‘Tis the season to whack an anglo.
Here is how a stereotype works: Seize on the evidence that confirms your preconceived notion. When you meet bilingual anglo Quebecers, don’t pay attention. When you run into a unilingual anglo, say, “Tu vois? Les anglos ne parlent pas français!”
The numbers say it all – almost 70 percent of Quebec anglos speak French. That’s up from 61 percent ten years ago. For anglos under 50 the level of bilingualism rises to 80 percent. Only one in ten anglo Quebecers is a unilingual anglo, and that unilingual anglo is an older person. That would make the unilingual Quebec anglo an endangered species.
But the anglo witch hunt is on, right now. Again.
“Almost all younger anglos are bilingual and sixty-five percent of new immigrants speak French,” says Marie McAndrew, the Canada Research Chair on Education and Ethnic Relations at the University of Montreal. “So linking the current challenges to French in Québec, which are mainly created by globalization, to the behaviour of the anglophone and or immigrant communities is very unfair. Les anglos ont fait leur bout, pour la plupart… Alors il est inacceptable d’en faire les boucs émissaires du débat actuel.”
The latest skirmish started with the federal government appointments of a unilingual auditor-general from New Brunswick and a unilingual anglo Supreme Court justice from Ontario. Then we heard that two senior managers in the real estate wing of the Caisse de dépôt et placement, Quebec’s pension fund, are unilingual anglos. La Presse broke the story that a senior VP at the National Bank in Montreal is a non-French speaker.
The new low was the spurious attack by private radio shock jock Benoît Dutrizac against long-time city councillors Marvin Rotrand and Michael Applebaum, not for their angloness, but for the fact that when they speak fluent French, they do so with an English accent.
Cry me a river. Apparently it’s not anglos who speak French that are wanted, it’s people who sound like vieille souche francophone Quebecers. Instead of seizing on the fact that more and more anglos speak French, attack the ones who do so with an accent. It would be pathetic if it weren’t so irritating and unfair. Once upon a time in Montreal, all business was conducted in English. The mayor was an anglo, as were the heads of the police and fire departments. That is why my grandfather, Ernest Lagacé, voted for the PQ in 1976. After decades of working for the Bank of Montreal and speaking only English, he had had enough. The PQ introduced language laws, the education system changed to reflect that, and more and more young anglo Quebecers speak the language of the francophone majority.
The irony is that when Benoît Dutrizac goes to Europe and speaks French many people will recoil. In France, Quebec French is considered a quaint and archaic, if not downright incomprehensible, form of French. “Vous dites?” they say with raised eyebrows to native French speakers from Quebec.
Bill 101 has been a big success. Right now there are huge numbers of kids who are entitled to go to English schools who don’t. They are enrolled in French schools because their parents want them to speak French and integrate into French Quebec. Right now at the English Montreal School Board there is a fierce and emotional debate about which English public schools are to close for lack of kids. Bill 101 specifies that newcomers to Quebec have to send their kids to French schools. In 20 years there won’t be much left of the EMSB.
Most of us have accepted this. Most anglos understand that French is a threatened language. They want their kids to be part of Quebec.
There are two problems here. One is that all languages take a back street to the language of international business, which is English. The language of globalization is English. That means that Serbo Croatian, Italian, French and hundreds of other languages take a back seat to English. That is the reality of global capitalism.
The other problem is cultural identity in Quebec. It is separate from the argument about the language of business. In Quebec the language of business should be French. That is clear. Quebec Inc. operates in French in Quebec. But it is normal that when dealing with clients outside Quebec that the language of business be English. That is how money is made in the new global economy.
The discussion about integrating into the francophone majority for anglos and new Quebecers is a completely different discussion. Most have made an effort to fit into the dominant culture. It is true that there are anglo enclaves in Montreal where mostly English is still spoken. And it is true that there are places where service is in English only. But they are fewer and fewer. They are not the norm, and to say they are is disingenuous.
When the Parti Québécois is fracturing into splinter groups and the Bloc has been decimated, is it a coincidence that anglo Quebecers are being attacked?
16 comments
If you judge the francophones by the opinions of Dutrizac you do the same thing as him. I (really) don’t like to be compare to this kind of loud mouthed idiot.
