Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

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.

Good point (highlighted). Canada's always been a global front-runner when it comes to the nation-as-a-hotel thing. It was interesting to see a number of western countries quietly starting to follow that lead in recent years, but now most of them seem to be dialling it back.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

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

Perhaps, but at this juncture (late 2020) it appears less and less that the world will be following our lead.

At one point that hypothesis might have held some water, but no more.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

... and Anne of Green Gables!

Kind of an exception that confirms the rule, though.

I'm sure people are tired of reading such posts but you can frame this in a couple of ways. Either it's part of a somewhat small volume of cultural output from pre-WWII Canada, or it's a part of a much healthier body of cultural stuff from PEI or the Maritimes from that period (in the books Anne actually moves to the city, guess which one, and goes to university too). The fact that the Maritimes have a literary landmark documenting life from that period is pretty impressive and at the same time just a nice time capsule.

A lot of Atlantic things are either ignored in the rest of Canada or treated as diffusely "national" if they are considered cool enough. An example being say that time the White House burned down 50 years before Canada was a country. But that other time Louis XIV built a huge fort and it was conquered and disassembled block by block falls below the radar. A lot of Atlantic culture is stories and folklore. Whether it's Evangeline or Captain Kidd or the Bluenose. And it is quite a neat experience to live in a place that has layers of history like that, even if it does not go back 2000 years.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

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.

The older form of "Chiac" (hybrid English/French) is disappearing. It is actively frowned upon in the francophone school system. The new paradigm is "if you're going to speak English, then speak English, if you're going to speak French then speak French."

In greater Moncton and SE New Brunswick, the emphasis is on learning high quality French in the francophone school system. English is only taught during English classes. All other instruction is carried out in French. Of course, the dominant culture locally is English, so most francophones pick up good fluency on the streets. Almost all francophones in SE New Brunswick are effortlessly bilingual.

Things are a bit tougher up along the Baie des Chaleur and on La Peninsule. There the dominant language is French. Many young francophones from up there are not very bilingual. Anglophone kids from the north are just as bilingual as northern francophones.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The older form of "Chiac" (hybrid English/French) is disappearing. It is actively frowned upon in the francophone school system. The new paradigm is "if you're going to speak English, then speak English, if you're going to speak French then speak French."

In greater Moncton and SE New Brunswick, the emphasis is on learning high quality French in the francophone school system. English is only taught during English classes. All other instruction is carried out in French. Of course, the dominant culture locally is English, so most francophones pick up good fluency on the streets. Almost all francophones in SE New Brunswick are effortlessly bilingual.

Things are a bit tougher up along the Baie des Chaleur and on La Peninsule. There the dominant language is French. Many young francophones from up there are not very bilingual. Anglophone kids from the north are just as bilingual as northern francophones.

More than a few of my relatives from northern NB who moved to Moncton: "I don't want my kids to talk Chiac!"

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm sure people are tired of reading such posts .

I never tire of reading such posts!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm sure people are tired of reading such posts but you can frame this in a couple of ways. Either it's part of a somewhat small volume of cultural output from pre-WWII Canada, or it's a part of a much healthier body of cultural stuff from PEI or the Maritimes from that period (in the books Anne actually moves to the city, guess which one, and goes to university too). The fact that the Maritimes have a literary landmark documenting life from that period is pretty impressive and at the same time just a nice time capsule.

A lot of Atlantic things are either ignored in the rest of Canada or treated as diffusely "national" if they are considered cool enough..

Anne of Green Gables is a actually a pretty good musical as well. In a normal (sic) country (even Australia for example) it would be produced regularly by many high schools all across the country (at least in the ROC) every single year. I know that some do produce it, but it's fairly rare. Could the number of productions in a given year be counted on one hand?

I bet most high school music teachers in Canada don't even know it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

2) Quebec laws and policies that try to promote French or preserve the local culture disadvantage newcomers or betray underlying racist sentiments and it would be better if they didn't exist. People in Montreal or maybe elsewhere in Quebec should have no reservations about people immigrating there from elsewhere and speaking whatever language they want. If French is replaced by .

