British citizen creates national uproar in Quebec

[Zoupa]

Berkut is just being Berkut. He doesn't really believe what he writes, he hasn't thought it through either.

[crazy canuck]

If, on the other hand, I felt there was a real danger of the United States becoming a Latin American country I would probably feel differently.

If you can put yourself fully into that mindset I think you can better understand the thinking of what motivates, at least in part, the Quebec language laws.

To everyone else, I dont actually see what the big deal is.  The provinces have the authority to legislate in this area.  If they choose to do so that is their choice.  As is apparrent from the discussion here the perspective of Quebec is very different from the rest of us - that underlies the logic of giving the power in these areas to the Provinces.

[The Minsky Moment]

I wonder what your view would be if English was not the dominant language and was at risk of dying out.  Would you still consider the move to protect English as atavistic ethno-jingoism?

It's a fair question and one that I it is very hard to answer honestly without actually having to experience it.   But if hypothetically, English was dying out, than as a person of some ambition I would make efforts to learn whatever language I needed to learn to stay competitive.  And I think I would not get that worked up about the fate of English as a language.

I don't really have any particular attachment to English other than I can speak and write it well and it would be damned inconvenient at my age to learn something completely new.  English was my father's third language (his native tongue was French amusingly enough).

Of course this is all hypothetical because neither English NOR French is any danger of dying out.

Isnt the reason why the English first movement in the US is repulsive to you coloured by the fact that English is in fact the dominant language.

It's repulsive to me b/c of my perceptions of certain of the motivations behind it.
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[garbon]

If you can put yourself fully into that mindset I think you can better understand the thinking of what motivates, at least in part, the Quebec language laws.

So here's my question. If people in Quebec so dearly want to hold onto French, what's preventing (/threatening) them? I mean I can understand certain laws for the government (like having a law that says all government signs in Quebec must be in both languages and government employees should speak both) as if the government isn't using French, it'll be hard to keep...but I'm not sure why you'd need laws beyond that.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

If you can put yourself fully into that mindset I think you can better understand the thinking of what motivates, at least in part, the Quebec language laws.

So here's my question. If people in Quebec so dearly want to hold onto French, what's preventing (/threatening) them? I mean I can understand certain laws for the government (like having a law that says all government signs in Quebec must be in both languages and government employees should speak both) as if the government isn't using French, it'll be hard to keep...but I'm not sure why you'd need laws beyond that.

Nothing seems to preventing them, but the enormous dominance of english most assuredly seems to be threatening them, and will continue to do so given the size of the Anglo-cultures nearby.
And that's something that's best not underestimated as language often goes to the very core of people's sense of culture. Not only across nations but also amongst people of the same nation.

[The Minsky Moment]

Heh, from a Jewish point of view, the notion of a majority culture under threat by a minority within that culture who is alleged to be clannish, good at business, exerting too much influence, and contemptuous of the majority isn't exactly unfamiliar, either. 

Not to mention we "rootless cosmopolitans" seem to lack a proper understanding of the mystic ties between Sprache and Volk.

[Berkut]

I wonder how much of my bemusement at the worry people show about protecting their "culture" is simply because I am part of the dominant global culture, and hence do not share their sense of threat.

I simply cannot imagine why anyone would care about such things. What difference does it make if your native language is dieing out? Globalization makes that inevitable anyway. The purpose of language is communication - and that is facilitated by a common language, not by a bunch of people clinging to some particular language. I am guessing that French they hold so dear is some combination of other languages anyway.

A bubble of French speaker in a sea of English? What *value* does it hold that you all speak French anyway - other than the emotional (and frankly immature) feeling of "specialness" it has to feel that you are somehow different?

If you're not trolling and this is really what you feel, you should just leave the thread already.

It's really rich that it just happens to be your mother tongue threatening and trying to extinguish ours for about 300 years now. Of course you see absolutely no problem with french disappearing.

I'll tell you what. Since you're all about language as communication tool only, why don't you learn french instead of me using english. I've given you a solid 8 years of insults and condescension in Shakespear's tongue.

Your turn!

Why would I learn French? I communicate rather nicely with everyone I need to in English - including you. If I decided I wanted to live in France (or Quebec, I guess) then perhaps I would be motivated to learn French, but since it has no real positive impact on me (and is very hard to learn - I suck at foreign languages), why would I go to so much trouble?

