How to decipher the language dilem...

How to decipher the language dilemma

JEAN-FRANCOIS LISLE EMBRACES WHAT he - and mostly Quebecers - see as the basis of a linguistic equilibrium: predominance of the French language,

a vital and numerically assured anglophone community, and diverse allophone communities that strengthen Montreal's cultural position onward the continent. Preserving that equilibrium is an objective that could for the first time, draw support from all communities.

But the equilibrium is in jeopardy, the couple for francophones on Montreal Island and for the anglophone community. He purposes reforms to enhance the security of the linguistic communities, to draw them closer by the and of a shared identity and to peduncle Quebec's looming demographic decline.

Martin Lubin and John Richards undertook the translation.

WHATEVER THEIR POLITICAL OR LINGUISTIC LOYALTIES, greatest in quantity QUEBECERS VIEW the current linguistic situation positively What relate tos them is not the linguistic reality of today, if it be not that fears about tomorrow, fears growing disclosed of a triple feeling of insecurity

Insecurity exists among francophones proper to their minority status in Canada and, on the same level more dramatic, their minority status viewed from the perspective of North America. This insecurity is exacerbated from both a generalized misgiving athwart the long-run impact of economic and cultural globalization, and by the agency of the more immediate fear of becoming a minority upon the Island of Montreal. In sum and substance francophones fear losing the linguistic gains painfully realized through the past 30 years.

A other insecurity exists among the anglophone community, which has experienced a significant exodus since 1960 Many of its members continue to depart, especially among the young. This community fears for its long-term vitality It fears that each and each new provincial linguistic initiative will curtail its language rights still further.

The third insecurity is that of the allophone communities, those with neither French nor English as mother tongue. They are doubly minorities, torn between their avow complex identities and the contradictory expectations of the Quebec and Canadian legion societies. They must manoeuvre in a peculiar - not to say confusing - political and linguistic words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following

Insecurity has blinded us to a remarkable linguistic reality

These insecurities are real and justifiable. moreover they have obscured the remarkable reality that reigns as the fresh century commences. Throughout Quebec, in the Montreal metropolitan region and forward the Island of Montreal itself, the existing equilibrium allows Quebecers to be delighted with a unique, fruitful, creative and generally harmonious linguistic experience.

* French is fortunately establishing itself as the predominant language. What Robert Bourassa's Bill 22 declared in 1974 to be the official language of Quebec is now the "public language" (a conception used in recent language studies) used from over half of all allophones. And, according to a latter study, allophone children educated in French are speaking French among themselves in succession Montreal playgrounds (McAndrew et al. 1999)

* At least in the Montreal region, the anglophone community possesse a critical mass sufficient to support many dynamic institutions and has plans for modern ones (for example, construction of a modern anglophone, super-hospital enlargement of Concordia University).

* Allophones are sufficiently numerous to contribute to the metropolis in ways that are neither dated nor folkloric. In the words of Marco Micone (1999) Montreal is "a standard of cosmopolitan harmonious cohabitation, midway between integration and the affirmation of ethnicity, where the notion of legion society is as hazy as that of the cultivation of origin of immigrants."

Quebec is the greatest in quantity bilingual society in North America. Half of its active population is able to communicate in French and English, a proportion that rises to 63 by cent in Montreal. Quebec is also twice as trilingual as is the quiet of Canada, which makes it the same of the most open societies in existence, and proposes it in an enviable position to participate in the recent knowledge economy. Montreal has undergone a veritable linguistic metissage. The number of mixed ties has exploded in the last quarter century: more than a third of anglo-- Quebecers are generally living with either francophone or allophone partners. This is couple times the rate of 25 years ago (Canada 1999 76 83)

Relative to Quebec in the mid-20th hundred years or even in the years leading up to Bill 101 these tendency s have increased the complexity and volatility of Quebec's linguistic reality. We must think anew about language; we must decide what we want to achieve linguistically. In my view, it is a matter of identifying the appropriate balance between French the official and dominant public language, and the other languages, first and foremost English, doing in this way in the context of political and economic globalization whose "lingua franca" is English.

For the foreseeable what is yet to be Quebec cannot submit its linguistic fate to the North American linguistic market place. We know what issue the language market entails for la francophonie hors Quebec. However, Quebec cannot and must not pursue to become as French as Ontario is English, a formula that one advocate. That reflects neither who we are nor, for chiefly of us, what we want to be. Quebec must not essay to persuade all allophones to use French as their hearthstone language. The presence of a reasonable proportion of individuals who retain their mother tongue - in addition to using our usual language, French - is a social, cultural, and economic asset. That applies equally for speakers of aboriginal languages, whose rate of mother tongue retention is higher in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada.