# if Canada allegedly discriminates against non-French speakers, did upper IQ cohort try learn it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 8, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965 "2011-10-08T02:18:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/41 "2011-10-09T18:11:17Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > I bet every town outside Quebec has its own slightly different dynamic on this. I never got to know any of the ethnic French Canadian kids in town when growing up. Why? Mostly because those kids all went to French immersion and/or Catholic schools. In my Catholic school board, French kids didn’t go through the French immersion stream. They went to French-language schools. French immersion is a different concept; it’s not just dumping kids into a regular Francophone school. But even then there just weren’t a whole huge number of French kids. There were enough to put together a small school; they were outnumbered by English kids in immersion. **Muffin** , no can do. I didn’t grow up in Halton. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/42 "2011-10-09T19:03:33Z")
I grew up in Alberta and went to French immersion school from kindergarten to the 12th grade. There were over 60 kids in two classes in the first grade but only ~10 of us stuck through to the 12th. Also, not many of the kids in the class had any sort of French ancestry, I was one of the few. Although, because there were no actual French language schools in Alberta, we did pick up a couple of native French speakers in the class when their parents moved west for whatever reason. We even picked up a Parisienne whose family moved to Alberta to be closer to the mormon temple! ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/43 "2011-10-09T19:23:08Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > What these linguistic bigots conveniently forget is that in Canada, bilingualism is about not taking away the language and associated culture from people who’s ancestors were here prior to the country itself. the “linguistic bigots” are chafing over the politics of distribution of goodies from the Big Government, in this case in the form of cushy government jobs that, according to their claims, seem to go to one group of people in preference over some other group of people that they lobby for. If any of them is in fact trying to “take away” “language and associated culture” from anybody, it’s not apparent from the OP article. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/44 "2011-10-09T19:34:57Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Which reminds me, Spoons, were you a technical writer prior to sinking down into the mire? 😉 I was, and I worked with a woman who taught in the Waterloo program that you described. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/45 "2011-10-09T19:40:53Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > I wonder what Brimelow and his ilk would thing of our Northwest Territories, in which the official languages are Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, and Tlicho? > [@](#): > > Peter Brimelow once wrote that Canada can claim to have invented all modern political diseases. A recent column in the Canadian National Post [What happens when the heroes of the past meet the standards of today?, May 14, 2011] by Kathryn Blaze Carlson (email her) illustrates the Orwellian implications of the “multiculturalism” that Canada pioneered under Pierre Trudeau. Yup, I went back to the [VDARE cesspit](http://www.vdare.com/articles/canadas-orwellian-multiculturalists-writing-stephen-leacock-charlotte-whitton-out-of-histor) to find what Their Leader thinks. Indeed, the Hellhole that is Canada should make all WASP’s shake in fear! (Well, I’m White. But my people used a rude word based on “Saxon.” Between religions for many years, I never was a Protestant.) > [@](#): > > the “linguistic bigots” are chafing over the politics of distribution of goodies from the Big Government, in this case in the form of cushy government jobs that, according to their claims, seem to go to one group of people in preference over some other group of people that they lobby for. If any of them is in fact trying to “take away” “language and associated culture” from anybody, it’s not apparent from the OP article. Unclear. (Is the OP’s first language English? No great communicator he.) Hey, OP: What do you think of the main reason for the smelly treasure you dug up? That is, are you fearful of The Brown Threat here in the USA? From The [Southern Poverty Law Center](http://www.splcenter.org/vdare-foundation): > [@](#): > > Brimelow spent much of 2009 pounding the white nationalists message that the Republican Party would do better to spend its time attracting white voters rather than by reaching out to minorities. Brimelow took that message to hard right groups as well as expounding the idea on his website. In “Yes, It Is about Race. Quite right, too,” Brimelow explained the “tea party” movements and the furor found at town halls in the summer of 2009 as being “about race” and pointing out that “the backlash [against the Obama administration] is overwhelmingly white.” ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/46 "2011-10-09T20:02:10Z")
