Jean-Benoît Nadeau, co-author of The Story of French is quoted in Maclean’s recent article by Martin Patriquin: Will immigrants save the French language, or hasten its demise? For Jean-Benoît, the issue is not the influx of immigrants into Quebec, but rather Quebec’s limiting definition of the term “francophone.” Read the article
Section: French / Americas
Maclean’s Magazine Quotes Jean-Benoît Nadeau on the French Language and Immigrants in Quebec
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You Don’t Have to Speak French at Home to Be a Francophone
Photo: Veronica Louis
L’office québecois de la langue française’s (Quebec Office of the French Language) just published a report that shows the French language is losing ground in Montreal. French language defenders understandably went up in arms about this.
But appearances can be deceptive. What the study shows is that the proportion of Montrealers who speak French at home is declining. In other words, the report is counting native French speakers, not francophones.
Let us explain. You don’t have to be a French Canadian, and you don’t have to speak French at home to be a francophone. All you have to do is speak French. Period. Read more »
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Drowning in English
Jean-Benoit recently attended a conference of the association, Francophonie des Amériques where he heard University of Laval professor Michelle Daveluy speak about her adventures aboard the Canadian Marine’s frigates NCSM Ville de Québec and HMCS Vancouver. Daveluy, a communications ethnologist, spent several weeks at sea with the Canadian marines researching how communication happens in a bilingual military environment. Read more »
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One Million Words ~ Is Quebec French a “Dialect?”
Written by Julie Barlow
The American Association of Teachers of French is holding its Annual Conference in Montreal this summer on July 7th, 2011. A member of the AATF recently wrote to us asking if the French spoken in Quebec is really a “dialect” as he had heard from a colleague.
The answer is no. But let’s back up a bit.
What is generally described as a Quebec dialect is a Quebec slang called joual. It is one among many local registers of the language. It is therefore extremely derogatory – or ill-advised– to reduce Quebec French to its slang, just as much as it would be derogatory to reduce American English to its slang, or French from France to argot. Read more »
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