Spoken on all five continents French is considered to be a world language (Ball, 1997).1 With over 220 million French speakers across the globe, French is ranked the sixth most widely spoken language after Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic.2 It is also regarded as an international language of reference, being one of the working languages of the United Nations as well as the sole language used for the deliberations of the Court of Justice of the European Union. 2 Furthermore it holds official status in 28 countries. It is important to mention that this ‘world language’ status is not a recent phenomenon.3 The rich historic past of the French language saw French spread from Northern France to England during the 1066 Conquest; to the Middle East after the Crusades and from the seventeenth century onwards to North America, Indian Ocean, Oceania, Asia and Africa during the development of overseas trading-posts and colonisation (Battye et al., 1992).4 Focusing on Northern Africa and North America, in particular French speaking Canada, this essay will aim to discuss through comparison the sociolinguistic situation of the French language by considering the linguistic dynamic in which French operates and historical, political, social and cultural questions.
Firstly we must look at the linguistic dynamic in which French operates in North America and Northern Africa. In North America, Canada is the largest community of francophones outside of France. With a population of 28.1 million, more than 9 million Canadians speak the French language, of which 25 percent are native speakers (L1) and 11 percent are second language speakers (L 2). The geographical distribution of francophones is not even, mostly concentrated in the re...
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...filling the more elite managerial positions with their average salary notably higher than that of the French speaker. In 1967 the report of the Royal commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism it was recognised that the French speaking people suffered discrimination in terms of social advancement in industry and commerce. However due to advancements in legislation in 1972 the office de la langue français turned attention towards the creation of scientific and technological terminology making French more acceptable for the workplace. This saw a 12 percent increase in French speaking managerial roles from 18% in 1964 to 30% in 1979. Interestingly this attention to making the French language more accessible for the workplace is something which if mirrored by Maghreb governments would make the Arabic language more useful in the modern world of science and technology.
Bélanger, Claude. "The Official Languages Act of Canada - Studies on the Canadian Constitution and Canadian Federalism - Quebec History." .Marianopolis College, Nov. 2005. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
...to identity with at least one of the countries predominate languages, English or French, dictated the degree in which they could participate in Canadian life. According to the Commission, this participation was real under two conditions: “that both societies, the French-speaking as well as the English-speaking, accept[ed] newcomers much more rapidly than they have done in the past; and that the two societies willingly allow other groups to preserve and enrich, if they so desire, the cultural values they prize[d]” (RCBB Book 1 xxv). It creates an interesting take on the acceptance of those “othered” groups, as change was necessary not only on the part of the minorities but also from Canada’s French and English-speakers. The Commissions work remains focused on language and culture, more so than ethnicity amongst a bilingual, bicultural and “othered” Canadian society.
Since Wilfrid Laurier is a francophone prime minister, the help he brought to unify English and French speakers was significant. His action of compromising French and English in Canada allows the two cultures to come and prosper together. When Laurier finally triumphed in the 1896 election. The main issue at that period was the Manitoba School Question, a complex tangle of French and English language rights. The Manitoba Schools Question punched all the hot buttons of nineteenth century Canadian politics: it was a French-English issue, a Catholic-Protestant controversy, a conflict over the roles of the federal and provincial governments, and a struggle about the proper relationship between church and the state. It brought down a federal government and its shaky and ultimately short-lived resolution was a major defeat for French language and Catholic educational rights outside the province of Québec. So the action of compromising these two languages effectively solved the problem of disunion in the education system. The Balancing Act Wi...
No matter what side of the spectrum a person may fall on, the history of the French language in Louisiana runs deep. It was introduced to this land in the eighteenth century as Europeans emigrated from France and the Acadian refugees ventured from Canada. French was Louisiana’s language. As mentioned earlier, efforts are being made to preserve the general French language and background of Louisiana ("Parlez-Vous? Some Louisiana Pupils Being Immersed in French Instruction", 2011). Louisiana currently has thirty schools that offer the French immersion program. CODOFIL is working diligently to increase the amount of schools that offer French immersion programs. It is crucial that these programs be implemented in order to maintain a unique and special characteristic of Louisiana ("Parlez-Vous? Some Louisiana Pupils Being Immersed in French Instruction").
The Francophone’s population made up twenty-five percent of Canada’s population, and they mainly resided in Quebec. The native language of Quebec was French, and their religion was focused on the Roman Catholic Churches. It was different from the other nine provinces, which had a majority of English population following Protestant Churches. For the Quebecers, they felt that their distinct cultural identities have been neglected. They felt uncomfortable about being part of a nation that refused to understand their own culture, history, and language. The possibility that one day Quebec would be dominated by English population threatened the stability of the French societies’ culture, language, and educational system. The local government be...