Sidenote: most of the people of New France were speaking French before most of the people of France. > **[History of French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French)** > > French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that specifically is classified under the Gallo-Romance languages. > The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history", describing the ethnic, political, social, technological, and other changes that affected the languages, and "internal history", describing the phonological and grammatical changes undergone by the language itself. > Before the Roman conquest of what is n... > **[History of Quebec French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Quebec_French)** > > Quebec French is different in pronunciation and vocabulary to the French of Europe and that of France's Second Empire colonies in Africa and Asia. > Similar divergences took place in the Portuguese, Spanish and English language of the Americas with respect to European dialects, but in the case of French the separation was increased by the reduction of cultural contacts with France after the 1763 Treaty of Paris in which France ceded Canada to Great Britain. > Although pronunciations like moé and to... ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/47 "2011-10-09T21:05:23Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > the “linguistic bigots” are chafing over the politics of distribution of goodies from the Big Government, in this case in the form of cushy government jobs that, according to their claims, seem to go to one group of people in preference over some other group of people that they lobby for. If any of them is in fact trying to “take away” “language and associated culture” from anybody, it’s not apparent from the OP article. Then they are ignorant of the Act of Union and how the second Baldwin-Lafontaine government had to deal with it. Quite simply, if you take away a person’s ability to communicate with his or her own government, you are forcing assimilation on that person, which eventually takes away that person’s language and associated culture. That wasn’t part of the deal, so any newcomers had better recognize it. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/48 "2011-10-09T21:16:38Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > They remember that. I think the attitude is, “Hey, you people lost at the Plains of Abraham, so you can suck it.” I feel that way about the Battle of the Spurs, but it looks like history went on without me. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/49 "2011-10-09T22:34:47Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > I feel that way about the Battle of the Spurs, but it looks like history went on without me. Ok. 🙂 But that wasn’t a very uncommon attitude until recently. Until the 1960s, the common attitude of English Canadians was that Canada was an English speaking country with a French speaking minority. What was stressed was, “We’re a British Dominion, we’re part of the Commonweath, etc” I’m looking here at a 1914 High School Canadian History textbook from Ontario, and it does talk about the French settlement of Canada and goes into detail about how the settlers of New France lived, but then there’s the chapter on the Seven Years War, and then the French in Canada are pretty much an afterthought. There’s a little bit about the Red River Rebellion and North-West Rebellion, and a chapter, or part of a chapter, on “Quebec 1864-1914”, which includes the great paragraph (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > In 1886 the Liberals aroused the anger of the habitants against the Conservatives by denouncing the refusal of the Government at Ottawa to reprieve > Riel, and at a general election they came into power under Mr. Honore Mercier, a brilliant orator, skilled to sway the people. Under him “Nationalism” became a > power in Canadian politics. **While we all hope that the French race has much to add to the richness of our national life, that is a very different thing from the > “nationalism” of Mr. Mercier, which often seemed to claim for the province of Quebec a special and paramount place in the Dominion.** Mr. Mercier was also, if possible, more extravagant than his predecessors. The bolded part wouldn’t be out of place in some editorials nowadays. Oh, there’s also a section on Quebec poets. But that’s pretty much it. (The book also has the great line “Manitoba was long the stormy petrel of Dominion politics.” I need to find a way to use that.) If it helps, the treatment of the First Nations is even worse. We find out that they were warlike, that the Huron-Iroquois were more interesting than the Algonquin, that they were naturally fickle, that they loved freedom, that the Iroquois had a form of democracy, that they were sexist, that they were haughty and dignified with a strict code of manners, that they were by nature “nervous and hysterical”, that they might have worshiped a Great Spirit, and that the Hudson Bay Company treated them really badly. But anyway, this was the common attitude in most of Canada until pretty recently.. . .that the French had a role in settling the place in the first place, and that was all very good and nice, but that Quebec should really get with the program and get over the whole French thing. You shouldn’t be surprised that that attitude still sort of exists. Add to that a lot of sentiments in the West, a lot of Westerners not having any use for Quebec or Ontario anyway, and they see it as just another case of Quebec, who they figure gets all the money…all their money… in transfer payments anyway, whining and demanding special treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/50 "2011-10-10T01:04:20Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Sidenote: most of the people of New France were speaking French before most of the people of France. > [History of French - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French) > [History of Quebec French - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Quebec_French) How is this sentence supposed to make any sense? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/51 "2011-10-10T01:25:38Z")
