Machjo

Now this is something I strongly disagree with. Why should a civil servant get free French or English courses while those in the private sector don't. Besides, education is a provincial responsibility, not federal. If the federal government is short of bilingual staff, then why doesn't it bring the issue up with the provincial governments to get their education system right. Once a person is finished highschool, he should have to pay any further training at his own expense. No Canadians should be more equal than others in this respect. If public servants can get free second-language education, then so should all Canadians. Or inversely, none.

And no Anglo suffers from the same blind nationalism?

Good idea. if everyone else agrees, I'd love to. I'm sure at least one person in this thread would be knocked out of the conversation.

No, that has to do with pure politics. I remember a friend who'd mentioned how one of his aboriginal friends was quite sour about only european languages being added to the list. If it were about identity, why choose languages that bear the names of overseas countries?In the end, the whole thing is political, an attempt to cater to the ethnic identities of the two largest ethnic groups, to both of which I belong.

Yes, it's an asset, just like knowing computer programming is an asset. But that's a far cry from claiming it to be a national identity most can't even function in. Ignatieff was not saying that it's an asset like computer programming might be, but a part of a common identity. Lanuage forms an identity not through birth, but through mastery.

It's part of who we (i.e. you, Smallc, and I) because we know them both. It's not a part of who most Canadians are.

They are but official, not necessarily knwon to most Canadians. Most are unilingual English or French speaking, and even Statistics Canada confirms this.

And according to that definition, only a person can have a bilingual identity. Sure an organization can be officially bilingual and have a bilingual identity as an organization, but that identity does not automatically transfer to its members. In a democracy like Canada, however, each person ought to share the national identity. We can't have an abstract national identity that is incongruent with the personal identities of most Canadians. After all, it would be a little ludicrous for a unilingual Canadian to call himself bilingual just for the sake of a national identity. Only at the federal level. At the provincial and territorial levels, the number of official languages can range from 1 to 4. This is but an organizational administrative, not personal, identity. I do see something wrong with it. He should be sincere and not pretend. If he wants to flaunt that he's bilingual, wonderful, so am I. But if he's to suggest that only bilinguals have the essence of Canadian identity, even if that's not what he meant, that's not appropriate. Again, I'm sure it's not what he meant, but then that just shows that he can be too knee-jerk of a PM. Is that the kind of PM we want? Because the thredstarter wanted to express his zenophobia.

I'm sure your right on his intentions, but it was very badly worded. Taken at face value, it leaves the very definition of 'identity' ambiguous. After all, how can an identity shared by only about 17% of us count as a 'national' one? It would have been more accurate then to refer to national identities. After all, if an identity is but national but not personal for most, then it is but an abstract and imaginary one for those who don't share it at a personal level. But again, I'm sure you're right and that it just came out wrong. But then that also suggests that Ignatieff doesn't have a clearly defined idea of where exactly French-English bilingualism fits into the national identity, which also suggests that he's willing to say anything on a whim to stir applause. Seems like an ill-thought out off-the-cuff remark on his part. And that's not what we want from a future PM.

As a Franco-ontarian myself, I share your sentiment.

Though I didn't agree with the tone of Leafless' OP and some of the statements he made in it, I will defend him on a few specific points in it. As for English_French bilingualism, statistically it is part of the identity of no more than about 17% of Canadians.

If he really meant this, then he's essentially implying that only about 17% of Canadians have the essence of being Canadian. Highly offensive.

I acknowledge that the development and adoption of Official Bilignualism is an act of pure political expediency in an attempt to bribe Quebec to stay in Canada. It's success in that respect is hard to measure, though I'm guessing the results are likley mixed, with Official Bilingualism having baught some Sovereigntists to the federalist camp, though obviously not all. Personally though, I'm revulted by language policies based on purely political considerations, with little to no thought put into the question of how efficiently it will improve communicability at the grassroots. By the way, a few scholarly publications I've read acknowledge the purely political motivation behind it. Also, my statement that most Canadians probably support it in no way implies that they necessarily know what they are supporting, other than a well-marketted 'Canadian identity'.

And may I add, their ability to read, wirte and understand contracts and defend themselves and their legal rights in a court of law. This right should not limit itself to native English-speaking Canadians, but to all Canadians. Sure we have official bilingualism, but that might not help a native who's weak in both official languages, or a French Canadian trying to sign a contract in English Canada where government doesn't guarantee official bilingualism in the private sector. By the way, I'm not a native English speaker either.

