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You cant seriously expect to arrive at some place in Canada where no one speaks french and expect every one to be bilingual, hospitals and schools to all be in French,French signs in abundance.
Logic would dictate if you go some place where there is no French chances are good you wont find any French.
I had a very different experience in China. They thought it strange that Canadians do not share a common language. In Chinese itself, they refer to Mandarin as 普通话, which literally means "Common language". The idea is that whether one is Russian (yes, there is a minority Russian ethnic group in China ), Korean, InnerMongolian, Tibetan, Zhuang, or whatever, they must all learn the common language for pan-national communication. Though there are various officially bilingual regions (Common-language/local indigenous language), there is only one language that is official state-wide. I'll be honest, I appreciated this in my travels through China, and I could imagine the frustration of a foreigner (or even an indigenous Canadian) putting so much effort into learning English or French only to find that the government did not appreciate his efforts enough to ensure he can use the language he put so much effort into learning across Canada.
Indonesia runs on a similar model. There are multiple officially bilingual regions, but always along the pattern of the local indigenous language and the National language. It might be an Asian cultural concept, whereby they value both linguistic unity and linguistic diversity with the idea that the two must harmonize. Promoting both the local indigenous language and a common language seems to be the most rational and efficient way of harmonizing the two.
In Canada, the Federal Government promotes neither linguistic unity nor linguistic diversity, but merely linguistic duality, a two-melting-pots model.
This is going to sound weird, but China is only one country. I do realize it's a fifth (or so) of humanity but it's still a single entity. It's also in spite of its size, power and diaspora reasonably isolated or at least insular.
I wasn't really making my statement with China in mind.
Canada still has an image in most of the world (for better or for worse) of an "English and French" country.
I remember reading one article written by Dr. Humphry Tonkin in which he described a paradoxical advantage of official unilingualism for unofficial linguistic communities. He had contrasted the time when French was the undisputed language of international diplomacy and now when the UN has six official languages. He'd pointed out how then any member of an unofficial linguistic community had to learn French, but that once he'd learnt it, he could then communicate with all other diplomats and, with the exception of native speakers of French, on an equal footing.
Additionally his country's diplomatic corp could save money on translation (which would benefit only the official linguistic communities anyway).
This paradoxical advantage can be applied to Canada in contrasting Quebec and Canada. A native speaker of one of Quebec's unofficial languages (i.e. any language but French) puts everyone other than Quebec's native speakers of French on an equal footing when it comes to accessing both employment and government services. For example, all other qualifications being equal, an English-French bilingual and an Anishnaabemowin-French bilingual have an equal chance of accessing municipal or provincial employment in the City of Gatineau, and both have an equal obligation to learn French to access municipal and provincial government services. Learning French as a common language ensures that they both share a common language to communicate with one another, which frees both from the obligation to learn a third language, which in turn allows them to invest their remaining resources in the development of their own respective mother tongues should they wish to do so.
To clarify, I'm focusing here on the principle of official monolingualism and not on the excesses of the French Language Charter beyond its application in government administration and second-language instruction policy.
Now let's contrast this with official bilingualism. Between the same two persons, the English-French bilingual would clearly have the advantage over the Anishnaabemowin-French bilingual in accessing Federal government employment in the City of Gatineau. Of course the Anishnaabemowin-French bilingual could make himself Anishnaabewin-French-English trilingual, but at an opportunity-cost, possibly including to his own language, a decision that the English-French bilingual need not make, allowing him to invest that extra time in learning other skills. The unilingual English-speaker can also access Federal government services in Gatineau, whereas unilingualism is not even an option for any unofficial linguistic community.
According to the principle of the paradoxical advantage of unofficial unilingualism, Ottawa ought to follow Gatineau's example, and not the other way around.
I see your point (and his) but I don't see what's inordinate or antinomic about it.
Every country or society picks an official language (and some pick more than one). Those who happen to speak the official language natively are favoured in this scenario which is why the authorities will teach all of their native-born population to speak the official language of the society. Hence, bringing those who do not have an intergenerational relationship with the official language into the "favoured" group within a single generation.
And obviously for a place that has multiple official languages, the burden is greater on non-speakers of those two official languages, as it's obviously more work to learn two languages than to learn just one.
That said, in my experience places where there are two official languages used fairly equally on the ground (and therefore it is virtually essential to know both if you live there) are fairly rare.
I don't actually even consider Ottawa to be like this even though French is a "very good to know" there obviously.
The closest "imperatively bilingual" place in Canada is probably Montreal, but even so it's still totally possible to remain unilingual there and build your life around one language only.
Human beings can only speak one language at a time. In spite of the bilingualism mythology put forward by many in the Bilingual Belt (a term coined by demographer Richard Joy), human societies and micro-societies are like this as well, and tend to use only one language unless they are compelled to switch (temporarily or permanently).
Even so-called bilingual places will lean more to one language or another if you take the time to observe them closely.
I didn't read through the entire thread, but my take on it:
Montreal's growth and status has been severely hindered by the government's language laws.
Montreal has historically been a bilingual city, and has thrived globally as a result. Forcing French to be the official language, forcing everyone to be fluent in French, signs to be french, companies to operate in French, etc., has caused many corporations and people to move.
Down here in Florida, Spanish is everywhere. The government doesn't force people or companies to operate in English. If a store caters to Mexicans, one can expect it to operate in Spanish. It works, and there is no fear of English disappearing and Spanish taking over.
Why is Quebec so scared that French might vanish? It won't.
When one goes to Westmount, one should expect to see signs in English, as EVERYONE there speaks it as their first language. But no, the idiot laws make is so that English businesses catering to English speakers have to put up signs in French. It makes absolutely no sense.
When one goes to Westmount, one should expect to see signs in English, as EVERYONE there speaks it as their first language. But no, the idiot laws make is so that English businesses catering to English speakers have to put up signs in French. It makes absolutely no sense.
Well, 54% of Westmount residents declared English as their main language; although it is more than the majority, it isn't equivalent to EVERYONE in my dictionnary.
But I get your point. But let me qive your quote another twist that will give you some context of the 1900's up to ~1970:
Quote:
When one goes to Quebec, one should have expect to see signs in French, as EVERYONE there speaks it as their first language (82% of the population). But no, the idiot businesspeople made it so that businesses catering to French speakers used to put up signs in English only. It made absolutely no sense.
If a place like Cassleman, Ontario can have mostly bilingual store signs (and some in English only too) in spite of being 90% francophone or more, I don't see what the big deal is for Westmount (effectively a neighbourhood of Montreal) to have mostly bilingual store signs in French and English.
From my understanding the law requires all outside business signage to be only French, while indoor signage is allowed to be bilingual it has to conform to the standard of French being on the top and 3X the font size of the English text. What You Need to Know About Doing Business in Quebec Canada | LAT
Given that any policy of more than one official language will disproportionately hurt unofficial linguistic communities, the only time I would tend to support a policy of official bilingualism or multilingualism is to actively support a clearly disadvantaged group. According to that principle, I would thus be willing to tolerate multiple official languages for a sign language, the local indigenous language, an international auxiliary language (i.e. a language that is easy to learn by design for the purpose of efficient international communication), or any combination of these. Anything else is mere aggrandisement of the dominant ethnic groups.
Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous and makes no sense?
I support French only sign laws, but I still come under fire as being an angryphone.
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