French, une patate très chaude
An OQLF study warns that French is declining even faster in Montreal than predicted, creating tension and anxiety. Chapleau’s editorial cartoon of people lining up to hit Emmanuelle Lambropoulous has been criticized in a climate where women politicians face a constant torrent of abuse.
DeWolf 02:21 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
It’s always a bit ridiculous when people freak out that the proportion of francophones in Montreal has slipped below 50%. What do you expect in a city where population growth is fuelled almost entirely by immigration? According to the 2016 census, 49.6% of Montreal Island residents are francophone. The same census also showed that just 50.8% of people in the CIty of Toronto are anglophone. Same cause, same effect. Any indignation based on these statistics is pure sophistry.
DeWolf 02:26 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
I should add that people who get bent out of shape over these statistics are saying that unless your mother tongue is French, you don’t count. You can go to school in French, work in French, lead a social life in French, but if you speak Arabic or Spanish or Vietnamese with your parents, you’re destroying Montreal’s status as a francophone city. It’s ridiculous.
JaneyB 09:31 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
Yes, and it presumes Allophones who grew up here never socialize outside their families – and for generations! These studies make me think the researchers have never met or spoken with anybody not named Tremblay.
Ephraim 10:05 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
Too many baby boomers still working as journalists. How many years until they are all over 65? 8 more years?
Kevin 10:21 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
It’s several generations of No True Scotsman arguments, and it’s so embedded in the psyche that they don’t realize it’s a fallacy.
The fact that this is *always* presented as the decline of the French language instead of the physical movement of an ethnic group is the tell.
Chris 14:30 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
>According to the 2016 census…
And what fraction of those new Toronto residents learn (or already know) English as a second language? And what fraction of those new Montreal residents learn (or already know) French as a second language? I’d bet the former is substantially larger than the latter.
Azrhey 15:57 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
This issues enrages me particularly. I have a very Portuguese name. I hold a Portuguese passport. I’ve lived in Montreal since 1988, and regularly, still, I get comments on how good my french is. I’ve done the last 15 of my 17 years of school In french. I studied French linguistics and French translation. My dad, all Portuguese that he is moved to France when he was 11 and speaks much better French than Portuguese, but he is still asked regularly if he needs a translator by the idiot pure-laine next door. I am entirely fed up with the whole francophone = native french speaker ( insert rant about native language having no actual scientific meaning , and it’s just a shortcut to put people in boxes ) … bahhh… It;s idiots all the way down.
Thank you for coming to my soap box
DeWolf 18:29 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
Chris, the answer is in the census. 12.6% of Montreal’s population is unable to speak French. 5% of Toronto’s population is unable to speak English.
Chris 19:01 on 2020-11-23 Permalink
DeWolf, that’s of all residents, or of the new residents? If, as you said, “population growth is fuelled almost entirely by immigration”, then that 12.6% vs 5% gap will presumably grow with time too.
Also, which do you figure is harder: getting by in Toronto without English, or getting by in Montreal without French? ie is the pressure/need to learn the main language the same?
I think there are lots of potential vicious circles for French in Montreal. The less you *need* it -> the less it will be learnt -> the less it will be spoken -> the less it’s needed, etc. Not saying this is the case now, but such a future is not implausible.