Why isn't more done to make more Canadians Polymaths?

[Battletoads]

It is sad someone wouldn't learn French to serve the 7 million who speak it as a first language.

Then monophones - something I am barely not complain that they aren't trained for what they need to do.

It is cultural genocide to eradicate the legitimacy of the French.

French is a blessing to the mind - much like English is complementary to the Francophones.

I don't see why ingrates can't be damned to learn a language or help people learn it.

Understand 7 million people is a sizable amount of population.

It is more than any of the politcal parties.

Take quebec out of the picture and what does that 7 million drop to?

[fellowtraveller]

I'm not sure what it is that some westerners have against bilingualism. I'm not sure exactly why it's seen as damaging.

I'm a Westerner and have no objection to bilingualism, or did you mean learn French?

We do very little business with Quebec, and the future is in the Pacific- not the Laurentians.

So yeah, I'd like my kids to be bilingual;- in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi or even Spanish.

French won't make them a dime.

I love my kids way too much to hope they get jobs pushing paper in Hull, what a horrible prospect.

[Smallc]

My mistake I thought I had included that those numbers were for BC only. Not that it changes anything, I don`t see any reason for British Columbians to cough up a dime to french special interest groups.

BC doesn't have to. This is a federal issue.

[Smallc]

Take quebec out of the picture and what does that 7 million drop to?

Since Quebec is part of Canada, you really don't have a point.

[Jack Weber]

Since Quebec is part of Canada, you really don't have a point.

I was in French Immersion in 7,8,and,9...

I look at it this way...

What better way to understand the language of the traitors in Quebec so they can't pull a fast one on me!!!

[Molly]

I didn't make the numbers up. Wikipedia seems to confirm, but I can't find the original Stats Canada link that I had:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Canadian#Distribution_in_Canada

You could find it if you looked at the bottom of that Wikipedia page.

However- a multiple-answer survey asking about ethnic origins in no manner addresses appropriateness of specific language studies, and bringing it up in that manner in such a conversation could do very little but decieve.

Where is the honesty in suggesting that Manitoba and/or Newfoundland do NOT have viable French language communities? Where is the honesty in suggesting that Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC do?

So, 16.5% of folks from Saskatchewan claimed French as some portion of their multi-ethnic mutt-hood... that's not a jot surprising. There's been a hundred years for wildly dispersed ethnicities to mingle the blood of Babel. Everyone is some kind of HungaRican. If, however, anyone assumes from that number that much more than 16.5% of the population of Saskatchewan even know someonewho speaks French as a first language they would be sadly misinformed.

So bringing up that number as though it could add anything meaningfully honest to the discussion... that was a crock.

[Battletoads]

BC doesn't have to. This is a federal issue.

Good thing no one in BC pays any federal taxes.

[Smallc]

Good thing no one in BC pays any federal taxes.

That is completely irrelevant. People in every province and territory pay federal taxes, and these support national and interprovincial programs.

[Battletoads]

That is completely irrelevant. People in every province and territory pay federal taxes, and these support national and interprovincial programs.

I know westerners having some say in the dirrection of federal spending is an odd concept, but I firmly believe if we pay in we should get some say.

[Smallc]

I know westerners having some say in the dirrection of federal spending is an odd concept, but I firmly believe if we pay in we should get some say.

Well, as a westerner, I have to point out that we aren't the only people in this country, and our say can only go as far as our population influence. Quebec, last time I checked, was still the second most populous province in Canada, and several provinces other than Quebec have significant French speaking populations (including a very active one in Manitoba - the west). Those people are protected under the Constitution as are English speakers in Canada. You aren't being discriminated against, and so there's really nothing for you to complain about.

Edit to fix error.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Smallc

[Battletoads]

Well, as a westerner I have to point out that we aren't the only people in this country, and our say can only go as far as our population influence.

The west (Alberta, BC, Sask, Toba) contains about 10.5 million people, all of which are routinely ignored in favour of the 7.8 million who live in quebec.

Quebec, last time I checked, was still te most populous province in Canada,

Ontario has about 5 million more people than Quebec...

several provinces other than Quebec have significant French speaking populations (including a very active one in Manitoba - the west).

Evidently only 1.8% of manitobans, about 20 thousand, use French as a primary language, significant my ass. (Census 2006)

Those people are protected under the Constitution as are English speakers in Canada. You aren't being discriminated against, and so there's really nothing for you to complain about.

A constitution written by the east ignores the west, shocking.

And I guarantee if you go into quebec as a native English speaker you will be discriminated against.

[Smallc]

The west (Alberta, BC, Sask, Toba) contains about 10.5 million people, all of which are routinely ignored in favour of the 7.8 million who live in quebec.

That's completely untrue. What has happened to the west in the last two and a half decades by the evil eastern bastards. Poor us. What a joke.

