a perfect inverse correlation between asserting one's cultural identity as a group and socioeconomic status of your group in society.

Is this true around the world and has it been true for a while or is it just a post-1980's North American phenomenon?

I'm not even sure it's universally correlated around North America. It is seen as low status in a lot of Canada but my impression is that it's less like that in Quebec. In Quebec the cultural identity champions are sometimes the ones running the show. It could be that in more conservative parts of the US there are some very rich people who think this way too.

And actually it falls apart a bit with old WASPy areas that on paper may seem on board but in practice are very conservative. They are not low status. I am thinking for example of the white folks in their perfectly manicured historic Massachusetts small town mansions. They will simultaneously say they are ultra-liberal and revolt if somebody tries to build a non-colonial style sub-4,000 square foot house nearby. How open to change are they really?

And I don't think people are capable of living in a collective arrangement without some form of culture springing up. Like I said in my reply to wave46, not all culture is tied to place; much of it - most of it, really, for most middle class people under 60 in Western countries - is the culture of a time/epoch or belonging to a subculture. I really don't think my life as an Ontarian is culturally poorer and less meaningful than a French Quebecker of similar age and class.

I would agree that certain narrow characteristics tend to get way too much attention in these debates. For example if all of Canada west of Quebec invented some distinctive funny way of talking, a lot of people would have a dramatically different view of how distinctive that area is, but the difference between the real world and this hypothetical world is trivial.

There's an enormous cultural output today of people creating art on the internet, etc. that doesn't even register when a lot of people think of culture in the narrow "funny accents and folk dancing" sense. I don't see Toronto as a cultural wasteland because it doesn't have a special sandwich. But I also understand why people in some places want to keep the culture and character that they are used to.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

(Anglo-) Australian is an ethnic group, I'd say.

Just like "Old Stock Anglo-Canadian" is an ethnic group.

Or like "Manitoba Métis" is an ethnic group.

I hadn't given this any thought until now but my ex-gf has been living in Australia for many years and is now fluent in English. But she's not Australian yet, in my view. And I don't think she'd consider herself "Australian". Again, that's not a bad thing... it's just the facts.

On the other hand, "Manitoban", "Montrealer", "Torontonian", "Parisian", "Oklahoman", "Provençal", "Belgian", "Austrian", etc. aren't actually ethnic groups in my view. (Even though the latter two match the borders of countries.)

So what ethnic groups would old-stock Belgians or Austrians be a part of in your view? Dutch or French for Belgians? German for Austrians? Oooh even if defensible ethnologically that would be controversial over there!

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I really don't think my life as an Ontarian is culturally poorer and less meaningful than a French Quebecker of similar age and class.

This could be an interesting tangent worth exploring. Leaving aside the meaningful aspect of it, off the top of my head I think I would argue that a middle-class university-educated Mexican probably has a more culturally distinctive/rich lifestyle than I do.

I don't envy him, and wouldn't wish that I had grown up in his place, though.

Not sure if you solely intended your comparison to be with Quebeckers, and if so, my apologies.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

I think my question becomes this: Do you think a shared cultural identity that a majority of Canadians identify with should be a goal we aspire to? Something we should be interested in pursuing?

This could be an answer to any number of your posts on here, but let's not forget what Justin Trudeau said to the New York Times shortly after he became PM.

He said Canada was becoming a new kind of country, not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a “pan-cultural heritage”.

He said there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and that Canada is “the first post-national state.”

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'm not really sure *how* a government could pursue a shared cultural identity. It just happens.

China has created a shared cultural identity from the 1950s onward. Not an ideal pillar to aspire to, though, i'd say.

Originally Posted by jamincan

I see similar trends with newer immigrant communities. Go to any provincial or national park in Ontario, and it shows a pretty good cross-section of who you might find in the GTA.

Indeed. I find immigrants have a higher appreciation for provincial and national parks in general. It is not difficult at all to see immigrant families having big meals or get-togethers in parks. I know some Korean immigrants who wanted to move to Canada because their country lacked wide-open, nature-filled, void-of-human spaces, and our national parks are a great example of that. If you're moving from high density countries to Canada it must literally be a breath of fresh air at times.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by begratto

My kids and their friends, all of them Montrealers, speak with this mid-atlantic accent. Not quite French, not quite the same accent as their cousins who live in the 3e couronne suburbs and further away. I'd say it's becoming the standard accent in French for young Montrealers.

