Canada's Bilingualism Racket

[Argus]

There are a couple of interesting things about this column. The first observation I have is that it would never, could never have been published in a Canadian mainstream paper. The political correctness of our major media is such that any editor would be horrified at the very idea of publishing such a piece. The second observation is that he is mostly right. We have bent over backwards to give disproportionate power to a small and shrinking population which only ever demands more and laments their poor plight.

I remember when Harper's government cancelled a few minor arts grant programs in Quebec, and Quebec's elites portrayed it as nothing less than a deliberate attack on the heart and soul and culture of their province by 'les maudit anglais'. That simple thing cost Harper most of his anticipated seats in Quebec. It happened her in Ottawa years ago when most of hte hospitals were being shut down or amalgamated. They tried to do it to a French hospital, and there was such a screeching they gave up.

Now Doug Ford cancels a few minor programs and we get the French screaming in horror, federal politicians complaining and the Quebec Assembly flying the flag of franco ontarions.

There definitely is a racket in this country where all the top jobs are reserved for a small group which largely comes from Quebec and the surrounding area. Trudeau has expanded this to include the courts, and this group of 'bilingual' people will fight tooth and nail to preserve their undemocratic privileges.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/11/27/doug-ford-tries-and-fails-to-fight-canadas-bilingualism-racket/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f84295afd7ca

[cannuck]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

There definitely is a racket in this country where all the top jobs are reserved for a small group which largely comes from Quebec and the surrounding area. Trudeau has expanded this to include the courts, and this group of 'bilingual' people will fight tooth and nail to preserve their undemocratic privileges.

I was a civilian employee on the base where I was raised when the Hellyer white paper destroyed the armed forces.  Part of the Trudeau plan (consistent with the whole B&B nonsense) was to increase French presence in senior ranks.   I watched with absolute horror when every francophone NCO on the base, REGARDLESS of ability (or even mental stability) was given an invitation to get their commission.   Several years later, when I thought things might have calmed down, I headed to a recruiting office (I could probably go DEO) and the recruiter told me in no uncertain terms since I was not Quebecois and only marginally bilingual, I didn't have a hope in hell.

This crap didn't start yesterday - that was nearly 50 years ago.

Edited December 3, 2018 by cannuck

[Machjo]

I'm a Franco-Ontarian (presently living in Quebec), and I personally oppose official bilingualism. Then again, I've also read the B&B Report. I don't see how anyone who reads that report with an open mind can still support official bilingualism after having read it.

Now even if a person doesn't want to waste his time reading those five volumes of pseudo-science, there's just daily reality. On one occasion, a friend of mine showed me police and CBSA reports and a hearing transcript pertaining to his wife's case. The police report from Ottawa contained orthographical and grammatical errors and possibly significant lexical errros. It was written in broken English.

The CBSA Officer's report, again from Ottawa, was written in such broken English that the interview notes revealed a total communication breakdown. Since I knew his wife reasonably well, I knew the CBSA Officer's claims (or what I could decypher of them through the broken English) to have been factually untrue. Since her counsel didn't know French, the hearing took place in what was supposed to be English. The hearing transcript from Montreal revealed that the Minister's counsel struggled to understand an affidavit written in Standard English to the point that the judge had to correct her on a few occasions. To the judge's credit, he decided in favour of the accused in part because he couldn't understand the precise meaning of the reports and the Minister's councel refused to have the officers clarify their meaning.

I work in the private sector but serve different ministries of the Government of Canada. I've witnessed a numbr of language barriers in the government myself. On one occasion, after I'd explained some things to the caller, an emplyee of the Government of Canada, I heard her try to explain what I'd said to her colleague first in Standard French and then in broken English, with him then responding to her in Standard English and then broken French, as they went back and forth until they could finally understand one another before she then turned back to me. That's just one example of the twilight zone of the Government of Canada.

When I'd first read the texts that my friend had presented to me, I couldn't believe my eyes. In hindsight though, when we read Canada's language and literacy statistics, it shouldn't have surprised me in the least. I found some interesting information here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Educational,_linguistic,_economic,_and_other_challenges_of_official_bilingualism

 

The fact of the matter is that English and French are both too difficult for most to learn well. With that in mind, in cases in which interlingual communication cannot be avoided, it might make sense for the government to promote Esperanto or some other easier language to learn for the purpose.