And Quebecers feel the right to do pretty much whatever they want because if we were an independent country, presumably it would not be necessary.

So it's the price to pay for staying/keeping us in the country.

[kwoldtimer]

RR

Originally Posted by Acajack

Perhaps, but at this juncture (late 2020) it appears less and less that the world will be following our lead.

At one point that hypothesis might have held some water, but no more.

Who expected the world to follow our lead? Our circumstances are more the exception than the rule and our responses are unique, or nearly so.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

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!

At the most distinct level of "zoom" that I'd find acceptable, I'd say, Lowland Germanic (or even just "Dutch"), Gallic (or "Northern Continental French with the exceptions of Brittany and Normandy"), and Hochdeutsch-speaking "Southern Germanic", for, respectively, the Flemish, Walloons, and Austrians. Your approximation is fine too - "Dutch", "French" and "German" works, at a low level of detail.

Of course, there's no limit to how much you want to try to "zoom" and start to make minute distinctions between what you want to label as separate groups, and there's also the fact that there are continuums at all the edges of these ethnic groups as they merge into their neighbors. There's the Typical Frenchman, there's the Typical German, but there's the Old-Stock Alsacian too.

So, it's somewhat debatable and I am not very attached to what I said above.

However I'll say at least this: it seems uncontroversial to me to point out that the imaginary line that nowadays separates the French Ardennes from the Belgian Ardennes isn't a Great Ancient Wall of Old-Stock Ethnic Separation. This one point is one that I don't think I'd concede, I'm firmly certain of being right with it.

(Same idea with the Austrians, Bavarians and German Swiss - three countries (four if you count Liechtenstein) but same general cultural group.)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

This could be an interesting tangent worth exploring.

But out of curiosity, did anyone so far suggest even indirectly that "life as a typical Ontarian would be less meaningful than life as a typical Québécois"?

Essentially, what started this thread was an objection to the idea that if I've been living in Moscow for a couple years and am now able to speak hesitant and heavily accented Russian, I'm not at that point "a Russian" but rather, "a Québécois who's been living in Russia for a while".

There's no jury for deciding who is Québécois and who isn't, it's just common sense. And unlike some other ethnicities out there (Japanese, etc.), outsiders can actually aspire to achieve full integration into the collective "us". I really don't feel at all that "we" aren't "welcoming" just because I want to stick to common sense and facts about who's what.

I suppose, if you prefer, you can have the Oprah meme: "(Pointing) You get to be Québécois, (Pointing) You get to be Québécois, Everybody gets to be Québécois!"

I mean why not if we're going to live in a world where you apparently can be whatever you want...

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by lio45

But out of curiosity, did anyone so far suggest even indirectly that "life as a typical Ontarian would be less meaningful than life as a typical Québécois"?

Essentially, what started this thread was an objection to the idea that if I've been living in Moscow for a couple years and am now able to speak hesitant and heavily accented Russian, I'm not at that point "a Russian" but rather, "a Québécois who's been living in Russia for a while".

There's no jury for deciding who is Québécois and who isn't, it's just common sense. And unlike some other ethnicities out there (Japanese, etc.), outsiders can actually aspire to achieve full integration into the collective "us". I really don't feel at all that "we" aren't "welcoming" just because I want to stick to common sense and facts about who's what.

I suppose, if you prefer, you can have the Oprah meme: "(Pointing) You get to be Québécois, (Pointing) You get to be Québécois, Everybody gets to be Québécois!"

I mean why not if we're going to live in a world where you apparently can be whatever you want...

I'd say for most Torontonians/Ontarians you're one if you identify as one.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'd say for most Torontonians/Ontarians you're one if you identify as one.

But there's actual requirements - you're just ignoring them right now, but they're there. Such as 1) live in Toronto at least part-time and 2) have at least some sort of interaction with another Torontonian once in a blue moon at minimum.

