Machjo

Don't you know English? French as a stand-alone attributive suggests from France. Not only are you not bilingual, but not even unilingual. Hmmm... Maybe you mean French-speaking PM, or French-Canadian PM, or maybe francophone PM?

Mais si shte parlerais en ma langue a moé, t'aurait du mal à'm comprendre la.

I think ou're missing something here. I'm not much of a fan of Official Bilingualism, at least as it's currently defined, myself. However, I also believe that in spite of my beliefs, most Canadians do support it. If they wouldn't, I'm sure it would have disappeared long ago. And seeing that French Canadians form but a minority of Canada's population, and that even some French Canadians oppose Official Bilingualism, at least in its current form, that leaves but one possibility: that many English Canadians support it, some even more so than their French-speaking counterparts. So if you want to blame anyone for our current Official Bilingualism, it's clear that blindly pointing the finger at French Canadians is a pretty ad hoc way of solving this.

And some people are quite happy living in their caves, and so have barely a use for their mother tongue, let alone a second language.

From that same website of yours: Growth in Internet ( 2000 - 2008 ) English: 226.7 % Chinese: 894.8 % Spanish: 619.3 % Japanese: 99.7 % French: 503.4 % Portuguese: 857.7 % German: 135.5 % Arabic: 1,545.2 % Russian: 1,125.8 % Korean: 93.3 % Growth rate is more important than current figures sinse it shows future trends. The performance of English is proving pretty mediocre there. And then what about the quality? I've read sites in English that I had to try to decipher and still coudn't be sure that I'd understood them correctly. Add to that that English has penetrated no more than 37.2 %of the internet so far. It might seem impressive, but when we consider how English has been touted as the world language ever sinse the 1950's at least, we'd think it should have penetrated more of a market than that. And if we look at the language growth rates, it looks like the percentage of English-language websites is set not to grow, but shrink.

I'll believe it when I see it.

To which province did Trudeau send the troops again?

Not really national, but Official. Nunavut has four. Quebec has one, etc. This applies only at the federal level.

A few points on this: 1. I'm Franco-Ontarian myself. 2. You're simplifying things too much. I've seen native English-speaking Canadians defend Official Bilingualism frothing at the mouth with devotion to the cause, just as I've seen French Canadians oppose it with equal fervour. It's not so much a French-English issue. In fact, it's not even necessarily a federalist-sovereigntist issue. Various factors play a role in why a certain person will support or oppose Official Bilingualism. In my case, I tend to oppose it, at least as a long-term solution, on grounds of justice and inefficiency. 3. I do agree that many though by no means all French Canadians can have a somewhat imperialistic mindset when it comes to their language diffusion policies. Robert Phillipson in his book 'Language Imperialism' holds no punches. He's extremely critical of the British Council, USAID, and Canada too (he doesn't specify through which agency, but I'd discovered that at least CIDA is involved in it). But France does not escape unscathed either by his objective application of his ideas. He points out that France's language policy today towards its Patois is in fact (and he meant it wihtout sarcasm, inuendo, or empty rhetoric, but according to clearly defined objective criteria) very similar to that of Nazi Germany, to its own embarrassement. Unfortunately, at least some French Canadians have also adopted this idea of diffusing their culture among non-French-speakers. On that I can fully agree. To be fair though, we need to acknowledge too that Quebec currently treats its First Nations better than any other province at present. Many Cree in the North of Quebec study all their subjects entirely in Cree for their first few years of school, and the grades in which this is done continue to grow. So though many French Canadians can go too far in the diffusion of their culture, any objective observer will acknowldge some positives here too. As for the First Nations, seeing that we'd had a systematic policy of cultural genocide towards Canada's First Nations up until very recently, we have a moral obligation to do something to help maintain their languages and cultures. Though Quebec has been complicit in this cultural genocide, it has also accepted some of the rsponsibility for it and is at least trying to make amends. English Canada has given little more than lip service to it. So it's not just a matter of a finger-pointing blame game between English and French speakers. You simplify the situation too much by just throwing all the blame on all French-speakers without acknnowledgeing any diversity among us and among English-speakers too, trying to portray all English-speakers with halos floating over their heads and all French-speakers as holding tridents and having horns on their heads.

Actually, in one book I'm reading Quebec treats its native populations better than its other provincial counterparts do.

Are you sure about that? If by bilingual you mean French-English bilingual, no. According to: http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo15-eng.htm Only about 17% of Canadians asess themselves as knowing both of Canada's Official Languages. Remember though that self-assessments generally give better results than objective tests. So the reality is likely to be even more dismal. if, however, you mean bilingual in any two languages, then maybe you're right. I don't know. You'd have to come up with the statistics to back you up then.

This is what I mean. In Europe right now they've started to revamp their whole second-language learning policies in recognition of the fact that their old policies weren't working, based on the latest linguistic research. Scary thing is though, Canada's are similar to theirs, but we're just keeping the old system they've started to abandon, without any critical thought put into it. Sheepish really.

I was referring to cases of obvious necessity, such as a police officer in downtown Montreal where English-French bilingualism is practically the norm. Or cases of such high-ranking officials that they must communicate with their subordinates in provincial and territorial branches of federal institutions on a regular basis. Of course we won't hear them on TV. But if you're responsible for communicating with your subordinates regularly and they are the heads of various regional branches acros Canada, you'd better be able to communicate with them. It woudl save us more money that way that to hire an interpretor for hi every day. If that's the case, might as well just train the interpretor to do his job for him.

