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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
The only time Montreal has ever had more English speakers than French speakers was for about 10 or 20 years in the mid 1800s. What was true up until the mid 1970s was that English speakers and their language dominated many spheres of life in the city. They were a dominant minority, even though they were not the biggest group in the city.
French speakers have been the largest group in the city of Montreal for roughly 350 of the city's 370 years of history.
The article must've just referred to Central Montreal, which I think is on an island.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hadrett32
In regard to Canada most "Quebecois" have a very strong provincial and cultural identity due to their different background (primarily French-Acadians; French-speaking).
I think Quebec identity has more to do with being french-speaking than being descending from french people.
A lot of Quebecers are not actually descending from french people, but usually consider themselves part of Quebec cultural identity. Especially in Montreal where many people are of Haitian, Portuguese, etc origins but are proud of their Quebecer french speaking identity. Inversely, I'm not sure that English-speaking Canadians who just happen to have french ancestors in their genealogic tree feel linked with a Quebecer identity.
To answer the Question; I tend to think that most of the "big" European nations tend to have strong regional identity; or at least used to have strong regional identities: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK
In the case of France; in the 19th century there have been a lot of cultural homogeneisation. Most regions lost their regional dialects. The regions that kept a strong sense of cultural identity are usually those whose linguistic/cultural identities were the most distant from the mainstream Romance culture of France: Britanny for its "celtic" roots; Alsace and french Flanders with their germanic-based roots; Basque country with its non-indoEuropean language. Corsica has, on its side, a strong regional identity (despite being Romance), mainly because of its situation of island, cut away from the continent.
The large city is very roughly about 70% French-speaking, 15% English-speaking and 15% of people speak other languages.
The other smaller municipalities in blue are also on the island but are not part of the main city, though they share many services with it (police, public transport, etc.). Most of these have larger shares of anglos in their populations, though sometimes they can be fairly mixed with anglos, francos and speakers of other languages. But English is certainly more present there. Their population varies but most have around 20,000 residents. Overall, these municipalities in blue total a couple hundred thousand people at the most. The island overall has about 1.8 or 1.9 million people, and about 1.6 million of them are in the larger city.
As well, this map only shows the island but Greater Montreal has as many if not more people (another 2 million I'd say) living just off the island on the mainland in other suburban municipalities, the largest of which are Laval and Longueuil (but there are many others of various sizes). Almost all of these municipalities are quite predominantly French-speaking as well.
If you want a federal republic with a longer history as a nation there's Switzerland. Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden formed the Swiss Confederation in 1291. Unterwalden became/returned-to-being Obwalden and Nidwalden in the fourteenth century by the looks of it. Anyway those three (really 4) cantons all look to have traditionally been German-speaking Catholics, but the Swiss allow a fair degree of cantonal autonomy so maybe even those four have their differences.
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What I find interesting in Switzerland is if you talk to people they say their attachment is to Switzerland the whole country, but if you talk to them a bit what they have in mind whent they talk about "their Switzerland" is often quite limited to the area of the country where their language group lives (German Switzerland, French Switzerland, Italian Switzerland).
They don't seem to harbour any ill-will towards the other language groups though, and there aren't really any serious separatist movements there.
03-13-2012, 10:51 AM
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Which countries have the most and very strong state/provincial identities?
USA
China
India
Canada
France
Spain
Italy
Germany
Brazil
Mexico
Indonesia
I think Quebec identity has more to do with being french-speaking than being descending from french people.
A lot of Quebecers are not actually descending from french people, but usually consider themselves part of Quebec cultural identity. Especially in Montreal where many people are of Haitian, Portuguese, etc origins but are proud of their Quebecer french speaking identity. Inversely, I'm not sure that English-speaking Canadians who just happen to have french ancestors in their genealogic tree feel linked with a Quebecer identity.
This is very true, especially in the 21st century and most strikingly in the Montreal area.
Also, I think we should also look at Canadian regional identities as a whole, outside of Quebec. I'd say it's an extremely regionalized country, with Newfoundlanders seeing themselves as Newfoundlanders, British Columbians absolutely identifying completely as British Columbians, Albertans as Albertans etc. I think regional identity is certainly even more pronounced in English Canada then in the US, and possibly even Australia. It's quite strong and we shouldn't forget that simply because we Quebeckers are even more likely to identify with our province first. I think the only exception tot he rule is Ontario, which is really the glue for the whole country and people there are more likely to identify as Canadians first.
Also, I think we should also look at Canadian regional identities as a whole, outside of Quebec. I'd say it's an extremely regionalized country, with Newfoundlanders seeing themselves as Newfoundlanders, British Columbians absolutely identifying completely as British Columbians, Albertans as Albertans etc. I think regional identity is certainly even more pronounced in English Canada then in the US, and possibly even Australia. It's quite strong and we shouldn't forget that simply because we Quebeckers are even more likely to identify with our province first. I think the only exception tot he rule is Ontario, which is really the glue for the whole country and people there are more likely to identify as Canadians first.
Good points. Of course, Quebec is the only province in Canada where a good chunk of the population do not consider themselves to be "Canadians". In other provinces in almost all cases "Canadian" + "provincial identity" is an additive and complementary thing, whereas for many in Quebec they are mutually exclusive.
Which countries have the most and very strong state/provincial identities?
USA
China
India
Canada
France
Spain
Italy
Germany
Brazil
Mexico
Indonesia
² that. Belgium as well. Especially the Flemish part has a strong sense of unity.
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