My wife has dance classes every week, in the West Island. She’s, with another woman, the only franco. About half of the people in her class can’t have a very simple conversation in French beyond “bonjour” et “au revoir”, even if they are all born here, BTW they are all under 35. The statistics says a thing but the reality is different.
Comme ça, on parle un «quaint and archaic, if not downright incomprehensible, form of French» ?J’ai beaucoup d’amis français et je n’ai jamais eu besoin de traducteur… Votre mépris de notre langue me laisse sans voix. Honnêtement, je ne croyais pas lire ce genre d’ineptie d’une personne éduquée. Honte à vous Madame.
Monsieur Deragon, pourquoi venez-vous donc lire un édito anglais, si vous avez peine à le comprendre comme il faut? Pour citer hors contexte sur les médias sociaux, pour faire la victime?
J’ai travaillé trop longtemps avec des Français qui méprisaient mon accent et qui ne se gênaient pas pour me le dire. Vos amis sont sûrement des perles rares, comparé aux centaines de clients français avec qui j’ai fait affaire au fil des années. Même les collègues du bureau parisien m’en ont fait baver parce que je parlais (supposément) comme une fille de ferme…
@Robert: Ce n’est pas Anne qui estime ça, mais plutôt les Français de France:
” In France, Quebec French is considered a quaint and archaic, if not downright incomprehensible, form of French. “
Un peu facile de cacher son opinion derrière «En France ont pense…». J’ai voyagé en France et je n’ai JAMAIS eu de problème à me faire comprendre. Beaucoup d’anglos du Québec aiment bien nous dire que l’on ne parle pas vraiment français ici. Il semble que Mme Dowson fasse partie de ceux-là ce qui me déçoit beaucoup.
Madame Lagacé-Dowson oublie également de mentionner que la différence entre le français d’ici et celui de nos cousins d’outre-mer n’est pas plus grande que le fossé qui sépare l’anglais canadien (dans toutes ses variétés) de celui des Anglais de Grande-Bretagne…
Dutrizac est un imbécile et je me fiche complètement de l’accent des gens. Tant qu’ils parlent le français.
“The irony is that when Benoît Dutrizac goes to Europe and speaks French many people will recoil. In France, Quebec French is considered a quaint and archaic, if not downright incomprehensible, form of French. “Vous dites?” they say with raised eyebrows to native French speakers from Quebec.”
D’abord, votre choix de mot est déplorable, voire insultant.
Vous exagérez grandement l’incompréhension des Français et vous faites totalement abstraction du fait que la plupart des Québécois sont capables d’utiliser plusieurs niveaux de langage: du joual au français international (en passant par le français québécois “médiatique/radio-canadien”).
Vous devriez également lire sur l’histoire des langues (et du français québécois) afin de mieux comprendre comment elles évoluent. Seul un ignorant utiliserait le qualificatif “archaïque” pour parler du français québécois, alors qu’il s’agit d’une langue qui a produit plusieurs des néologismes bien français tel que courriel ou baladodiffusion. La plupart des Français sont, à cet égard, ignorant. Ils ont l’image d’une langue figé dans le temps simplement parce qu’ils entendent quelques expressions qui se sont perdus chez eux. Ce n’est que de l’ignorance.
En fait, la différence entre le français du Québec et le français de France n’est pas vraiment plus grande que la différence entre l’anglais texan et l’anglais d’Oxford.
La principale différence est que le Québec n’a jamais eu un rayonnement culturel comparable à celui du Texas et encore moins des États-Unis en général. L’oreille des Français n’est donc pas exercé à l’accent québécois de la même manière que l’oreille anglaise peut l’être par rapport à l’anglais américain/texan/slang urbain. Les expressions québécoises ne peuvent donc pas être disséminé comme le sont les expressions américaines.
De toute façon, l’impression des Français concernant le français québécois ne devrait jamais servir de référence. Est-ce qu’on se sert du portugais du Portugal afin de juger la “santé” ou la “pureté” du Portugais brésilien?
Je suis française, bilingue et très heureuse de l’être. Je peux aussi affirmer que j’ai entendu pas mal de remarques désobligeantes parmi les français de France concernant l’accent québécois et les expressions typiquement québécoises que certains français considèrent (oui) archaiques, ou bizarres parce qu’on ne les utilise pas en France. Mais cette attitude n’est pas réservée aux québécois. Les français se moquent aussi des accents provinciaux de ceux qui “débarquent” à Paris de leur province. Je parle en connaissance de cause!
