Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thanks fort the replies. Where can I watch this "Acadie Road" program? Is it some where online?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Yes, this is exactly what is going on with some members of my family.
A lot of anglophone spouses are not necessarily as open-minded as the global reputation of Canadians suggests, and don't like it when their francophone spouse speaks to their kids in French. For often childish reasons like "they're going to be talking about me behind my back!"
.
That's terrible some one would take that attitude. I wish my wife spoke another language so I could learn aswell.
Various internet reading, but yeah, studies are the best and most accurate source on this stuff. Statcan and the various federal and provincial bodies encharged with official language stuff put out reports on this stuff regularly. I'm also just interested in this sort of stuff in general, so I'm pretty familiar with minority language dynamics (well, okay, that's actually a vast field... but I'm at least familiar with some minority language dynamics - mostly examples in many ways similar to the Canadian one). That also helps with understanding the wider context. Of course, I'm no expert, and every case is different in some ways, but many things are pretty much universal to these situations across different societies.
]
Oh yeah? Which ones? I've studied (out of personal interest) mostly the situations in Switzerland, Belgium, Finland and Spain.
Yep. It flips the school, and when the school flips to English, that's the future of the community. It's not just about what languages people are are able to speak, but also about which they prefer to use (and how strongly). In a place like Halifax, it's expected that most of the kids are like this, and there's not much point in parents angsting over it or trying to change it. But in a francophone area, a school with a large proportion of kids who prefer to use English is a major reason to worry and potentially spells disaster. That's also why all those positive articles about francophone schools constantly growing are such bad news. Though, to be fair about it, activists do keep trying to warn about that particular issue. And the schools keep growing. But what's really catastrophic for the language is the supposedly growing trend of bilingual nurseries. I can't imagine a better way to stamp out the minority language. They might as well dub it the JJ McCullough early care model.
]
In a lot of places in Canada, sending kids from a purely francophone family environment (both parents speaking French) to a French language elementary school, actually contributes to their anglicization, ironically.
Because of all the kids who are there are extremely weak in French.
As well, it's ironic but in a place like Ottawa where lots of kids go to school in French (either French first schools or French immersion in the anglo school system) there may be more people than ever who *can* speak French but the language has never been so dead as a public language used on the street.
Why are people in the Scandinavian countries - who are exposed to English much more often on a daily basis than Quebeckers - not so concerned about their children being less likely to speak Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish?
Well, for starters these are all independent countries that control all matters (including language policy) on their national territory. That's not the case at all for Quebec, even though it does have quite a bit of leeway.
None of them shares a country with speakers of the world's juggernaut language who make up three quarters of the overall Canadian population.
None of them have a large in-house native English speaker minority population like Quebec does, and which in living memory were actually in a "dominant minority" rulers' position. (Which still has some legacy effects today.)
None of them have the United States of America right next door.
Why are people in the Scandinavian countries - who are exposed to English much more often on a daily basis than Quebeckers -
I am not sure that Scandinavians are exposed much more often to English than Quebecers are.
It really depends where you live in Quebec, or in Scandinavia for that matter.
There are parts of Montreal (and also Gatineau) where you're far more exposed to English on a daily basis than most anywhere in Stockholm, Oslo or Copenhagen. Outside of specific niche spaces like the Oslo office of an American bank.
not so concerned about their children being less likely to speak Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish?
Oh, and for all of the talk about kids no longer speaking French on here, that's not really a concern in Quebec. Though as you can tell it is a concern for francophones in the other 9 provinces.
In Quebec itself, including in Montreal, effectively 100% of kids born into francophone families will speak French natively. And actually, almost all of kids born into non-francophone families here speak French reasonably well these days too. A lot of them actually sound like native speakers, and when they're hanging out around the pool, you often can't audibly tell apart the kids who speak French at home and those who speak some other language.
They mostly sound the same.
I'd even add that my kids' friends here in Quebec who speak immigrant language X, Y or Z at home, or even English, sound more natural in French and speak it better, than many kids in my family who live in Ontario and have francophone parents.
The difference is quite striking.
So the debate about French in Quebec is about the long game, and the way things will trend in the future.
Something I find curious is when a Francophone speaks English, he or she has a tendency to drop the “h” on words that begin with the letter and add it to words that don’t.
Something I find curious is when a Francophone speaks English, he or she has a tendency to drop the “h” on words that begin with the letter and add it to words that don’t.
Well, part of the answer is that the H is almost always silent in French.
That doesn't explain why it's added to words like "understand" so you get sentences like "I don't hunnerstan 'ow to get to the 'ospital".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