Not news to any of you I am sure but if you look at old French-language media from say the 1950's, the differences between even how narrators and news anchors spoke in Paris vs. Montreal used to be much larger than they are today.

A few of my older relatives had pretty different accents that seem to be on their way out now.

I wonder what's happening with the semi-Anglicized Acadian accents/dialects in the Maritimes. There were some pretty distinctive ones, spoken mostly by people who'd be about 80+ now. I'd expect them to either converge on standard English or French over time.

(There are a bunch of stereotypes in English Canada about Montrealers going to France and being completely unable to communicate that were always probably a bit exaggerated but are anachronisms today. They are sometimes also part of a "people in Quebec don't even speak real French anyway" type narrative.)

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This could be an answer to any number of your posts on here, but let's not forget what Justin Trudeau said to the New York Times shortly after he became PM.

He said Canada was becoming a new kind of country, not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a “pan-cultural heritage”.

He said there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and that Canada is “the first post-national state.”

Can something be both a statement of the obvious and prescient at the same time?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'm not really sure *how* a government could pursue a shared cultural identity. It just happens.

I'm a third generation Canadian (Dutch ancestry) and you'd have a hard time knowing unless you knew my name or got a glimpse at some family traditions and food. When my grandparents moved here, they barely spoke English and they all congregated together in a tight-knit community. By my parent's generation, they were taking them camping and my dad played hockey and my mom joined a swim team. I see similar trends with newer immigrant communities. Go to any provincial or national park in Ontario, and it shows a pretty good cross-section of who you might find in the GTA.

Some of it happens by osmosis, certainly. Moreso when leaving the old country meant severing ties very completely.

Some of it is the choices government makes and the symbols it chooses - flags, national anthems, public broadcasters and the content they cover.

I say this as I observe the "Federal Government and Politics" thread. Which seemingly devolves into the "US Federal Government and Politics" thread repeatedly.

We've always been a odd country. Never all on the same page at the same time, very influenced by immigration, by the superpower to the south and yet weirdly testy about being confused for them despite our similarities. It seems the perfect set up for an anti-culturally homogeneous nation.

Maybe we'll be the last island of globalization in a world that is rioting against it. I don't know, nor am I prescribing any particular solution.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by begratto

My kids and their friends, all of them Montrealers, speak with this mid-atlantic accent. Not quite French, not quite the same accent as their cousins who live in the 3e couronne suburbs and further away. I'd say it's becoming the standard accent in French for young Montrealers.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. And I also meant mid-Atlantic, not trans-Atlantic. It's a hybrid accent.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'm a third generation Canadian (Dutch ancestry) and you'd have a hard time knowing unless you knew my name or got a glimpse at some family traditions and food.

A lot of immigrants who sort of flew under the radar and assimilated without maintaining much overt distinctiveness were protestants from outside the British Isles. German, Dutch, Huguenot, Scandinavian. Although third generation is very recent. The foreign protestants were blending in even in the 1700's.

[jamincan]

FWIW, I don't think globalization and multiculturalism are the same thing, nor should one require the other.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by someone123

A lot of immigrants who sort of flew under the radar and assimilated without maintaining much overt distinctiveness were protestants from outside the British Isles. German, Dutch, Huguenot, Scandinavian. Although third generation is very recent. The foreign protestants were blending in even in the 1700's.

I'd believe the vast majority of Dutch immigrants to Canada came post-WWII.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

This could be an interesting tangent worth exploring. Leaving aside the meaningful aspect of it, off the top of my head I think I would argue that a middle-class university-educated Mexican probably has a more culturally distinctive/rich lifestyle than I do.

I don't envy him, and wouldn't wish that I had grown up in his place, though.

Not sure if you solely intended your comparison to be with Quebeckers, and if so, my apologies.

I don't think it's really possible to make determinations when it comes to such things.

