Bonjour-hi is on the rise
The OQLF says that bonjour-hi is on the rise in Montreal, and complaints about lack of service in French are surging. Same CP story as Radio‑Canada in English.
And Bernard Drainville is pondering punishments for students who speak English in class.
jeather 21:34 on 2024-04-22 Permalink
That will certainly work to make teenagers love French.
Ian 08:12 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
I enjoyed how the article leads in with “la possibilité de pénaliser les élèves qui ne parlent pas français en classe” but quickly drops the pretense and starts banging on about English. How quickly ethnonationalism descends into targetted suppression.
That said, I sent my kid to French school and they were forbidden from speaking any language other than French in the school … that was CSDM. I would be surprised if it were different in Vaudreuil, but then again lots of things surprise me.
Kate 09:19 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Ian, what happened if someone disobeyed and spoke some language other than French?
Was the rule just for the classroom or was it in the whole building and grounds? I remember a story about the difficulty some families had when siblings were punished for speaking together in their home language in the schoolyard.
dwgs 09:46 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Anglo here who sent his kids to French school (by choice). Yes, they were punished for speaking anything but French in the schoolyard, the halls, the bathrooms…
Kevin 10:00 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
It’s always amusing when reactionaries discover something that’s been happening under their noses for decades.
The number of anglophones in Vaudreuil-Dorion has been growing immensely this century, going from 13% of the city’s population to 22%.
All those kids who grew up in the West Island in the 70s, 80s, and 90s moved further west to have families.
Uatu 10:32 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Why is everyone upset about being greeted in French and Norwegian? /s
Tee Owe 11:15 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
I think in Norwegian it’s Hej (though pronounced the same, also in Danish and Swedish) – nice comment!
walkerp 11:30 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
I worked as a service de garde yard monitor many years ago in Rosemont and we were supposed to ensure that the kids spoke french in the playground. Currently, my child goes to french primary school and they don’t seem to enforce it there anymore. Personally, I’m all for enforcing french without being too aggressive and draconian about it as some kids will default to their english gang and they can fall behind in their accent and idiomatic usage of french.
qatzelok 12:59 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
@jeather: “That will certainly work to make teenagers love French.”
You say “love it” as if French was an ancient tribal dance kept alive to amuse the authenticy-shopping colonist. The idea is to get people *to speak it* not just love French like they do in some swamps in Louisiana.
Don’t forget that English became a global language through major punishments to other languages and civilizations.
jeather 13:33 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
I say “love” not “use” that because the article specifically quotes Drainville as saying that: de les inciter pas juste à parler, mais à aimer le français, à avoir le goût de l’apprendre et à le parler au quotidien
I’m not saying it’s a bad rule (or a good rule; I don’t have the knowledge here), I’m saying that losing marks for speaking in English in science class is not a rule that is designed to make teenagers love French.
MarcG 13:56 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Old meets new: AI spam on the Quebec language debate.
Ian 17:34 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
My older daughter went to an EMSB school and it was required that all the children speak French in the playground and no other language as the yard monitors were CSDM and the CSDM was not allowed to ask their workers to speak any language other than French, and many of them felt that if the children were speaking their own languages they might be speaking behind the monitors’ backs. They were given detention for speaking any language other than French. In an English school.
This was part of the reason I sent my younger daughter to a French school, so that it would at least make sense – and she would actually learn French in school instead of just being punished for not speaking it.
This is not a metaphor, but could be.
@qatzi Let me remind you about Haiti, Algeria, etc. None of those people spoke French because they were interested in learning fun new languages.
Ian 18:41 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Sorry for the typos, I was just emerging from a lovely nap.
@Kate to answer your question it was just a reprimand in the French school, it was a pretty progressive school that only used punitive measures as a last resort. The tension between French and Englsih was lower there than in the English school I found, as so many of the kids were not Canadian, so studying in French – kind of a “we’re all in the same boat” vibe so they actually seemed to have fun with it, like enforcing rules of a game. Lots of Ubisoft workers’ kids and American kids. Of course that is the genteel and well-heeled version of what Mile End has turned into, mileage may vary in more gritty parts of town.
Kate 20:11 on 2024-04-23 Permalink
Did a light proofread just now.
It’s kind of a weird but typical metaphor – being punished for speaking English at recess in an English‑language school.
MarcG 09:34 on 2024-04-24 Permalink
Maybe it wasn’t obvious but I was trying to point out that the comment from giriş appears to be spam (name links to some kind of gambling thing on Twitter)
Kate 10:56 on 2024-04-24 Permalink
OK, I can deep six that comment.