“New France was not merely the settlement of a few fur traders; it was also a colony of Christ in the New World, even more a colony of Christ, or of the Church, than of France.” Due to the pious believers that inhabited New France, the country was run in a particular way, separating itself from France. Although falling under the jurisdiction of “New France,” the Acadians governed separately than the rest of the country and were a separate entity within New France. Today, “the Acadians are the French speaking population of the Canadian Maritime provinces,” and these are the Acadians that were not displaced during the expulsions, under British rule. Acadia’s beginnings, with the construction of Port Royal, could have marked the colony for success, but instead, led to a troubling conclusion for the European descendents. Through failed leadership, two major expulsions, and a takeover of the Acadian peoples’ French culture, the once-thriving group has been displaced primarily to Louisiana, taking on a new identity of Cajuns.
Scott, M. (2011, November 28). More anglophones see English-French relations as problem. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from Montreal Gazette website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/More+anglophones+English+French+relations+problem+Poll/5777450/story.html
Since British Settlers took control of Canada from the French, the needs of the remaining French Canadians, or Quebecois, have consequently been overlooked. Several events in Canadian History have resulted in heated feelings between French and English Canadians. Although the majority of English Canadians have tried to reconcile with the French by making numerous attempts to mend the relationship, questions relating to the needs of French Canadians still exists today. Various key sources indefinitely establish that the that the needs of French Canadians were not met, which will be proven through an in depth analysis of Quebecois Nationalism, Heritage Problems in Quebec, as well as impending acts of terrorism in Quebec.
Canada has officially been bilingual since the Constitution Act in 1867 (Santrock et al., 284). Since this act researchers have found many advantages of bilingualism on cognitive development. Bilingualism enhances mental flexibility such as divergent thinking, task-switching efficiency, and promotes advanced vocabulary. Bilingual children have superior meta-linguistic awareness; consequently, they are more aware of the structure of language and its nature. Bilinguals are more efficient at attention control; they focus on important tasks and information with ease. French courses should be mandatory for all Canadian students since bilingualism benefits meta-linguistic awareness, mental flexibility, and control of attention.
In general, Quebec is overwhelmingly French speaking, while the rest of Canada is overwhelmingly English speaking. Language has remained one of the key symbols of Quebecois nationalism and has been central in the arguments for the protection of a minority culture in Quebec. French Canadians were, and still are overwhelmingly Catholic, while English Canadians tend to be Protestant (Fitzmaurice, 1985). The cause of linguistic segmentation in Canada goes back to the British conquest in Quebec in 1759. The primary institution that has defined the character of French Canadian nationalism in Quebec from the mid 19th to the 20th century is the Roman Catholic Church (Fenwick, 1981). It was the Church that essentially articulated the values and dominated the culture of French Canada and it was the Church that helped provide the elite, which mediated relations between French Canadians and the
The French and the English had coexisted relatively peacefully in North America for nearly a century. But by the 1750's, as both English and French settlements expanded, religious and commercial tensions began to produce new frictions and new conflicts. The French had explored and claimed a vast region of the continental interior, ranging from Louisiana in the South to the Great Lakes in the North. To secure their hold on these enourmous claims, they founded a whole string of communities, missions, trading posts, and fortresses. The region was enclosed by the four major cities: Montreal, Detroit, New Orleans, and Quebec, the center of the French empire in North America.
Crawford, James. “A nation divided by one language.” Guardian.co.uk. 8 Mar 2001. Web. 11 October 2014
Mollin, S., 2006. “English as a Lingua Franca: A New Variety in the New Expanding Circle?”, The Nordic Journal of English Studies 5(2), pp. 41-57. Available from
The Norman invasion of 1066 AD began a period of two centuries in which French was the official language of England, resulting in the introduction of many words with French or Latin roots, such as 'baron', 'justice' and 'government' (Beal, J. 2012, p. 64). English was first used in Parliament in 1362 AD and gradually displaced French (Appendix I, in Seargea...
To commence this discussion, it is first essential to establish an understanding surrounding the role of language in relation to national identity. Theoretically, the more power language has in this relation, the more powerful language planning may be when creating a national identity. However, the role language plays in this respect is somewhat problematic to define and has proven to be a debatable topic among nationalists, sociologists and sociolinguists. For instance, May demonstrates that ‘sociological commentators, unlike sociolinguists, have generally been loath to apportion a prominent role to language in the explanation of minority ethnic and national identity claims’ (2001: 8). Consequently emulating distaste from sociologists to credit language with significant power in a national identity. In a similar sense, de Vries notes that, in relation to a language community, ‘social scientists have generally ignored the systemic properties of language’ (1991: 39), thus, concurrently suggesting with May, a disagreement from the social sciences over the role of language in terms of identity and national identity. Similarly, circa the French revolution, the concept