Really? Funny that. When I was in China, I often found myself having to communicate with Koreans, Japanese and Russians not in English, but in Chinese. A friend of mine had an offer to teach Chinese in Algeria (she taught French in China), and another was asked by a university in Argentina if he coud recruit Spanish-speaking Chinese teachers sinse their university couldn't keep up with the demand for its Chinese courses. And in Germany, last I checked, over 50 high schools offered Mandarin as an alternative elective to English. I've also attended a number of international conferences where a team of interpretors had to be present. And if you search the net, you'll come across plenty of references to the decline of English as a mother-tongue and the poor English level of most so-called speakers of English as a second language. My own experience as an interpretor and observing interpretors backs me up on this. I've seen interpretors lose control of a discussion just because one of the interlocutors doesn't have the right accent. In one case, a Chinese-English interpretor who could understand US and British English just fine lost control of a discussion with a Pakistani, an Australian, and a Cameroonian present. It is increasingly obvious that a common language is needed, but English fails to fulfil the role.

Really? Funny that. When I was in China, I often found myself having to communicate with Koreans, Japanese and Russians not in English, but in Chinese. A friend of mine had an offer to teach Chinese in Algeria (she taught French in China), and another was asked by a university in Argentina if he coud recruit Spanish-speaking Chinese teachers sinse their university couldn't keep up with the demand for its Chinese courses. And in Germany, last I checked, over 50 high schools offered Mandarin as an alternative elective to English. I've also attended a number of international conferences where a team of interpretors had to be present. And if you search the net, you'll come across plenty of references to the decline of English as a mother-tongue and the poor English level of most so-called speakers of English as a second language. My own experience as an interpretor and observing interpretors backs me up on this. I've seen interpretors lose control of a discussion just because one of the interlocutors doesn't have the right accent. In one case, a Chinese-English interpretor who could understand US and British English just fine lost control of a discussion with a Pakistani, an Australian, and a Cameroonian present. It is increasingly obvious that a common language is needed, but English fails to fulfil the role.

When CIDA is involved in promoting English-language hegemony abroad, that's cultural imperialism. A good book I could recommend on the subject is Robert Phillipson's 'Linguistic Imperialism', a very well-researched account of the systematic way in which some countries strategize to promote their languages abroad, well aware of the economic, military, scientific, and political advantages that accrue to their nations from this.

What you just said makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So now you're suggesting that being bilingual somehow equates with being a traitor to one's culture? Just when I thought I'd seen it all.

The problem with empire though is that it intends to achieve unity through the imposition of the dominant culture on others, which is bound to promote resistance and conflict, unlike federation which tries to promote unity through consultation.

You know, I couldn't care if a person learnt Klingon as his second language as it does contain a culture of its own. perhaps a limited and fictional one, granted, but a culture it is none-the-less, giving the pupil a chance to thus compare to distinct cultures. But has FORTRAN developed a cultural community of its own? How would learning FORTRAN expand one's world view beyond computer programming? If a child learns Spanish with the same attitude, can we honestly expect that child to learn it well?

I can understand you, Canadien. It ever shocks me just how materialistic our culture has become. it seems any sense of spirituality, of doing what is right, of valuing human interactions for their own sake, etc. is dying in this country and being replaced by nothing but material accumulation. And as for programming languages, their use is valuable but limited, as you seem to understand well. Some people I just can't understand though.

Again, I'm not clear what you want to say here. If my opinion, if a civil servant is forced to learn English or French just as a 'fundamental characteristic of this country', I'd define that as learning the language for its own sake. If you mean by this that demographic circumstances require some persons to know both languages fluently in order to be able to perform their tasks, then I can agree. Just to take an example. My father went on a one-year French language course in the military paid for by the taxpayer, and yet he still can't speak French. He can understand much of it, but that's it. And this is after having heard it in the home between me and my mother over the years. Imagine! Now you explain to me how that money was wisely invested. Remember, that's our tax money. I love my father dearly, and this is not a criticism of him. Fact is, thugh I speak a few languages fluently, languages are not my father's forte. Doesn't the government have trained linguist to advise on wise and efficient language instruction policies that will avoid such wastage of resources?

So what do you think we can learn from these periods that we could apply in Canada? I'm more familiar with the Pax romana than the Pax Britannica owing to my reading selections. One component of the Pax Romana involved a relative cessation of imperial expansion and a shift in focus to cultural consolidation, spread of the Latin tongue and Roman culture throughout the Empire. This spread of Latin also helped later to pave the way for the rapid spread of the Christian Faith which also contributed to promoting unity within the empire, though that was after the Pax Romana and not without its birth pangs.

Are you confusing pax with empire? Pax means peace. The Pax Romana and the Pax Britannica are periods of relative peace during the time of each of these empires, and not the empires themselves.

Interesting you should have noticed the imperialistic connotation too.

And Hydraboos, if you're teaching your daughter to value second-language learning solely for its material benefits, that is purely materialistic. As for its being 'none of my business', I disagree. How I raise my kids affects the society around me, and so is your business. And so the welfare of your children is mine. So yes, it's my business. It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. You're free to disagree with me.