I can't claim to be a Torontonian and be taken seriously, because I fail to meet both of these criteria - I haven't set foot in Toronto in ~20 years, have no connection whatsoever to that city, and haven't met a Torontonian in decades.

Similarly, you're failing to meet the criteria for being a Québécois, therefore, you're not one (and that's okay).

Simple, no?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

But out of curiosity, did anyone so far suggest even indirectly that "life as a typical Ontarian would be less meaningful than life as a typical Québécois"?

This sort of has a "Quebec vs ROC" aspect that irritates a lot of people or tends to be seen as a question of who is culturally superior. I see it as people in different provinces picking what they want. If Ontarians want to be really business friendly and multicultural that does not bother me. Same with Quebec; I understand why people there might want to preserve their culture too. I also see flexibility for provinces to self-manage as a requirement for national unity, even if people in Toronto and Ottawa are not 100% happy with the decisions made all over the country.

Let's suppose it's true that Ontario's a multicultural wonderland while Quebec is a backwards place where only traditional Québécois culture is accepted, burqas are banned, people spit on pictures of Queen Elizabeth, etc., and that by and large Ontarian and Quebec voters are content. Who is harmed by this? All Canadians are free to move from Quebec to Ontario, Quebec has been broadcasting its norms for decades, and immigrants in particular choose where to move to. People may have stylistic or philosophical objections to Quebec's laws but the practical implications are minimal due to freedom of movement.

It's not clear to me why you'd want every province to be the same but some people seem to push in this direction because they believe only a narrow range of policies should be considered.

By the way this applies to many other areas such as which places allow fracking and oil development or don't, perhaps which places have super strict covid rules and which don't, etc. A lot of people seem to jump to the idea that there's a one-size-fits-all optimal solution and if there's a "patchwork" of different rules then something is wrong or being mismanaged. But sometimes people just have different values and work under different constraints.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

This sort of has a "Quebec vs Ontario" aspect that irritates a lot of people or tends to be seen as a question of who is culturally superior. I see it as people in different provinces picking what they want. If Ontarians want to be really business friendly and multicultural that does not bother me. Same with Quebec; I understand why people there might want to preserve their culture too.

Let's suppose it's true that Ontario's a multicultural wonderland while Quebec is a backwards place where only traditional Québécois culture is accepted, burqas are banned, people spit on pictures of Queen Elizabeth, etc., and that by and large Ontarian and Quebec voters are content. Who is harmed by this? All Canadians are free to move from Quebec to Ontario, Quebec has been broadcasting its norms for decades, and immigrants in particular choose where to move to.

Exactly... I agree with your analysis and I'd like to point out that I've been repeating all the time that it's perfectly okay to not be Polish - some people are, some people aren't, and it would be purely delusional to think an Oprah-style mass distribution of "Polish Status" at everybody in the audience can change the facts on the ground. And the reality, whether we like it or not, is that there's some minimum bar to meet: speak decent Polish, be at least somewhat familiar with Polish culture, etc. If you don't meet that bar, then even if you're physically in Poland at the moment (i.e. you're lio45 who just took a plane to Warsaw), you're still not automatically deemed Polish.

If Ontario is so devoid of any specific characteristics that "an Ontarian" is anyone who happens to be within the borders of Ontario at the moment, okay, fine, it's not up to me.

(Under that definition, I'm an Ontarian from time to time.)

(By contrast, I've never been Polish, and am 99.9% sure I'll die of old age without having ever been Polish.)

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by lio45

But out of curiosity, did anyone so far suggest even indirectly that "life as a typical Ontarian would be less meaningful than life as a typical Québécois"?

I'm a big fan of Acajack, but this is the obvious subtext of most everything he says when it comes to cultural matters looked at through the Anglo vs Franco lens, and I'm sure he'd own up to it if pressed.