Apart from that if French was taught properly in Quebec, it would attract even more people. l was in the education system and the level of language, read and written, never mind spoken, is quite insufficient. Kids arrive in high school and are still unable to spell properly, or construct proper sentences. It’s not their fault, they weren’t taught. lt would be a lot more productive to work on that than bicker about the statistics concerning who speaks English only, or French with an accent. This bickering about language is both laughable and pathetic.
You seem to mistake passive and functional bilingualism for active bilingualism, which the vast majority of Anglo Quebecers do *not* possess. At best, most Anglo Quebecers will speak street French or slang and still won’t know how to conjugate verbs in the “vous” form or still wouldn’t be able to write or make a speech in formal/International French.
This isn’t a hunt, Ms. Dawson, but more so a quest for common sense. It is downright inconceivable that an Anglophone who has been born and raised in Montreal OR who has been living in the city for the past 10 years still cannot hold a conversation in French or conduct business in the language of the majority. Can you imagine such illogical occurrence in Tokyo or Milan? That is a native English-speaker not being to speak minimal Japanese or Italian after 10 years in the country?
“In France, Quebec French is considered a quaint and archaic, if not downright incomprehensible, form of French.”
For one, you still need to learn a thing or two about the French Language for allowing yourself to reproduce such absurdity and two, you have lost all respect on my part for merely seeming to agree on such a false view. And clearly you need to spend more time in France.
Jeeze…
who was born and raised, pardon my French*
Languages rise, fall and evolve, in response to the needs of the people who speak them. Legislating them is akin to stopping a flood with a few sandbags. The most that can be accomplished is to forestall the inevitable.
If French in Quebec is threatened, it is because it is not the language people choose to speak in a given situation, such as an international business dealing. It is because it is not the language people choose to listen to, as evidenced by the number of francophones who choose to see the original English version of a movie, instead of the dubbed-in-French one.
The Quebec government’s paternalistic and condescending legislative attempts to quash the use of English and promote French will ultimately fail if the exigencies of modern society should prove to favour English over French. It’s linguistic Darwinism. The fitter language, for its environment, will survive and flourish.
You are confusing issues. I’m fluent in French, English and Italian, but I refuse to see an English- or Italian-language movie dubbed in French just to protect my native language. You lose so much in translation! And warching movies without subtitles is an ideal way of maintaining my fluency in my two main “foreign” languages…
Still, everyday I devote a lot of energy to the promotion of French by speaking it correctly, by teaching it and also by demanding that it be used when and where it should be (case in point : a big opening at the National Gallery of Canada, and Director Marc Mayer ( a former Montrealer, entirely bilingual) hardly speaks any French at all because guess what? the sponsors come from the Alberta oil Industry…)
@anne-marie, just because Alberta oil money runs the NGC doesn’t mean Quebecers should attack bilingual anglophone Quebecers.
I was going to make a comment pointing out people’s errors, but really, there’s no frigging point.
People like Dutrizac and @Bruno already have their minds made up and won’t let a little thing like the truth convince them otherwise.
In general, I think Anne Lagaçé Dowson has made a thoughtful assessment of the current situation, though I do take issue with her citation of French attitudes toward the Québécois accent and vocabulary. This is a standard critique de ce qu’on parle icitte from many a Canadian, as if they spoke the plummiest Thames valley R.P. It isn’t very pertinent to the rest of her well-reasoned argument about the misguided targeting of certain unilingual anglophones.
It is a subsequent reply however from Michael Paitich that I find even more dubious. His advocacy of linguistic darwinism regarding the survival of french in Québec (the only place it has a real chance in the Americas) would have been stronger had he chosen to state it en français. C’est facile pour quelqu’un qui parle anglais comme première langue d’écarter la législation linguistique en l’appelant paternaliste et en fin de compte futile. À l’échelle mondiale, ce n’est pas anglais qui est menacé. M. Paitich serait-il autant disposé à mettre en application le même raisonnement fataliste à la condition d’anglais au Québec depuis que les exigences de société moderne ICI favorisent le français?