I think one problem is that most French Canadians don't actually work in the field of translation, second-language education, and other such linguistically complex areas. They think the government passes a law and Poof! A magic fairy comes along to translate everything for everyone. Most French Canadians, because they don't actually work in the language sector on some level or other (heck, most live in Quebec and don't even know English), don't actually understand the complexities of the matter.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[Argus]

I've worked in the government here in Ottawa. There was only one group of people who really spoke excellent French, and those were the Anglos from Quebec who grew up using it, surrounded by it, immersed in a French milleau. And just about the only group of French people who spoke perfect English were those who grew up in Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba, or had English mothers/French fathers - like Trudeau.

The impacts of bilingualism in the public service are many. I have known so many incompetent managers - both English and French - who only made it to management because you need very high levels of bilingualism. Stats Can says about 17% of Canadians figure they're bilingual. I have seen many of those people try to get into the public service and fail the language tests badly. Most can barely scrape by with an A level, and A levels won't cut it any more. You need Bs just to be a clerk, and Cs for management. The people who get into management are the Quebecers (English and French), the French from outside Quebec, and the English who work their asses off, ignoring work, ignoring everything, in order to get that language rating. And they are RARELY actually the best at their jobs or specialty or area. They're just one of the very few who could get C levels. Which means, of course, when you screen out 95% of the competition, that you don't exactly get a top notch management team.

I certainly believe that anyone, English or French, should be able to get service in their own language when they contact the government. That is what most Canadians think official bilingualism is. But it's not. It changed when public servants were given the right to work in their language of choice. So even if they were hired specifically because they're bilingual, they have the right to be managed in their own language, and to get internal services in their own language. That means all managers have to be fluent. All clerks who provide internal services, all security guards, all IT support staff, everyone that interacts with just government workers. The vast majority of positions which are designated as bilingual have no contact with the public whatsoever. 

And the irony is that, at least on the phone, you don't need bilingual customer service staff. Everyone who calls in opts to press a button to be served in English or French. The network then directs them appropriately.

 

[Machjo]

41 minutes ago, Argus said:

I've worked in the government here in Ottawa. There was only one group of people who really spoke excellent French, and those were the Anglos from Quebec who grew up using it, surrounded by it, immersed in a French milleau. And just about the only group of French people who spoke perfect English were those who grew up in Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba, or had English mothers/French fathers - like Trudeau.

The impacts of bilingualism in the public service are many. I have known so many incompetent managers - both English and French - who only made it to management because you need very high levels of bilingualism. Stats Can says about 17% of Canadians figure they're bilingual. I have seen many of those people try to get into the public service and fail the language tests badly. Most can barely scrape by with an A level, and A levels won't cut it any more. You need Bs just to be a clerk, and Cs for management. The people who get into management are the Quebecers (English and French), the French from outside Quebec, and the English who work their asses off, ignoring work, ignoring everything, in order to get that language rating. And they are RARELY actually the best at their jobs or specialty or area. They're just one of the very few who could get C levels. Which means, of course, when you screen out 95% of the competition, that you don't exactly get a top notch management team.

I certainly believe that anyone, English or French, should be able to get service in their own language when they contact the government. That is what most Canadians think official bilingualism is. But it's not. It changed when public servants were given the right to work in their language of choice. So even if they were hired specifically because they're bilingual, they have the right to be managed in their own language, and to get internal services in their own language. That means all managers have to be fluent. All clerks who provide internal services, all security guards, all IT support staff, everyone that interacts with just government workers. The vast majority of positions which are designated as bilingual have no contact with the public whatsoever. 

And the irony is that, at least on the phone, you don't need bilingual customer service staff. Everyone who calls in opts to press a button to be served in English or French. The network then directs them appropriately.

 

Unfortunately, the reality is, especially in the corridor between Ottawa and Montreal, English and French speakers will need to communicate with one another. The question then becomes, in what language should they do so? Studies show the success rate in second language learning in both Quebec and Ontario to be dismal. Unless one side can learn the other's well en masse (since we never know when a low-level worker might need to communicate with another low-level worker), it would need to be a language that is reasonably easy to learn. Studies also show that a person can achieve the same level of competence in a second language after 1500 hours of English as he could after 150 hours of Esperanto. To put that into perspective, a child who studies Esperanto starting at the age of eight for fifty hours a year for six consecutive years will have studied Esperanto for 300 hours before he reaches the age of fifteen, and that would equate with 3000 hours of English such as is simply not possible in a high-school language course.

In other words, it would be possible to have the entire population master Esperanto by the end of high school and so eliminate the language problem in Canada. This would not mean that everyone would need to use Esperanto in their daily lives. Outside of work and even in most private businesses, most people might just continue to function in English or French. But at least when they do need to communicate across the language divide, they'd actually share a common language that they would know well enough to use it competently, which is not the case today. We have to start to accept that English and French are just too difficult for most Canadians to learn well and statistics bear that fact out.