When New France was first being settled, there were many different languages spoken in France. The one that ended up becoming what we now know as French (French out of Paris) took quite some time to be adopted by pretty much everyone in France. It happens that the people in New France ended up all speaking French before all of France ended up speaking French. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/52 "2011-10-10T01:34:58Z")
Oh, you mean Quebec achieved language unification before France. Your bizarrely convoluted sentence made it sound as if, somehow, modern French had been invented in Quebec. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/53 "2011-10-10T01:43:07Z")
It’s a pity that transfer payments, such as equalization, have been confused with linguistic rights. I think Pearson made a mistake when he tried to cover both at the same conference. The first big push for transfer payments was made toward the end of the great depression, due to the problems suffered in the prairies. WWII put the development of a transfer program on hold, and it was eventually revisited by Pearson. Manning strongly rejected the idea, for he correctly perceived it to be a centralization of power by the federal government, which intended to look after health and welfare (Manning was also very strongly opposed to socialized health care). Eventually we ended up with transfer payment programs, which have been reviewed on an ongoing basis, and which will continue to be reviewed. Note that although Quebec, being a populous province, has been a signifiant player in the transfer payment debate and development, it was not the driving force behind it. Transfer payments have nothing to do with Quebec being a distinctly different culture with its own language. Indeed, transfer payments are certainly neither unique to Canada nor uncommon ( [Equalization payments - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments) ). It’s a pity that some people equate transfer payments with bilinqual employees of the federal government. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/54 "2011-10-10T01:45:31Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Oh, you mean Quebec achieved language unification before France. Your bizarrely convoluted sentence made it sound as if, somehow, modern French had been invented in Quebec. Bizarrely convoluted? Nah. Just read the links next time if you are having difficulty with context. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/55 "2011-10-10T04:14:45Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > There are also anglophones who oppose official bilingualism in places where both language communities coexist, such as Ottawa for example. In that case, their frustration is due to the fact that there visibly are more francophones than anglophones who get jobs requiring bilingualism, due to there being more bilingual (French-English) francophones than bilingual (English-French) anglophones. So they view bilingualism as the thing that keeps them out of a job, and since most francophones they know do speak English as I’ve said, they question the need for employees to know French. We can, like, all speak English right, even the French guys? But of course, even in places like Ottawa there are (few, but some) French speakers whose English is insufficient to communicate fluently, especially if they are, for example, in the emergency room having a stroke. So it makes sense to have bilingual workers, and for the unilingual anglophones who are affected by that, the solution is kind of obvious. But it’s easier to complain about being discriminated against than actually do something about it. Very good post, and you say nothing here with which I disagree. However, I did want to make the point from my own family history that doing something about it is not always so easy. We were living in Montreal in the 70s when the first strict language laws were enacted. I was only a teenager so I was only mildly annoyed, but my father saw the writing on the wall. French was the fourth language he had learned since birth, and he wasn’t very good at it. Since he was in his mid-40s it was hard for him to learn new languages and he was tired of having to learn them at all. As I said, he already had to learn second languages twice in his life when he moved from one country to another – first German right after college, and then English in his late 20s. He struggled with French for a while after we moved to Montreal, but at least in the early years: 1972-75, it wasn’t really necessary. After that it became clearer that he would need to know French to have any kind of substantial career there, and it would be impossible for him. So in 1977 we moved to Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/56 "2011-10-10T04:40:17Z")
