Fraser Institute Publishes new study on Official Languages

[Machjo]

It would be fascinating to know how much was spent to maintain other diversity related policy demands... Managing affirmative action alone I hear costs 1.8 billion yearly... just managing it.. never mind the costs of lost productivity, court cases, lawyer fees etc...

Though I value diversity, I also value unity. In fact, I don't even believe one is possible without the other. However, there are much more efficient ways of achieving unity in diversity than what we are doing now. Indonesia is an excellent example of such an efficient model.

[Leafless]

Of course, leafless uses the term "artificial" in a diffrent sensse, meaning something that has no place in Canada. But that's another matter.

It was simply meant to mean that the French language in Canada cannot influence Canadian society (relating to the French culture) on it's own and requires the support of the federal government utilizing corrupt language policies and vast amounts of tax payers money.

[Smallc]

Indonesia is an excellent example of such an efficient model.

Yo \u think we should follow the model of Indonesia? Seriously?

[Machjo]

I don't believe Argus mentioned anything of the sort. If there was one official language only, all immigrants would be required to know it in order to become citizens. If someone chose to raise their child in an all-officially-English Canada, yet teach them only some other language, then, such is their choice. But they should therefore be aware of the consequences. In other words, it is not a right to have a country accomodate your chosen language, it is a duty for you to know and understand the country's language. I, for one, certainly wouldn't expect to immigrate to Brazil, let's say, and then demand that I have services provided to me in English only. Rather, I'd expect I would have to learn Portugese, and that my children would learn the same in school, whether or not I chose to also teach them English at home.

Strange that. I wasn't even thinking of immigrants when I'd typed that. What made you think that I was thinking of immigrants?

You do realise, don't you, that many native born Canadians, many having lived in Caanda for generations if not thousands of years before our own ancestors even arrived, can speak neither English nor French. I would hardly call such people immigrants who should just pack up thei bags and go back home. What are you suggesting? That we build a bridge over the Bearing Strait and send them back through Alaska to the Caucasus?

[Machjo]

Yo \u think we should follow the model of Indonesia? Seriously?

they speak over 300 native languages, yet through rational language planning, 99% of their population knows the common national language. Compare that to Canada's success in its language policies, with only about 17% speaking both official languages. Again, 99% vesus 17%. Which do you think has proven the superior language policy? Seriously.

[Machjo]

It was simply meant to mean that the French language in Canada cannot influence Canadian society (relating to the French culture) on it's own and requires the support of the federal government utilizing corrupt language policies and vast amounts of tax payers money.

Have you never lived in Quebec? Yes, I agree that the Federal Policy is highlyinefficient, and I agree that English-Canadians should not be forced to learn French. Having said that, however, I will say that even without official bilingualism, French would continue to influence Canadian culture. Just look at all the newspapers, ratio, TV, etc. that have flourished in Quebec without government financing. Ironically enough, that's also my main argument for why we need to cut government spending on arts and culture in French and English; they don't need government help.

[Machjo]

In fact, this leads to another question:

Considering that most Indonesians do not speak Bahasa Indonesia as their mother tongue, how is it that Indonesia's schools managed to make 99% of the population knowledgeable in the language while Canada has only been able to manage 17%? This reflects badly on Canada's provincial educations systems to say the least.

[Smallc]

Yes, we in Canada are doing such a terrible job at everything...especially compared to Indonesia. In Canada, we have two major language groups that exist peacefully together and are for the most part loyal to our country. I don't know what more we could ask for.

[Machjo]

Yes, we in Canada are doing such a terrible job at everything...especially compared to Indonesia.

Regardless of Indonesia's other problems. We're discussing language policy here. Other issues are separate.

In Canada, we have two major language groups that exist peacefully together and are for the most part loyal to our country.

Have you evr heard of the Bloc and the PQ?

I don't know what more we could ask for.

How about compatriots who can communicate with one another? What a concept.

[Smallc]

Regardless of Indonesia's other problems. We're discussing language policy here. Other issues are separate.

No, issues of country are not separate from other issues of country. We can't say Indonesia does things so well without pointing out that we are also doing well.

Have you ever heard of the Bloc and the PQ?

Does the meaning of 'for the most part' not translate well? There are a certain percentage of people that are not loyal to the country in each province, and the number in Quebec is slightly higher, but that doesn';t in any way change that for the most part, the people are loyal to Canada.

How about compatriots who can communicate with one another? What a concept.

Most people in Canada can. You're worrying about a non issue.

[Machjo]

No, issues of country are not separate from other issues of country. We can't say Indonesia does things so well without pointing out that we are also doing well.

I was referrring to language policy specifically. On that front, it's clear that Indonesia has proven far more successful than Canada. We are certainly doing better on many other fronts, but this thread is about language policy specifically. Just because we're doing better on other fronts doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that statistically, Indonesia's language policy has proven far more successful than Canada's.

Does the meaning of 'for the most part' not translate well? There are a certain percentage of people that are not loyal to the country in each province, and the number in Quebec is slightly higher, but that doesn';t in any way change that for the most part, the people are loyal to Canada.