What low linguistic expectations? Have you ever tried to function in English in parts of central Quebec? I know French fluently, but that hadn't stopped me at times from pretending, just to satisfy my curiosity as to how far I could go in English. And guess what. Most of them functioned in English about as well as you just described above. If you want the opinion of an expert on this subject, look at the video at the end of this text. The speaker, Claude Piron, is a professor of linguistics at the University of Geneva, and was an interpretor from English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin Chinese into French at the UN General Assembly and other international organizations, and he's a native speaker of both French and Esperanto. So I'm guessing he knows more than most about what he's talking about. You also seem to assme that a language needs to be unnecessarily complicated in order to be complex. I can prove you wrong on that with one simple example: Let's suppose we replaced mice with mouses, or the plural aircraft with aircrafts. Would they in any way reduce our ability to express the plural? On the contrary, in the case of aircraft above, it would make the language not only easier and more consistent, but more precise and thus capable of even greater complexity. Also, have you ever been to an international conference? I have, to a few of them. And inmost cases, a few interpretors were needed for more than a few languages, in spite of the fact that most had studied English for years. What awaste. You forget that a language is only as useful as we manage to master it. As for impoverishing everyone linguistically, that's ludicrous. I speak one constructed language, and it has not stopped me from learning other more difficult languages. In fact, if anything, it helped to boost my confidence in language learning, and thus motivate me to learn other languages. In fact, we might take us two as examples. I know a constructed language and you don't. Yet, I also know three other languages, two completely fluently, and one well enough for fluent daily conversation, one Germanic, one Romance, and one Sino-Tibetan. I can also read Arabic and Persian with extreme difficulty in the standard script (and time permitting, intend to learn them further). This, by the way, is also backed by research, the link to which I'll include below too. Looking at it that way, then, forcing pupils to learn French or English as their first second language could not only not benefit them, but even harm them. After all, by failing to learn their second language, they not only fail to learn their second language, but have their confidence in language learning destroyed in the process. Should their first second language be an easy second language, not only do they succeed in learning their second language, but could also have their confidence in learning a third language boosted. What's the point of such complicated English if few can learn it? And especially in a democratic system of government, where all citizens are supposed to have equal access to knowledge, and especially in a country where higher education isn't free. You're views seem quite Anglo-centric in their ignorance of the difficulties inherent in learning English for other Canadians and the concequences on their quality of life, ability to find work, access to knowledge, ability to communicate with their co-citizens, and access to democracy, etc. Andhere are the links: http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf

Just another reinterpretation of the Inquisition.

Exactly. Gandhi said it best when he said: I like your Christ... but your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Hmmm... I'm not sure about that. But I do believe many do believe in their civilizing mission, to spread their language around the world to civilize the ignorant savages who can be saved through a knowledge of the English language. Imperialism is alive and well through language hegemony. I think you'd be impressed with Robert Phillipson's 'Linguistic Imperialism'.

I'm happy to see you're practising random acts of kindness by giving him the benefit of the doubt too. It is theCanadian way after all.

Interesting. I'd never really thought of it that way. But you do have a point. Countries with larger population densities need to use their resources more wisely, and so education and international communication, not natural resource exploitation, becomes the main sources of national, not only personal, wealth. And it's in those same countries that we see a greater concern for poor levels of bilingualism (not that they're any more bilingual than in Canada, but simply that they tend to be more aware of this deficiency and its consequences and the need to change it) more sepcifically, and education more generally too. Interesting perspective, thanks. It's the first time I'd made a link between language education and resources as a matter of language policy.

I was just trying to give him the benefit of any doubt. Yeah, I know, there is no doubt, so I guess we were just trying to be kind.

Give him a break; he's still working on becoming unilingual.

I agree, and did consider that. What I was emphasizing there was the trend. Clearly other languages are catching up, which doesn't bode well for English as a world language in the long term.

You're right, Pliny. I should have said that English spelling is by no means phonetic. No, I take that back. You're partially right. Let's look at the gh. In older forms of English, it represented a voiced velar fricative. Some names of Arabic and Persian origin in modern English using the same sound will sometimes keep the gh spelling referring back to the older sound. In many words though, that gh no longer represents any sound, but stands merely as a reminder of its past. We find the same with ph in photograph. Phonemically, it could just as easily be spelt fotograf, but keeping the ph stands as a reminder of the Greek letter phi in the original. So in some cases, the spelling represents not pronunciation, but root significance and recognition for those who know the original language. Seeing that Latin and Greek are no longer taught any more than Old English is, all these exceptional spellings thus become nothing more than meaningless, irrational gibberish.

I think it's pretty obvious that Leafless is outright prejudiced against French-speakers, non-caucasians, foreigners, First Nations, Inuit, foreigners, and probably many others too. I'm not politically correct myself and don't belive in sacred cows when it comes to political debate. Tradition, religion, you name, in a democracy, it's all fair game for attack. On that front, I have no issues with one's opinions on immigration whatever they are, or likewise on Official Bilingualism, an unrelated topic to this thread that Leafless chose to bring up here. But at the very least, come up with legitimate arguments to defend your case, Leafless, rather than plain prejudice.