My family bailed out of Montreal in the early 60s, along with a great many of their friends and co-workers. The writing was on the wall for Anglos, so over the next couple of decades, the economic centre of Canada completed its move from Montreal to Toronto. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/57 "2011-10-10T05:10:14Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > So, the evils besetting poor Canada are a warning about what All Those Mexicans might do Gringolandia–ignoring the very different histories of the two countries. Yes, it is kind of funny that American right-wing nativists are using Canada as the horror story about bilingualism, even though there is no way to validly compare the two countries, in terms of history and of both languages’ current status. I’d say it’s indicative of their shallow thought process. I think the comparison’s even been encouraged from time to time by Canadian anti-bilingualism activists who thought being supported by a relatively powerful subgroup of American right-wingers would help their cause. > [@RickJay](#): > > In my Catholic school board, French kids didn’t go through the French immersion stream. They went to French-language schools. French immersion is a different concept; it’s not just dumping kids into a regular Francophone school. Yes, this seems to be how it works where there are French-language schools available. I don’t know where **LC Strawhouse** is, but it’s possible that there just aren’t any French-language schools over there, so for French-language parents the best available option is French immersion. I know Canadian provinces have an obligation to offer public schooling to the minority official language group, but I’m not sure what this obligation actually entails, e.g. if it’s common for minority language public schools to be far and difficult to access, in places where the minority language group is small. > [@code\_grey](#): > > the “linguistic bigots” are chafing over the politics of distribution of goodies from the Big Government, in this case in the form of cushy government jobs that, according to their claims, seem to go to one group of people in preference over some other group of people that they lobby for. Do you agree with the claims of the “linguistic bigots”? Do you understand what we’ve explained here? > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m looking here at a 1914 High School Canadian History textbook from Ontario, and it does talk about the French settlement of Canada and goes into detail about how the settlers of New France lived, but then there’s the chapter on the Seven Years War, and then the French in Canada are pretty much an afterthought. There’s a little bit about the Red River Rebellion and North-West Rebellion, and a chapter, or part of a chapter, on “Quebec 1864-1914”, which includes the great paragraph (bolding mine): > […] > The bolded part wouldn’t be out of place in some editorials nowadays. Oh, there’s also a section on Quebec poets. But that’s pretty much it. (The book also has the great line “Manitoba was long the stormy petrel of Dominion politics.” I need to find a way to use that.) If there’s one thing that discussing this country with anglophone Canadians, here and elsewhere, has taught me, is that no matter how much one can claim to look at the issues completely dispassionately and considering all the facts, we’re always referring back to our preconceptions, to what we learned, to how our formative experiences shaped us. If I and an anglophone both look at Canada, we just don’t see the same thing. The things I can see, they’ll consider irrelevant or overblown, or they just won’t believe them, while they’ll see things that to me are the epitome of unimportance. I never knew how _major_ an issue Tim Horton’s apostrophe was to anglophones before I started posting here, for example. (There’s a recent thread where someone asked if McDonald’s has a different name in Canada, or something. If anybody’s wondering, here’s [McDonald’s of Canada](http://www.mcdonalds.ca/fr/)’s French-language website.) So because of this, it’s no wonder that what English Canadian editorialists today write is a function of what they learned and of the view of Canada they developed. School can definitely influence this. > [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Oh, you mean Quebec achieved language unification before France. Your bizarrely convoluted sentence made it sound as if, somehow, modern French had been invented in Quebec. I understood **Muffin** ’s post correctly, but for the record, when was modern French invented? What’s the cutoff date? > [@suranyi](#): > > I was only a teenager so I was only mildly annoyed, but my father saw the writing on the wall. French was the fourth language he had learned since birth, and he wasn’t very good at it. Since he was in his mid-40s it was hard for him to learn new languages and he was tired of having to learn them at all. As I said, he already had to learn second languages twice in his life when he moved from one country to another – first German right after college, and then English in his late 20s. > > He struggled with French for a while after we moved to Montreal, but at least in the early years: 1972-75, it wasn’t really necessary. After that it became clearer that he would need to know French to have any kind of substantial career there, and it would be impossible for him. So in 1977 we moved to Los Angeles. I’m not going to cry about that **suranyi**. Anyway, it looks like your family did all right in Los Angeles. But they decided that they had no intention of learning the language of the country where they were living, and that for this reason they should move elsewhere, in a place where they already spoke the national language. It’s