Fair enough.

Most people in Canada can. You're worrying about a non issue.

Only within each their respective language communities for the most part. I've lived north of Quebec city and can say that most people there, and even in Quebec City itself, couldn't speak English to save their lives.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Machjo

[Smallc]

Only within each their respective language communities for the most part. I've lived north of Quebec city and can say that most people there, and even in Quebec City itself, couldn't speak English to save their lives.

And yet you advocate against people learning both French and English in school and instead you want them to learn some mysterious third language. I don't see how that would be any more successful.

[Machjo]

And yet you advocate against people learning both French and English in school and instead you want them to learn some mysterious third language. I don't see how that would be any more successful.

Well, let's look at it this way:

1. I speak language X and you speak language Y, both of which are difficult languages to learn. I try to learn language X, and you try to learn language Y, but we both fail to learn each other's languages owing ot the inherent difficulties in the grammars of each of these languages.

2. We then propose to either modify one of our languages or construct a new one, designed to be at least five times easier to learn than either of our languages, that we could both learn.

If we look at the facts, only about 17% of Canadians have succeeded in learning their second official language, proof that neither of our languages are particularly easy to learn. Yet in Indonesia, where everyone is required to learn Bahasa Indonesia, a language the grammar of which is highly regulated by the Indonesian government and taught through its Ministry of Education, in spite of most people not speaking it as a mother tongue, 99% of Indonesians know the official language. This is but one example. Plenty of other research has likewise proven that the choice of second language taught plays a major role in the likelyhood of success too. This is just plain common sense. If the language is easier to learn, especially by design, it's more likley that people will learn it successfully too. Seems like common sense to me.

So let me ask you, which is more likely to prove successful:

1. That we each learn one another's difficult second language? or

2. That we each learn a common second language that is designed to be easy to learn, possibly even more than five times easier to learn than either of ours?

Again, this is pure elementary logic. Obviously the chance of success is much higher with an easier language than with a difficult language, all else being equal.

Obviously all is not equalif one lives in an immersed second-language environment, which is not at all the cae for most Canadian elementary pupils.

[Machjo]

This is also proof that communicabilty is not the primary concern of our Ministries of Education, but rather the protection of jobs for English and French second-language teachers. Plenty of statistics are showing that the current system in Canada is a miserable failure and that an easier language would be far more successfult. But as usual, politics trumps science in education.

[g_bambino]

I wasn't even thinking of immigrants when I'd typed that. What made you think that I was thinking of immigrants?

And I didn't imply that you were. Instead, I referred to both native and foreign born citizens.

[CANADIEN]

Definition of 'artificial' -Not arising from natural growth or characterized by vital processes.

Thanks for admitting that French is not an artificial language,

. Communist inspired corrupt language policies are

(...) a product of your imagination.

[CANADIEN]

All majority English speaking provinces should take note and make English the official language before it is to late. Save your English speaking jobs and the English speaking culture from French cultural aggression via their corrupt language policies.

The usual... Quebec's language laws are bad, but the other provincial governments should dp the same.

[Machjo]

If there was one official language only, all immigrants would be required to know it in order to become citizens.

This I could agree with and would even support in principle. Whether I'd support it in detail would depend on the details, of course.

If someone chose to raise their child in an all-officially-English Canada, yet teach them only some other language, then, such is their choice. But they should therefore be aware of the consequences. In other words, it is not a right to have a country accomodate your chosen language, it is a duty for you to know and understand the country's language. I, for one, certainly wouldn't expect to immigrate to Brazil, let's say, and then demand that I have services provided to me in English only. Rather, I'd expect I would have to learn Portugese, and that my children would learn the same in school, whether or not I chose to also teach them English at home.

And how exactly would you expect to make English the sole official language of Canada? Sure it could be done if English were learnable for most. Otherwise, you could end up with the following odd scenario:

A Brazilian is planning to move to Quebec City, so he learns English before comming to Canada, only to find that the average resident in Quebec City can't even function in English. So then, he'd have to repeat the process all over to learn French. Seeing that most Quebecers fail to learn English, and they have only one second language to learn, is it really reasonable to then expect the average Brazilian to learn English before coming to Canada only to then have to learn French too upon arrival?

Would it not make more sense then to simply have English and French as official written languages (i.e. that all official government documents must be translated into those two languages) and then leave it up to each local office to decide on its official spoken language? That way, all government services online would be accessible in French, local government offices would function in French, and the local job and business markest would be in French too, thus requiring that Brazilian to simply have to elarn French rather than both French and English? Would that not be more efficient than Enlish only, which would cut most Quebecers off from access to government info and cut many immigrants to Quebec to such too.

Another point to make is that many immigrnats to Quebec are from former French colonies, meaning that they know French, but not necessarily English. And why should they have to learn as difficult a language as English when even the locals can't learn it? It might be reasonable if English were easier, but it's not. It's not worth learning such a difficult language as English when the only time he'll have a chance to use it will be in a government office anyway, unless of course he has more of an aptitude for language learning.