The issue is not whether I am willing to learn French or not, it is whether I wrap my sense of self up in something as obviously irrelevant to my value as a human being as what language my parents happened to speak.

[Berkut]

My "identity" is not linked to what language I speak, nor do I consider anyone who speaks a language other than my own to be inferior or even fundamentally different from myself.

Language is a tool to allow communication. If someone comes along and replaces my hammer with a screwdriver, I did not suddenly change who I was.

I am not sure to what extent you are simply being provocative to see where the boundaries of this discussion are located or whether you really believe this.

I really believe this.

If you really believe this you might ask yourself why there is a movement in the US to enshrine English as the official language of the US to protect it from Spanish becoming more dominant.

I already answered this, and JR just answered it as well, with the exact same answer.

To the extent that these kinds of movements exist in the US, they are rather silly. I am being perfectly consistent then in finding them also silly when they appear elsewhere.

[Berkut]

If you really believe this you might ask yourself why there is a movement in the US to enshrine English as the official language of the US to protect it from Spanish becoming more dominant.

For the same reason Lou Dobbs has a job: there just happen to be enough insecure, immigrant-bashing paranoids in our country to give this movement some life.  But it is hardly something I would aspire to share.

Quite right.  But that begs the question why Lou Dobbs has a job.  Protection of language obviously hits a nerve in the American psyche at some level and so that is why I called into question Berkuts declaration that it does not matter to him.

So you are assuming that I am lying about what I say because some Americans somewhere are dumbshits?

I mean really - if nothing else, haven't you figured out yet that I don't particularly follow along with the more nationalistic/racist/xenophobic members of American society?

Also notice that in fact we don't have any actual laws that demand that you do not put up Spanish signs. You can place signs in only Spanish all you like - so at the end of the day, apparently the nutbars don't really have that much pull...here.

[Grey Fox]

You have to feel threaten for it to have appeal. Of course anything until then will seem silly.

[Berkut]

Berkut is just being Berkut. He doesn't really believe what he writes, he hasn't thought it through either.

Well, I will admit to not having completely thought this through - hence my many questions to those for whom this is clearly a very important issue.

I still don't really see any rational reason why it is such an important issue though. It seems a bit silly to me, just like Americans tryiong to keep Spanish people from speaking Spanish, and for largely the same reasons.

All language is an amalgamation of the various cultures that spawn them, including French, English, and Spanish. You cannot "protect" them, and doing so just creates more problems than it solves.

I imagine English as it will be spoken in the US in 300 years will be rather different than it is now - so what? If it is a lot more Spanish-like, then why would I care?

If in fact language was used as a means to deny basic equality to people in Quebec, then I could understand the concern - but when I asked about this perceived oppression, the example I got was almost laughably trivial - air traffic controllers?

[Berkut]

You have to feel threaten for it to have appeal. Of course anything until then will seem silly.

Nah, I don't think that is true.

Nobody has ever asked me to sit at the back of a bus, or refused to let me vote because I am black, or even called me a nigger and beat the shit out of me, yet I can understand how all those things are degrading and intolerable, even if I never experienced them myself, and am in fact a member of the ethnic group who was largely responsible for that oppression.

[Grey Fox]

Is being unable to enjoy the vast wilderness of our territory a good example? (Includes being able to simply camp there to Hunt & Fish)

[crazy canuck]

If you can put yourself fully into that mindset I think you can better understand the thinking of what motivates, at least in part, the Quebec language laws.

So here's my question. If people in Quebec so dearly want to hold onto French, what's preventing (/threatening) them? I mean I can understand certain laws for the government (like having a law that says all government signs in Quebec must be in both languages and government employees should speak both) as if the government isn't using French, it'll be hard to keep...but I'm not sure why you'd need laws beyond that.

I am a little out of my depth on that question.  It has really only been through the discussions with Oex, GF and others in this forum that I have begun to better  understand their position.

I will leave it to them to answer your question.

[crazy canuck]

So you are assuming that I am lying

Take a deep breath and re-read your posts.

What I am assuming is that you havent actually thought this through and your responses have been a bit simplistic.