a valid decision. Your father could have improved his French and made a career in Montreal. He simply saw no use for that. I won’t criticize that choice; in fact I think it’s great that he decided to go elsewhere instead of staying there, hoping for everyone to accommodate him. > [@Muffin](#): > > My family bailed out of Montreal in the early 60s, along with a great many of their friends and co-workers. The writing was on the wall for Anglos, so over the next couple of decades, the economic centre of Canada completed its move from Montreal to Toronto. Well, as you say Toronto was already moving past Montreal as the economic centre of Canada back in the 60s, so it’s not like anything that happened after that could have reversed that movement. And now Canada’s economic centre has moved westward again, towards Alberta. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/58 "2011-10-10T05:59:02Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > I’m not going to cry about that **suranyi**. Anyway, it looks like your family did all right in Los Angeles. But they decided that they had no intention of learning the language of the country where they were living, and that for this reason they should move elsewhere, in a place where they already spoke the national language. It’s a valid decision. I’m not **suranyi** ’s father, but I’d imagine the answer he’d give you to that is that he already did speak the language of the country he was living in, and all of a sudden, the province that he lived in decided that he wasn’t going to be allowed to use that language anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/59 "2011-10-10T06:23:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m not **suranyi** ’s father, but I’d imagine the answer he’d give you to that is that he already did speak the language of the country he was living in, and all of a sudden, the province that he lived in decided that he wasn’t going to be allowed to use that language anymore. Which has essentially happened to most of the groups within the British Empire at one time or another, starting with the British themselves (back when “British” meant “Welsh or Cornish, but not English”). And of course today the English [del]whine[/del] complain about the bilingual policy in Wales, too. My family is Anglo-Canadian all the way back\*, and most of them are pretty unenlightened about language policy. From a social science perspective, you either prop up the minority languages or you hasten their extinction. There isn’t really a neutral policy available for government to follow, since the social and economic pressure exerted by the prestige language of the majority is enormous. Not to mention the pressure from the USA. \*I guess technically some of them would have been Gaelic speakers in the 1700s, but as far back as our collective memory goes. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965/60 "2011-10-10T07:52:40Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > I understood **Muffin** ’s post correctly, but for the record, when was modern French invented? What’s the cutoff date? I don’t know. I expect during the 19th century, with some geezers holding out into the 20th century. Here is a list of languages native to Metropolitan France that are still spoken today : > **[Languages of France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_France)** > > French is the sole official language in France according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France. > In addition to French, several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees, such as Alsatian, a German dialect (specifically Alemannic; spoken by 1.44% of the national population); Basque, a language isolate; Breton, a Celtic language (spoken by 0.61%); Corsican, an Italo-Dalmatian language; ... > [@](#): > > • Indo-European languages > o Romance languages: > [INDENT] Oïl language family: > [INDENT] Bourguignon-Morvandiau >  Champenois or Campanois. >  Franc-Comtois. >  French. >  Gallo. >  Lorrain. >  Norman. >  Picard. >  Poitevin and Saintongeais. >  Walloon. >  Angevin. >  Manceau. >  Mayennais. >  Romande. Occitan language (also Lenga d’òc, Langue d’oc): >  Vivaroalpenc. >  Auvergnat. >  Gascon. >  Béarnese (Béarnais). >  Landese (Landais). >  Languedocien. >  Limousin. >  Nissart (Niçois or Niçart). >  Provençal. >  Franco-Provençal also named Arpitan: >  Bressan. >  Dauphinois. >  Forèzien. >  Jurassien. >  Lyonnais. >  Savoyard. Italian languages >  Corsican (Corsu). >  Ligurian language. >  Catalan (Northern Catalan).[/INDENT]o Germanic languages: >  Alsatian (Elsässerdeutsch). >  French Flemish: West Flemish dialect of Dutch. >  Lorraine Franconian aka Lothringen.o Celtic language: >  Breton aka Brita or Brezhoneg.[/INDENT]• Language isolate: > o Basque aka Euskara. The following is illustrative : > **[Histoire de la langue française](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histoire_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise)** > > Le français est une langue romane. Elle est parlée en France, en Belgique, au Canada, au Luxembourg, en Suisse et dans 51 autres pays, principalement en Afrique, qui pour la plupart ont fait partie de l’ancien empire colonial français, ainsi que la République démocratique du Congo, ancien Congo belge. > Issu de l’évolution du bas latin et du latin vulgaire vers le gallo-roman au cours du premier millénaire de l'ère chrétienne, le français, langue royale, devient une langue juridique et administrat... (My potted translation is bracketed passim.) > [@](#): > > À la veille de la Révolution française, on estime qu’un quart seulement de la population française parle français, le reste de la population parle des langues régionales. > \* > [On the eve of the French revolution, it is estimated that only a quarter of the French population spoke French, with the rest of the population speaking regional languages.]