The above might seem more technocratic in its approach to language policy than Canadians are used to, but maybe a more technocratic approach is what we need.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[taxme]

7 hours ago, cannuck said:

I was a civilian employee on the base where I was raised when the Hellyer white paper destroyed the armed forces.  Part of the Trudeau plan (consistent with the whole B&B nonsense) was to increase French presence in senior ranks.   I watched with absolute horror when every francophone NCO on the base, REGARDLESS of ability (or even mental stability) was given an invitation to get their commission.   Several years later, when I thought things might have calmed down, I headed to a recruiting office (I could probably go DEO) and the recruiter told me in no uncertain terms since I was not Quebecois and only marginally bilingual, I didn't have a hope in hell.

This crap didn't start yesterday - that was nearly 50 years ago.

Everyone needs to read the book "Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow" written by a guy back in the late seventies with the last name Andrews if they can still find a copy of it somewhere. Andrews explained in his book as to how the french were going to take over Canada bit by bit. As we can see today they have pretty much fulfilled their plans of taking over English Canada. And the sad part is that the Anglophone media and Anglophone politicians at the time never said a word about this takeover of English Canada by french Quebec. The Anglophones became a bunch of wimpy and cowardly traitors to English Canada just like most of the Anglophone media and anglophone politicians are today. A bunch of gutless wonders. The french are working very hard to try and force the rest of English Canada into becoming bilingual while Quebec will remain unilingual french only. New Brunswick is bilingual now and pretty much Ontario is bilingual and Manitoba is next.

It would appear today as though the french won the battle on the Plains of Abraham alright. Although the British did win the battle, the historic battle was rewritten, by the french of course, and made to appear as  though it was a tie and no one won the battle. Who would have thought, eh? Canada has now become one big gigantic azz hole of a country for the french to shaft whenever they feel like it. 

At least for now I was quite happy to see Doug Ford not give in to the french this time by not building a new french university for them where they could teach and preach their hatred for British Canada. O how I wished Western Canada had separated several decades ago. I would not have to today see any french on my Corn Flakes cereal box.  

[taxme]

6 hours ago, Machjo said:

I'm a Franco-Ontarian (presently living in Quebec), and I personally oppose official bilingualism. Then again, I've also read the B&B Report. I don't see how anyone who reads that report with an open mind can still support official bilingualism after having read it.

Now even if a person doesn't want to waste his time reading those five volumes of pseudo-science, there's just daily reality. On one occasion, a friend of mine showed me police and CBSA reports and a hearing transcript pertaining to his wife's case. The police report from Ottawa contained orthographical and grammatical errors and possibly significant lexical errros. It was written in broken English.

The CBSA Officer's report, again from Ottawa, was written in such broken English that the interview notes revealed a total communication breakdown. Since I knew his wife reasonably well, I knew the CBSA Officer's claims (or what I could decypher of them through the broken English) to have been factually untrue. Since her counsel didn't know French, the hearing took place in what was supposed to be English. The hearing transcript from Montreal revealed that the Minister's counsel struggled to understand an affidavit written in Standard English to the point that the judge had to correct her on a few occasions. To the judge's credit, he decided in favour of the accused in part because he couldn't understand the precise meaning of the reports and the Minister's councel refused to have the officers clarify their meaning.

I work in the private sector but serve different ministries of the Government of Canada. I've witnessed a numbr of language barriers in the government myself. On one occasion, after I'd explained some things to the caller, an emplyee of the Government of Canada, I heard her try to explain what I'd said to her colleague first in Standard French and then in broken English, with him then responding to her in Standard English and then broken French, as they went back and forth until they could finally understand one another before she then turned back to me. That's just one example of the twilight zone of the Government of Canada.

When I'd first read the texts that my friend had presented to me, I couldn't believe my eyes. In hindsight though, when we read Canada's language and literacy statistics, it shouldn't have surprised me in the least. I found some interesting information here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Educational,_linguistic,_economic,_and_other_challenges_of_official_bilingualism

 

The fact of the matter is that English and French are both too difficult for most to learn well. With that in mind, in cases in which interlingual communication cannot be avoided, it might make sense for the government to promote Esperanto or some other easier language to learn for the purpose.

I think one problem is that most French Canadians don't actually work in the field of translation, second-language education, and other such linguistically complex areas. They think the government passes a law and Poof! A magic fairy comes along to translate everything for everyone. Most French Canadians, because they don't actually work in the language sector on some level or other (heck, most live in Quebec and don't even know English), don't actually understand the complexities of the matter.

