Let's begin 2008 with a rant!
Bill 101?
Since our childhood - growing up in Quebec has been about this famous bill. It insists that French be the number 1 language in our province (rightly so) but goes about it in a brutish manner. l.aws dictate that signage must either be 100% French or the French characters be at least double the size of English characters. There are government workers which have the title of "the Language Police" go around and enforce the signage standards with fines.
Moreover, all immigrants must assimilate and send their children to ALL French school unless one of their parents went to Bilingual or English elementary school (my mother attended English grade school in Quebec). The other loophole would be for immigrants to send their kids to ridiculously expensive private schools $20K+ per year per child. They go out of their way to make English really unavailable to everyone including themselves.
Now this quick and dirty of the Bill serves to contextualize the ridiculousness of my day-to-day experiences as a Québecoise. PP and I are both perfectly bilingual. He is doing his med school in French and I work in French. BUT, 9 times out of 10 we are always approached by Quebecois in broken English. The most absurd incident was our 1 year anniversary. We went away to Quebec city for a weekend getaway and every single person would approach us in broken English even while we were speaking French amongst ourselves. They automatically assumed we were speaking an Asian language and did not stop to realize that we were indeed speaking French.
Based on these experiences, I wonder about the validity for Bill 101. Why would they want to force French on all ethnicities only to turn around and speak to us in English??? Colis! It makes no sense!
Bill 101?
Since our childhood - growing up in Quebec has been about this famous bill. It insists that French be the number 1 language in our province (rightly so) but goes about it in a brutish manner. l.aws dictate that signage must either be 100% French or the French characters be at least double the size of English characters. There are government workers which have the title of "the Language Police" go around and enforce the signage standards with fines.
Moreover, all immigrants must assimilate and send their children to ALL French school unless one of their parents went to Bilingual or English elementary school (my mother attended English grade school in Quebec). The other loophole would be for immigrants to send their kids to ridiculously expensive private schools $20K+ per year per child. They go out of their way to make English really unavailable to everyone including themselves.
Now this quick and dirty of the Bill serves to contextualize the ridiculousness of my day-to-day experiences as a Québecoise. PP and I are both perfectly bilingual. He is doing his med school in French and I work in French. BUT, 9 times out of 10 we are always approached by Quebecois in broken English. The most absurd incident was our 1 year anniversary. We went away to Quebec city for a weekend getaway and every single person would approach us in broken English even while we were speaking French amongst ourselves. They automatically assumed we were speaking an Asian language and did not stop to realize that we were indeed speaking French.
Based on these experiences, I wonder about the validity for Bill 101. Why would they want to force French on all ethnicities only to turn around and speak to us in English??? Colis! It makes no sense!
2 Comments:
It's stuff like this that drives the Anglos out of Quebec. I am a FOURTH generation Quebecoise. My forefathers were one of the first wave of immigrants to arrive in the province at the same time as the French. HOwever, all family members of MY generation have moved OUT of Quebec because the government makes it practically un-liveable for Anglos.
French wording DOUBLE the size of English?? Come on. While I completely understand that French ought to be the primary language of QC, the government are turning into nazis about the whole thing.
Quebec would ultimately be la belle province if the government would just stay out of it.
By
Hapavixen, at 03 January, 2008 13:44
good post! although one of the things i felt most proud of during my time in montreal was the fact that chinese shopkeepers in chinatown could speak english, french, cantonese AND mandarin! i guess they learned to adapt.
By
Tim, at 06 January, 2008 07:09
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