Ontario has about 5 million more people than Quebec...

I meant second.

Evidently only 1.8% of manitobans, about 20 thousand, use French as a primary language, significant my ass. (Census 2006)

Manitoba's population is much smaller than those in Ontario and New Brunswick, I'll grant you that.

A constitution written by the east ignores the west, shocking.

Again, completely untrue. What proof do you have of that. The Constitution protects us all and grants us all the same freedoms, no matter what language we speak or where we live. No one has discriminated against the west for a very long time.

And I guarantee if you go into quebec as a native English speaker you will be discriminated against.

They do some things that they shouldn't and they use loopholes in the Constitution to do it. It doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean that we should do it.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Smallc

[Evening Star]

A constitution written by the east ignores the west, shocking.

I have to question this as well. The 1982 Constitution was ratified by every province except Quebec.

[Battletoads]

I have to question this as well. The 1982 Constitution was ratified by every province except Quebec.

The west no doubt felt it best to try and work with the rest of Canada. Quebec on the other hand had a tantrum and refused to sign it because their leader, who refused to stay at an English hotel in Ottawa, wasn't present at a spur of the moment late night meeting. In Quebec they refer to this as the night of the long knifes (persecution complex much?)

[Smallc]

(persecution complex much?)

Well, you're displaying something quite similar with your insistence that the west is some kind of victim of Confederation.

[Battletoads]

Well, you're displaying something quite similar with your insistence that the west is some kind of victim of Confederation.

When have I said that? All I've said is the east all to often doesn't pay enough attention to the west.

[Wilber]

It doesn't make sense why the West of Canada would make themselves ineligible for management positions in government -- its more expensive and more difficult to learn down the road. Why have a secret language in Canada? Don't you want to know what they are saying?

Perhaps in the spirit of multiculturalism, the federal civil service should try and use the languages of those it is supposed to serve. Fact is, on a practical level, French is not particularly relevant in BC. Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi are, as well as Japanese and Korean to a lesser degree. These are the people who are important when it comes to knowing what they are saying.

[William Ashley]

I think the discussion should be about why those jobs need to be bilingual. Does it serve a purpose, or are people just bending over to the french whiners.

French people work in the federal government - you only need one official langauge for many jobs - until you get to a senior position - once you do you may be expected to work with monolingual french or monolingual English people - a translator isn't available for every department. Also senior managers may need to communicate with people in other places - since it is a "Federal Government" it serves both areas where French - something granted when Quebec was conquered a right to their own cultural preservation. It is like me saying you can't speak English anymore. Canada was French - and before that Native or both --- or Spanish Depending on how you look at it. None the less it is because you need to work anywhere in the country or communicate with people working anywhere in the Country.. you can hire a bunch of translators or hire people who can translate themselves.

Hiring people who can speak both languages is more cost effective.

Personally I would think not all Jobs need be bilingual but any position that is monolingual should be area specific and there should be a quota to meet demand for the other language in a given area where there is a monolingual position.

It is easier and French isn't difficult to learn to someone who is a carear public servant. We are talking about people who work for the federal government here not a province.. provnices can set their own official languages.. Canada is bilingual New Brunswick is bilingual etc..

There are four other languages it would be more beneficial for British Columbians to speak

There are only two official language.. and you are forgetting natives in BC. Get it official langauge status in BC if you want it in BC.. It is possible. Likewise if you want it in Canada get a majority of provinces to agree to ammend the constitution..

"They" won't be part of the country soon enough so I don't view it as a skill, more of a bar trick.

Who is they?

Unless you're the French in which case people will throw tax payers money at you so you can shove your culture down other's throats.

It works both ways. 1/5th of a country is substantial. It is the second largest language group in Canada.

First it was 11%, now its 20%.

And french is a derivative of Latin, should we be learning Latin now?

I think it should be part of English classes.

It's not the west making themselves ineligible, it’s the east as usual tacking on needless requirements to these jobs.

Sister language? If french has a sister language it's Spanish or Italian, you know the one of the other romance languages. English is a Germanic language... Maybe you ought to read up a bit before you come in here telling people off for not knowing about their own language.

Hater. The French conquered England and gave intellect to it rather than brute.

Whatever french person sodomized you I apologize but it is a good language.

Ce nest pas dificile ameliore mal francais, non?

Quest le problem? Un medi est le meme d'anglais mais un peux derange?

Suelement un idiot n'ameliore pas.

Je n'ai pas talent seulement un grand cour por la francois. eh non le coupe.

Edited February 25, 2011 by William Ashley

[fellowtraveller]

Where is the honesty in suggesting that Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC do?

Because they do have French communities, places founded by French settlers and where French is widely spoken today. Off the top of my head in SK I can think of Bellevue, near Batoche where I met older folks who did not speak English at all really. Gravelbourg is also eavily French for more than a century.

