English is everywhere in the “quartier de la francophonie”
English is everywhere in the area newly designated as the “quartier de la francophonie”. The city’s going to have to do something about this, facing the dilemma that English signs are bad, but the area is largely pitched at tourists who speak English.
PatrickC 12:43 on 2024-01-19 Permalink
It’s not just about tourists. To pick up a point you made yesterday about the former prevalence of non-French names, I think there have been important demographic as well as imaginative changes in the city. There are many fewer anglophones than there used to be, but they are distributed differently than they used to be (more of them in the Plateau, Sud-Ouest, etc.), in neighbourhoods that used to be more homogeneously francophone. A corresponding redistribution of francophones to other areas is less remarked (Westmount was never exclusively anglo and is currently 20% franco, I believe). But what’s different now is that imaginative compartmentalization of the kind that used to prevail in franco as well as anglo life is no longer possible. Erasing the other has become more a matter of will.
Ian 19:05 on 2024-01-19 Permalink
One thing I have noticed about tourist areas all over the world is that it is possible to get service in many languages. Like, that’s kind of the point.
Uatu 00:47 on 2024-01-20 Permalink
Just change it back to Quartier Latin. Nobody seemed to care about the signs back when it was called that.