I think your average Anglo-Ontarian is exposed to and enjoys certain things that your average Franco-Québécois does not.

And this is true going in the other direction as well.

If there is anything tangibly different it's in how much of that "diet" is homegrown, and the very intangible notion of satisfaction that that might bring to the Québécois.

Though having grown up in Anglo-Canada and being fairly indistinguishable from you guys culturally for the first couple of decades of my life, I can't say that I ever felt anything was missing culturally due to the fact that so much of the stuff we cared about was directly imported from the U.S.

I remember as a kid my relatives in Quebec and Northern New Brunswick used to say things like "la télé américaine" or "un film américain", and I was quite puzzled by that. To me, Happy Days and Welcome Back Kotter and Corvette Summer were just "TV" and "movies". There wasn't any need to affix a "country" label to them.

I mean, I was aware that other places (including within my country, and my family) had their own TV and movies that fulfilled a similar function, but that was only peripheral to my frame of reference.

I am extremely confident that no one in Ontario (or anywhere else in English Canada) outside of a small handful of people feels a sense of loss or what-might-have-been at this situation.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Well, first of all, nobody lives at an international airport, so most of the reason why things feel sterile there is because nobody has any skin in the game. There will never be a city that really feels like the airport; if people think that a city has the soul of an airport, they're not looking hard enough.

Secondly, I don't think Canadians think of themselves as citizens of the world. Maybe some of the more haughty ones do, but that's true of people in most other countries. And I also think that having an identity usually does jack shit if, as you say, your material sense of wellbeing goes out the window. So if the car plant closes, being a proud Canadian with a rich cultural tradition isn't going to help you materially. I find that the groups that cling to their identity are usually the ones who are the most materially deprived. In fact, you can pretty much make a perfect inverse correlation between asserting one's cultural identity as a group and socioeconomic status of your group in society.

And I don't think people are capable of living in a collective arrangement without some form of culture springing up. Like I said in my reply to wave46, not all culture is tied to place; much of it - most of it, really, for most middle class people under 60 in Western countries - is the culture of a time/epoch or belonging to a subculture. I really don't think my life as an Ontarian is culturally poorer and less meaningful than a French Quebecker of similar age and class.

I would agree with the highlighted, to some degree.

I think the freedom to partake in basically anything cultural (defined on the widest scale possible, including food, fashion, traditions, etc.) is highly valued by many Canadians. (Even if most of the time it's simply importing U.S. stuff TBQH.)

That's why Canadians recoil a lot at what they see as guilt-tripping for not following the CFL, or not watching Canadian movies, etc.

They actually like the idea of a nationality where you can have your kid's room in Edmonton decorated in Indianapolis Colts colours and logos, or make 99% of your political posts in a year about Trump, and still be considered as unquestionably Canadian as the next guy.

There aren't many places in the world that are like that. Almost everywhere else requires considerably more adherence to the "nation" and its trappings than that in order to claim membership. And this being 2020, in most places they won't kill you if you're not up to snuff, but they won't see you as part of the gang either. You'll be seen as "just passing through", even if you may be living there permanently.

As I have said many times, the Canadian identity is extremely user-friendly.

And while styling oneself as a citizen of the world might not be the right term, there is most definitely a sense that not limiting oneself to Canadian stuff (as if that was even logistically possible! ) leads to a higher quality diet. I have my serious doubts about that, given that so much of it is U.S.-driven (not just produced), and few people internationally laud the U.S. for high quality world-beating cultural riches.

In terms of the culture the average person experiences, Toronto is probably somewhere in between New York and Chicago. Which is perfectly fine but it's not even close to being a world-beating smorgasborg of the best the planet has to offer. As it is often portrayed.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jamincan

FWIW, I don't think globalization and multiculturalism are the same thing, nor should one require the other.

Totally agree. Globalization can simply be the multiplication of interwoven exchanges between distinct nations that each retain their own character. It doesn't necessarily require the implantation of all of our cultures into each other's countries.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Followed by: and who cares? Japanese tourists probably can't rattle off Canadian cultural markers aside from northern lights and polar bears. Ho hum.

... and Anne of Green Gables!

Kind of an exception that confirms the rule, though.