François Legault has written an official letter to Justin Trudeau about the decline of French in Quebec and claiming that Quebec has the power to unilaterally change the Canadian constitution.
I heard Christopher Skeete talking on CBC radio on Friday. His cite for the decline of French in Quebec was from the OQLF, which I suppose will soon be elevated from a mere Office to a Ministry. Forgive me if I tend to feel that OQLF workers have a vested interest in stoking the belief that French is under constant attack in Quebec: I’d like to see some more objective studies. Of course politicians have to take it as a matter of faith, strategically, but I’m not sure we all do.
Arguably, Bill 101 worked. More immigrants learn French, more children are educated in French, almost all signs have been in French since the bill, and so on. Look at photos of Montreal streetscapes before that time. There are French signs but there are also a lot of signs in English, which we don’t see any more. There are not many left to be rooted out.
On the other hand, some experts think Quebec is under-counting English speakers because the official numbers are based on mother tongue, the initial language spoken at home.
I went to buy a few plants on Friday at the market. I always speak French to people there. Sometimes they catch my accent and reply in English. I don’t need them to, but it’s a simple fact of sales life: if you talk to the customer in their language, you will sell more stuff. Can you change this global rule by fiat?
As an example of what the OQLF gets up to, it recently investigated a complaint that two hospital workers spoke to each other in Creole. I think we’ve seen stories like this before but can’t find them.
Joey 09:25 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
I suppose it matters if the conductor speaks English only – how could French-speaking musicians participate? Moreover, especially in years past you’d assume an “English” orchestra wouldn’t even consider French musicians.
Kate 10:22 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
Most highly trained classical musicians and conductors will be accustomed to getting by in several languages. These people train in different countries and move around depending on what they’re offered and what they want to do. I’d guess that the higher ranking ones would pick up English, French and Italian as they go along – maybe German too, depending on the kind of music they favour – plus of course the language of music notation is Italian already. All a conductor has to do is leap onto a podium and yell “Adagio!” and point their wand, and everyone knows what they want.
Joey 10:35 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
I was talking about the 1930s, just to be clear…
Kate 10:42 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
True enough, people may not have been so mobile then, but I bet classical types still got around. It’s an elite world. Ocean liners existed.
PatrickC 15:09 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
An orchestra is more than the musicians and the conductors. It is about the network of philanthropists and patrons, and the social capital associated with sponsorship of high culture. In the era before big government subsidies, private patronage was crucial, and the linguistic divide, not to mention other forms of ethnic and religious exclusivity, would have played a major role in the social circles from which the patrons were drawn.