[Machjo]

I agree that referring to Canada's official language laws as 'communist' removes much intellectual credibility from the argument. Sure there are legitimate arguments against Official Bilingualism on the grounds of justice and efficiency, but we needn't stoop down to silly rhetoric to prove our point.

And I also agree that while Quebec's Bill 101 is a little harsh in my opinion, I would not say that it's all bad. In fact, I defend the idea that Quebec has but one official language of government administration as it promotes unity and efficiency in the province. And I'd absolutely support the idea that other provinces learn from Quebec on this front and do the same. Official Bilingualism in the City of Ottawa costs money, as do separate administrations for English and French in Ontario. Definitely, though I do feel that Bill 101 goes too far and would not want to see the same elsewhere, and would even want to see Quebec strip it down a little, I would certainly support Ontario following Quebec's lead in adopting one official language of government administration.

Thoguh I'm sure it is hard to some to admit that the 'Frenchies' were right on something.

[CANADIEN]

I agree that referring to Canada's official language laws as 'communist' removes much intellectual credibility from the argument. Sure there are legitimate arguments against Official Bilingualism on the grounds of justice and efficiency, but we needn't stoop down to silly rhetoric to prove our point.

And I also agree that while Quebec's Bill 101 is a little harsh in my opinion, I would not say that it's all bad. In fact, I defend the idea that Quebec has but one official language of government administration as it promotes unity and efficiency in the province.

And too bad for minority rights, right? Sorry, but government services in Quebec MUST be offered in English as well as French, because the English-communities and inhabitants in Quebec have a right to access services in English. This is what this country is about.

[Machjo]

And too bad for minority rights, right? Sorry, but government services in Quebec MUST be offered in English as well as French, because the English-communities and inhabitants in Quebec have a right to access services in English. This is what this country is about.

OK, you do have a point there. But we must also be realistic about costs; translation isn't cheap. So I could see a few solutions, among which:

Decentralize the provincial government as much as possible, giving as much responsibility as possible to individual local govenments. Local communities in Quebec where English is the common local language, thus making it difficult for people to learn French well, could simply adopt English as the official language of local government.

Of course this alone does not solve the problem of access to provincial government information, as it would give access to local government information only. A way to compensate for that at the provincial level without raising costs too much could be for the Province to keep French as its sole official written language but offer to translate documents official documents into English. This of course would not guarantee access to government services in English in, let's say, central Quebec. But then again, if a person doesn't know French, what would he be doing in central Quebec in the first place, not to mention that he'd find himself in an ideal environement to learn the language. Not the most efficient solution, but at least an attempt at finding a balance between efficiency and justice.

To take Ontario as an example, perhaps something similar. English could be the sole official written language, and the govenrment could try to decentralize as much as possible, leaving it up to local governments to adopt the official language of their choice for local government administation. Beyond that, the government could still translate all official documents into French, but not guarantee any kind of French-language service in a provincial office. This way, an Anglophone in Quebec could still access government services in English on-line, and same with a francophone in Ontario, unless they live in a local community where their languge is dominant.

All the solutions presented above though are but partial solutions as they still don't solve the problem of a lack of a common national language, which is the root of the problem to begin with. But they are attempts at partial solutions short of dealing with the root. Superficial solutions, let's call them.

[Machjo]

This is what this country is about.

According to whom? What exactly do you mean by this? If you mean that all citizens ought to have access to government information in a language they can understand, I agree. Of course there are plenty of ways to ensure this happens. One involves translating information into a language they understand; the other, teaching them a language to success. And of course there could be various theories and strategies within each of these categories of solutions.

[Machjo]

Generally speaking, I see the following dilema:

To ensure justice, all citizens must have access to information in a language they understand, yet to ensure efficiency, we need to find a way to ensure this access to information in a more efficent manner than we're doing now. Such options exist, but we must first be able to think rationally and not traditionally to see them.

[CANADIEN]

According to whom? What exactly do you mean by this? If you mean that all citizens ought to have access to government information in a language they can understand, I agree. Of course there are plenty of ways to ensure this happens. One involves translating information into a language they understand; the other, teaching them a language to success. And of course there could be various theories and strategies within each of these categories of solutions.

And we come back to "let's create a language out of nnnowhere that nobody has even spoken or written in, that has neither a written litterature or an oral tadition, just because most people do not speak both national languages".

Perhaps we should adopt klingon. At least it has been spoken and written somewhere.

[Machjo]

And we come back to "let's create a language out of nnnowhere that nobody has even spoken or written in, that has neither a written litterature or an oral tadition, just because most people do not speak both national languages".

Perhaps we should adopt klingon. At least it has been spoken and written somewhere.

Hey, if Klingon proves to give pupils a higher chance of success than 15%, why not? Does it matter what language a person speaks?

If you speak English, and I speak French, and neither of us can learn the other's language well, but Klingon proves manageable, then would you rather we sit there as compatriots staring awkwardly at each other or would our exchange of ideas prove more fruitful in Klingon... if indeed it's an easier language of course?

Again, it's plain common sense.