\* > > Au nord ce sont les parlers d’oïl, au sud les parlers d’oc, formes régionales de l’occitan, ainsi que le breton, le basque, le catalan, l’arpitan, le flamand, l’alsacien entre autres. L’unification du français débutée par Talleyrand et continuée par Jules Ferry a pour but de créer une seule langue française sur tout le territoire français. Si le français s’impose assez vite dans les régions où l’on parle des dialectes de langue d’oïl et du francoprovençal, des méthodes très coercitives sont employées afin d’éliminer le breton, l’occitan, le catalan, le basque, le corse, etc. (notamment des humiliations physiques sur les jeunes élèves, voir Vergonha (lingüicidi)). > > _[The d’oil dialects were in the north, the d’oc dialects (region forms of occitan) were in the south, and there were also Breton, Basque, Catalan, Arpitan, Flemish, Alsatian, among others. The unification of the French language begun by Talleyrand and continued by Jules Ferry was to create a single French for all French territory. When French was imposed rather quickly in regions where d’oil or Franco-Provençal dialects and were spoken, highly coercive methods were employed to eliminate Breton, Occitan, Catalan, Basque, Corsican, etc. (including physical humiliation of young students, see Vergonha (linguicide) ).]_ > > Dans son rapport de juin 1794 l’abbé Grégoire révéla qu’on ne parlait «exclusivement» le français uniquement dans « environ quinze départements » (sur 83). Il lui paraissait paradoxal, et pour le moins insupportable, de constater que moins de trois millions de Français sur 28 parlaient la langue nationale, alors que celle-ci était utilisée et unifiée « même dans le Canada et sur les bords du Mississippi28. » > \* > [In his report of June 1794, the Abbe Gregoire revealed only “about fifteen departments” (of 83) spoke “exclusively” in French. It seemed paradoxical, and not the least unbearable, to say the least and unbearable, to observe that less than three million out of 28 million French people speak the national language, while it was being used and unified “even in Canada and on the banks of the Mississippi.”]\* Also illustrative is : > **[History of French | Modern French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French#Modern_French)** > > For the period until around 1300, some linguists refer to the oïl languages collectively as Old French (ancien français). The earliest extant text in French is the Oaths of Strasbourg from 842; Old French became a literary language with the chansons de geste that told tales of the paladins of Charlemagne and the heroes of the Crusades. > The first notarized document in Modern French was redacted in Aosta in 1532, when in Paris Latin was still in use. The first government authority to adopt Modern ... > [@](#): > > The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon’s empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the French language has been essential to the concept of ‘France’, although in 1789 50% of the French people didn’t speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it ‘fairly’ – in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it wasn’t usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to “suburbs”]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French.”[10] Hobsbawm highlighted the role of conscription, invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public instruction laws, which allowed to mix the various groups of France into a nationalist mold which created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, while the various “patois” were progressively eradicated. Now I can’t say which figure is correct, but it certainly looks like a great many people in France didn’t speak French until at least the 19th century. Meanwhile, in New France : > **[French language in Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language_in_Canada#The_16th_century)** > > French is the mother tongue of approximately 7.8 million Canadians (19.6 percent of the Canadian population, second to English at 54.9 percent) according to the 2021 Canadian census. Under the 1969 Official Languages Act, French is recognized as an official language of Canada alongside English and both have equal status at the federal government level. Most native francophones in Canada live in Quebec, the only province where French is the majority and the sole official language. In 2016 In... > [@](#): > > The French language becomes then the language of every non-native people: the settlers, two thirds of whom are speaking patois, achieve in a quarter of century, to unify linguistically speaking the New France, while in France it is slowly making progress for several centuries. > > _[The French language becomes the language of every non-native person; the settlers of New France, two thirds of whom speak patois, achieve linguistic unification in a quarter century, while France slowly makes progress over several centuries.]_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-canada-allegedly-discriminates-against-non-french-speakers-did-upper-iq-cohort-try-learn-it/598965.md?page=4)