Originally Posted by lio45

Essentially, what started this thread was an objection to the idea that if I've been living in Moscow for a couple years and am now able to speak hesitant and heavily accented Russian, I'm not at that point "a Russian" but rather, "a Québécois who's been living in Russia for a while".

There's no jury for deciding who is Québécois and who isn't, it's just common sense. And unlike some other ethnicities out there (Japanese, etc.), outsiders can actually aspire to achieve full integration into the collective "us". I really don't feel at all that "we" aren't "welcoming" just because I want to stick to common sense and facts about who's what.

As others have mentioned, Toronto's identity is pretty much up for grabs. Nobody is going to argue with you if you declare yourself a Torontonian, even if you've only been there for a few years and speak English with a heavy accent.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Nobody is going to argue with you if you declare yourself a Torontonian

... Surely this isn't your reply to my post #133, above? Because the point I was making in that post is precisely the opposite: should I be delusional enough to declare myself a Torontonian right now, I fully expect any reasonable person to argue with me (and prevail, or at least any sane observer would side with them not me)

[wave46]

Originally Posted by someone123

This sort of has a "Quebec vs ROC" aspect that irritates a lot of people or tends to be seen as a question of who is culturally superior. I see it as people in different provinces picking what they want. If Ontarians want to be really business friendly and multicultural that does not bother me. Same with Quebec; I understand why people there might want to preserve their culture too.

Let's suppose it's true that Ontario's a multicultural wonderland while Quebec is a backwards place where only traditional Québécois culture is accepted, burqas are banned, people spit on pictures of Queen Elizabeth, etc. Who is harmed by this? All Canadians are free to move from Quebec to Ontario, Quebec has been broadcasting its norms for decades, and immigrants in particular choose where to move to.

How are we better off having a bunch of provinces that are all the same?

There is an element of power dynamic that existed between the two previously framed around who held the real power in Canada. (Hint: it's language-based).

That being said, I don't get the same sense of the degree of animosity nowadays. Certainly, each side has its moments where it thinks it is superior to the others along certain flashpoints (which have been discussed at great length and will not be rehashed here), but in general, I don't get the sense that Ontario/ROC or Quebec particularly care about what the other is doing outside the bubble of Ottawa, except in maybe a silly pissing match.

Someone joked once that we might actually live in a world where Quebec separated in 1995 and the ROC joined the United States. There are moments it does seem that way, based on the media outlook.

I think a lot of the sorting has also occurred - the noisy minority of Anglo-Quebecers has largely either moved to Ontario or accepted that yes, the Province of Quebec is a French-speaking society and they'll have to play by the rules if they want to go anywhere professionally. Franco-Ontariens have become more-or-less Anglo-Canadians with the advantage of being fluently bilingual.

Think of it as an arranged marriage where the spouses have learned to get along after bickering for a long period. Sometimes, the fight isn't worth it and just letting the other do their thing is the best solution.

Now, don't get me started on those Manitobans...

[wave46]

Originally Posted by someone123

By the way this applies to many other areas such as which places allow fracking and oil development or don't, perhaps which places have super strict covid rules and which don't, etc. A lot of people seem to jump to the idea that there's a one-size-fits-all optimal solution and if there's a "patchwork" of different rules then something is wrong or being mismanaged. But sometimes people just have different values and work under different constraints.

There's something to be said for this federalism thing.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by lio45

... Surely this isn't your reply to my post #133, above? Because the point I was making in that post is precisely the opposite: should I be delusional enough to declare myself a Torontonian right now, I fully expect any reasonable person to argue with me (and prevail, or at least any sane observer would side with them not me)

Without them knowing anything about you, nobody in Toronto would argue with you if you claimed to be a Torontonian.

If you said that you hadn't been to Toronto in twenty years and have never lived there, but still claimed to be a Torontonian, I expect most people in Toronto would simply shrug their shoulders and chuckle because they'd think you were making a joke. It wouldn't turn into a sincere and contentious debate.