Should English Montreal work at protecting French?
A writer who submitted a column about protecting French that ran in English in the Gazette in February has written a similar piece for La Presse. Mario Polèse makes the case that anglo Montrealers must pitch in to make French the common language here. “Les membres de la communauté anglo-montréalaise portent aujourd’hui une responsabilité particulière,” he says: the responsibility to speak French at all times outside the house.
Does this make sense? Not much in my life would change and I suspect the same would be true of many anglo Montrealers. A lot of the time when I’m out and about, if I talk to people, I’m speaking French. I don’t even think about it, for the most part. But, unlike Mario Polèse, I don’t insist on it. If someone in a public setting addresses me in English, especially if they seem to be a native speaker, why would I ask them to speak French? Would anyone reading this choose to do that?
Edited to add: My main beef with Polèse is the idea that it’s my duty to make myself more invisible as an anglo. Also the idea that if more of us did so, the government would be less motivated to legislate language. Would anticipatory obedience sate Quebec’s more extreme nationalistic urges? I doubt it.
Polèse also links the French language to Quebec’s more progressive tendencies, suggesting we’d lose those if we lost French. I have no idea whether that’s a tenable position. I need to think about this.
Kevin 21:55 on 2024-04-03 Permalink
It’s polite and genteel, but it’s still intolerance.
steph 07:40 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
I was born, raised, and educated here with english as my first language. I’d like that right to be protected and not be asked to be pushed aside.
GC 08:14 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
If someone stops me to ask for directions or something and they are obviously struggling with French, of course I’m going to try English with them. (Or even the tiny bit of Spanish I know, if it will help…) Or if they just approach me in English.
If I’m out in public with a group of Anglo friends, of course we’re going to speak English to each other. But, we’ll all generally switch to French if a server comes over.
(Must confess I haven’t read the article yet, though. Just addressing Kate’s questions.)
Ian 09:40 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
“Assimilation is your fate, I for one welcome this chauvinistic ethnonationalist self-loathing”
When people scold me for speaking English, I generally respond with a hearty “va chier” to reassure them that I do know French and will try harder to fit in.
I work as a teacher at an English CEGEP … I’m not sure how this “only French outside the home” would work for us or any other Anglo institution, lol.
H. John 13:09 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
Patrick Dery’s post on X:
“Le français est-il en déclin dans l’espace public?
Pas vraiment. Nouveau rapport de l’OQLF.
En gros, le français est stable, et nos anglos ont tendance à parler plus souvent français.”
https://x.com/Patrickdery/status/1775921191200469330?s=20
dhomas 13:21 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
I think I’ve told this story before here. In order to make sure my kids are fully bilingual, I speak to them exclusively in English while my wife, a French teacher, speaks to them exclusively in French. It’s worked pretty well, complemented by their French immersion (EMSB) school. One time, at the grocery store, some Nosy Nelly overheard me speaking to the kids in English and loudly exclaimed “Au Québec, ça parle français!”. Without skipping a beat, I responded with “J’te garantie que leur français est meilleure que ton anglais”. It was immensely satisfying.
All this to say, I’m pretty sure most people speak French, even if they are anglophones. I don’t know anyone who speaks NO French. This hasn’t always been the case. When I was younger, I did know some folks who spoke zero French.
JP 15:38 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
Yeah, even my dad for whom English is a 3rd language & who I would say doesn’t speak French (except for numbers and other basics) is expanding his French vocabulary quickly because my niece who’s a toddler and goes to French daycare only speaks mostly only French. All of a sudden, he knows all these new words and expressions and all the colors in French….
CE 16:39 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
I don’t think I know anyone in Montreal who speaks NO French but have encountered people who grew up here and have a surprisingly basic level. I was recently dealing with teachers from a West Island English high school in a bilingual setting and was surprised by how many of them had a very basic grasp of the language (and they were people who grew up here). That said, I knew someone who went to a French school in Ontario and knew students who didn’t really know much English.
I’ve lived here for almost two decades, speak English outside the house all the time, and have never once been scolded for speaking English.
Kate 17:07 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
I’ve seen it. I was walking down St-Denis once with an Asian friend (he was born in HK but grew up here), speaking English, and a man rushed up to him and shouted in his face to speak French. I had next door neighbours in the Plateau who screamed at me that I had no right to be here, because I was chatting off my back porch to a friend in the alley (this was daytime, we weren’t causing any disturbance, except that we were speaking English).
A couple of years ago, I was on a bus, daytime, not too many people. Two young Black women were talking to each other quietly a few seats away. I could tell they were speaking English, although I wouldn’t have noticed or remembered them except that an old white woman suddenly started lecturing them loudly about how they should be speaking French.
I could probably think of more examples, but these come to mind. It does happen.
(And see, this is why I think Mario Polèse is deluding himself. These were private conversations. It should have been nobody else’s business what language was being spoken.)
Ian 20:21 on 2024-04-04 Permalink
@CE I have been scolded by metro attendants several times over the years. I have had MANY occasions driving, in grocery stores, and even in line for various things where someone does something against the rule – to their advantage and my disadvantage – where I call them out and they sneer back “est-ce que tu parles FRANÇAIS” and they get the VC routine for sure. I have been accosted in bars several times, talking to a group of friends in English, by some random drunk-ass MF slurring at us to parle français icitte, là, and they catch the VC too, and sometimes it goews even further than that.
To be fair I hang out at sketchy places and have lived in sketchy neighbourhoods and have sketchy friends and may in fact even be sketchy myself… people are more aggro in sketchy situations maybe? The language thing is an easy go-to I guess. Mileage may vary, as they say.
My kids have never once been harassed. I suspect it’s a generational thing. Gen X still remembers the hostilities of the last referendum with one another, and Boomers still feel the need to annoy us with their shit, too. Maybe once all us graybeards die off it will calm down. I have hope for the future. Gen Z seems completely WTF MDR about all that stuff.