Alberta has more, the corridor area of Legal, Morinville, Villeneuve, Riviere - qui- Barre, St Albert are all French communities, though St Albert has outgrown all of them. St Albert also has a Francophone school (not French immersion, Francophone) in acknowledgement of the reality. Lots of old French families in that area. Falher is another predominantly Francophone town and there are quite a few others.

[Battletoads]

Perhaps in the spirit of multiculturalism, the federal civil service should try and use the languages of those it is supposed to serve. Fact is, on a practical level, French is not particularly relevant in BC. Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi are, as well as Japanese and Korean to a lesser degree. These are the people who are important when it comes to knowing what they are saying.

Nah that makes way to much sense. Requiring applicants have useful skills? Ridiculous!

[wyly]

A recent study demonstrated that we have the ability to become unilingual or bilingual at approximately the same level - yet the level of bilingualism in Canada is miserably low for a country with two official languages.

Why isn't more being done to target children at a younger age for bilingualism.

Why not provide materials via heritage and official languages that can be assessed by anyone to help their children be bilingual - instead of political attack ads why not connecting people with resources for this?

because as demonstrated by the forum members we have a lot of petty, narrow minded idiots in this country...in a shrinking world/globalization those who are multilingual will succeed and the rest will be handicapped by ignorance...

there was joke I heard in europe...

what are you if you speak three languages?-...........................................trilingual

what are you if you two languages?-....................................................bilingual

what are you if you speak one language?................................................american

and now add canadian

the biggest regret I have in my education was not becoming fluent in french, that was huge error and I'm ashamed that I displayed the same ignorance shown on this thread...after traveling in europe and meeting people one speak two three and even four languages we look stupid and childish with our "why should we be forced to speak french" attitude...why should we be multilingual? because it's bloody huge advantage in business and for the success of our country...then there's the personal enrichment of traveling throughout the world and being able to communicate, me being in france not being able to communicate was frustrating because I blew my opportunity to learn french when I was young...it was humbling moment when trying to order a meal in a tiny town in the netherlands when the young waitress/student originally from toronto of all places helped me out, she spoke fluent dutch and french and was working on German, four languages for an 18 yr old, her future is very bright...

[Molly]

because as demonstrated by the forum members we have a lot of petty, narrow minded idiots in this country...

I truly wish that 'posters' wouldn't use these vague 'you know who you are, and you are very bad' sort of anonymous accusations. Others can't really anwer them without implying that the shoe fits, when in fact the accusation may well be out to lunch entirely.

Am I one of those petty, narrow minded idiots, Wyly?

(Small c said, "I'm not sure what it is that some westerners have against bilingualism. I'm not sure exactly why it's seen as damaging." I wonder also whether he intended 'some westerners' to include me, too.)

Well 'some posters' don't get that the study of (specifically) French is not destructive nor even undesireable in itself, but it is largely impractical- both not very doable where there really is no one with whom you can speak, and not particularly useful for most western Canadians who could easily go an entire lifetime and never never have a use for it, never even hear French spoken by anyone but their own federal government officials.

Where are the teachers to teach it? Where are the opportunities to use and practise it? How desireable are the doors that it opens? YES French is an official language, but so's English. All necessary services gan be accessed using either one, so that means learning both is locally redundant.

It makes more sense by far for language studies in any given community to be based largely on the resources and needs of the community. Polish, for instance, would have been within reach for my kids in ways that French simply was not. I might well have come out with a useable second language had I spent my time and effort on Norwegian instead of French. As a westerner, I had more opportunity to use Spanish or Mandarin, German or Ukrainian. Economically, Japanese would have opened far more doors...

[wyly]

I truly wish that 'posters' wouldn't use these vague 'you know who you are, and you are very bad' sort of anonymous accusations. Others can't really anwer them without implying that the shoe fits, when in fact the accusation may well be out to lunch entirely.

Am I one of those petty, narrow minded idiots, Wyly?

(Small c said, "I'm not sure what it is that some westerners have against bilingualism. I'm not sure exactly why it's seen as damaging." I wonder also whether he intended 'some westerners' to include me, too.)

if I point out the idiots they run crying to the mods and I get a reprimand, bigots and idiots are the biggest hypocrites...by not naming names they're too stupid to realize I'm referring to them, bigots rationalize their bigotry and don't see themselves as bigots and idiots are too stupid to realize they're idiots...

Well 'some posters' don't get that the study of (specifically) French is not destructive nor even undesireable in itself, but it is largely impractical- both not very doable where there really is no one with whom you can speak, and not particularly useful for most western Canadians who could easily go an entire lifetime and never never have a use for it, never even hear French spoken by anyone but their own federal government officials.

I've never had a use for algebra since I left high school decades ago but yet I needed to learn that to progress to university, same goes for chemistry, physics and literature...

