City of Montreal’s French action plan
The city is promising a plan that will ensure the role and exemplary nature of the French language for the city. This puzzles me, because the city does everything in French already, so what else can they do?
Reduce their use of English, I suppose, because then it will look like they’re more determined about it.
I saw that story on my ipad this morning and went to find it to post, and when you look up the words “Montreal français” here are the headlines:
Joly et le français: on nous raconte des histoires (Mathieu Bock-Côté. The stories are not good.)
«Le français dégringole à une vitesse jamais vue»
Protection du français: est-il trop tard?
Le français au Québec: une langue sans pays – Denise Bombardier
And now, from Radio-Canada, Défense de la langue française : qu’en pensent les trentenaires? Here’s a cite: “Sentent-ils que la langue française est menacée? « Non! Je n’ai pas l’impression que ça va mal pour la langue. On a aussi une vision vraiment montréalocentriste, parce qu’on vit à Montréal, mais si on regarde à la grandeur du Québec, non! »
I was struck recently by this letter to the editor in Le Devoir, where the writer speaks about le virus linguistique anglophone, an evil to be stamped out for sure. (It’s delightful to feel that your language, the language you speak and in which your life is expressed, is seen as a disease. An unearned thrill of wickedness!) Pierre Lincourt writes angrily from Chicoutimi – where I’m guessing he never hears a word of the langue de Shakespeare spoken from one year’s end to the next – of terms he hears on the media and presumably reads on the internet.
These usages have nothing to do with local anglos and how we live our lives, but we’re the ones who have to do penance for the virus we carry. Has anyone got a face mask that will stop English words from getting through?
DeWolf 14:05 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
Most of the vitriol is coming from Quebecor, which is doing a Fox News number on Quebec. Not just on language issues but with anything that strays from the pro-business, right-wing nationalism of PKP. It’s a dangerous game.
steph 15:55 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
When is this blog going to be in french? /s quick, go register mtlvilleblog.com
Kate 15:58 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
I once dared another anglo blogger to post in French once a week, so there was a period when I did all my blogging in French on Fridays, before realizing the other guy didn’t give a shit and I was only succeeding in annoying my readers. I can write in French but not with the insouciant grace I can bring to English on a good day.
Raymond Lutz 16:58 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
chiche! 😎
dwgs 17:40 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
Insouciant Grace will be the title of my next novel.
CE 21:28 on 2021-02-23 Permalink
I liked the French Fridays. Feels like that was a long time ago!
Kate 11:31 on 2021-02-24 Permalink
It was, CE. And it takes me longer to think and write in French, so I’m not going to go back to it.