Where are the teachers to teach it? Where are the opportunities to use and practise it? How desireable are the doors that it opens? YES French is an official language, but so's English. All necessary services gan be accessed using either one, so that means learning both is locally redundant.

where are the opportunities for me to use and practice algebra? obviously doors open when learned it but I chose other options...the same applies to languages, becoming proficient in more than one language opens many more doors of opportunity...

It makes more sense by far for language studies in any given community to be based largely on the resources and needs of the community. Polish, for instance, would have been within reach for my kids in ways that French simply was not. I might well have come out with a useable second language had I spent my time and effort on Norwegian instead of French. As a westerner, I had more opportunity to use Spanish or Mandarin, German or Ukrainian. Economically, Japanese would have opened far more doors...

unless you're planning a career that specifically involves Poland, Norway or Japanese all of them are useless for anything other than personal cultural interest, Japan does have a considerable edge on the other two for practicality...

knowing French and English puts over half of the worlds countries at your disposal as well as 100% of your own country add a economic target language of your choice Mandarin, Japanese or whatever and the worlds is your oyster, your employability and potential for career growth grows exponentially and opportunities will seek you out...

resistance to learning French in canada is based on bigotry/stupidity not practicality...I actively encourage my youngest child be fluent in French his employability will be significantly better than other Canadians that scoff at knowing French...

[kimmy]

I was thinking more in the sub heading of polymathy

polyglotism.

Good grief, William, if you wanted to ask why the government isn't doing more to encourage people to learn French, why didn't you ask why the government isn't doing more to encourage people to learn French?

The word "polymath" describes people like Copernicus, DaVinci, Galileo, Newton, Franklin... people whose breadth and depth of knowledge encompasses many spheres of human achievement. Why doesn't more done to "make" Canadian polymaths? Because such people can not be created by any act of government.

To address the real question, namely "why do not de Anglo learn de Francais?"... my response is: why bother?

I guess maybe BC should be left out of all those bilingual jobs in the federal government huh?

(...)

It doesn't make sense why the West of Canada would make themselves ineligible for management positions in government -- its more expensive and more difficult to learn down the road.

Westerners are largely excluded from that sort of work anyway, if not by language fluency then simply by geographic location. Most federal government jobs in this part of the world don't require French.

Few Westerners, even those who've attended "French immersion" schools, speak with fluency to satisfy the government language cops anyway.

Who'd plan their educational choices around the idea of landing a government job anyway? Who'd say "I want to be a bilingual bureaucrat some day!" ...it's like saying "I want to drive a Saturn some day!" It kind of makes me sad to think that somewhere out there, some child is thinking "I want to be a bureaucrat when I grow up!"

It is sad someone wouldn't learn French to serve the 7 million who speak it as a first language.

Then monophones - something I am barely not complain that they aren't trained for what they need to do.

"Serve the French" is what I need to do? Wait, what?

It is cultural genocide to eradicate the legitimacy of the French.

I'm committing genocide by not learning French? This is just more of the kind of ridiculous hype that makes people think you're crazy, Willie.

There's not a single drop of French blood in me. Why should I help them keep their culture alive?

Should I also learn tagalog so that I can help my upstairs neighbors keep their culture alive?

-k

[Jack Weber]

Good grief, William, if you wanted to ask why the government isn't doing more to encourage people to learn French, why didn't you ask why the government isn't doing more to encourage people to learn French?

The word "polymath" describes people like Copernicus, DaVinci, Galileo, Newton, Franklin... people whose breadth and depth of knowledge encompasses many spheres of human achievement. Why doesn't more done to "make" Canadian polymaths? Because such people can not be created by any act of government.

To address the real question, namely "why do not de Anglo learn de Francais?"... my response is: why bother?

Westerners are largely excluded from that sort of work anyway, if not by language fluency then simply by geographic location. Most federal government jobs in this part of the world don't require French.

Few Westerners, even those who've attended "French immersion" schools, speak with fluency to satisfy the government language cops anyway.

Who'd plan their educational choices around the idea of landing a government job anyway? Who'd say "I want to be a bilingual bureaucrat some day!" ...it's like saying "I want to drive a Saturn some day!" It kind of makes me sad to think that somewhere out there, some child is thinking "I want to be a bureaucrat when I grow up!"

"Serve the French" is what I need to do? Wait, what?

I'm committing genocide by not learning French? This is just more of the kind of ridiculous hype that makes people think you're crazy, Willie.

There's not a single drop of French blood in me. Why should I help them keep their culture alive?

Should I also learn tagalog so that I can help my upstairs neighbors keep their culture alive?

-k

The "cultural genocide" angle is one the seperatists in Quebec use to justify their xenophobic insitutions like....

Wait for it...

The Language Police enforcing the "French Only " sign law....