The B&B commission was a make work project for french Quebeckers and nothing more. The fix was in because most french speaking people in Quebec were bilingual and most Anglophone people outside of Quebec were not. Thus this gave the french the advantage. The three wise men as they were called Trudeau, Lapierre and Chretien back in the 60's had a plan in place to take over Ottawa and make it a french speaking zone where Anglophones would not be welcomed. The ratio between Anglophones and francophones working in Ottawa for the federal government is no doubt in my mind way out of whack.  If anything the french indeed have taken over Ottawa or have some called it occupied now french territory. Now no Canadian can be the prime minister or a minster of Canada in any of the federal political party's unless they become bilingual. I don't believe that was how it was supposed to have happen way back then. But too late now. 

PS: Even the Canadian Space Agency is in Quebec. How did that happen? I believe that most of our astronauts have been francophones. The first Canadian in space was Mark Garneau, a francophone. They get to brag that Canada's first astronaut in space was a french man, and I believe that the first Canadian woman in space was a french woman from Quebec who now is our governor general. And the french keep whining and crying about how hard they are being done by by English Canada. The poor babies. Boo-hoo. 

Edited December 3, 2018 by taxme

[cannuck]

4 hours ago, taxme said:

PS: Even the Canadian Space Agency is in Quebec. How did that happen? I believe that most of our astronauts have been francophones. The first Canadian in space was Mark Garneau, a francophone. They get to brag that Canada's first astronaut in space was a french man, and I believe that the first Canadian woman in space was a french woman from Quebec who now is our governor general. And the french keep whining and crying about how hard they are being done by by English Canada. The poor babies. Boo-hoo. 

I could write a book about the things I have found regarding this topic.  Long ago, I did a quick assessment of where military contracts were awarded - and at that time about 95% went to Quebec.  As I traveled around the world for work, I found that Canadian embassies were extremely francophone - in every country.  When on one project, our partners had at their own expense brought an ambulance  built in NS designed specifically for their country's needs.  When their government contacted Canada for the endless and well known freebies from Canada, the tender to supply was circulated ONLY in Quebec - the NS manufacturer left completely out of the loop.  The PQ company supplied pieces of shyte, and that country swore off buying any more ambulances at all from Canada.  After running into similar  BS in another country, I came home and looked up a fellow who was at the time "Minister of Everything".  In his words, the ENTIRE purpose of every federal "business development" agency and effort was to pander to Quebec.  I later found out from an engineering friend (who was ADM of Ec Dev for SK before going into private business) that he had discovered that decades ago when trying to bring business here.  EVERY contact he made and tried to develop would evaporate, not into thin air, but into very French air.  ALL of his information once it hit a Federal office was dispensed to Quebec, and ONLY Quebec - where more often than not, the potential business proponent would get pissed off and simply not bother coming to Canada.  I once did a fairly significant and extremely private project with member companies from 4 different countries.  The lead had sent me on several critical missions to be conducted in absolute secrecy.   I was given only one specific condition:  if I got into trouble, DO NOT go to a Canadian embassy, go to theirs first or second choice a US embassy.  When I asked why, they were very clear that any business information and secrets that I might possess would be lost to others (polite way of saying Quebec) the moment I walked or got dragged into a Canadian embassy anywhere in the world.

Seems that everyone else knows what is wrong here - we just don't.

Edited December 3, 2018 by cannuck

[Machjo]

8 hours ago, taxme said:

Everyone needs to read the book "Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow" written by a guy back in the late seventies with the last name Andrews if they can still find a copy of it somewhere. Andrews explained in his book as to how the french were going to take over Canada bit by bit. As we can see today they have pretty much fulfilled their plans of taking over English Canada. And the sad part is that the Anglophone media and Anglophone politicians at the time never said a word about this takeover of English Canada by french Quebec. The Anglophones became a bunch of wimpy and cowardly traitors to English Canada just like most of the Anglophone media and anglophone politicians are today. A bunch of gutless wonders. The french are working very hard to try and force the rest of English Canada into becoming bilingual while Quebec will remain unilingual french only. New Brunswick is bilingual now and pretty much Ontario is bilingual and Manitoba is next.

It would appear today as though the french won the battle on the Plains of Abraham alright. Although the British did win the battle, the historic battle was rewritten, by the french of course, and made to appear as  though it was a tie and no one won the battle. Who would have thought, eh? Canada has now become one big gigantic azz hole of a country for the french to shaft whenever they feel like it. 

At least for now I was quite happy to see Doug Ford not give in to the french this time by not building a new french university for them where they could teach and preach their hatred for British Canada. O how I wished Western Canada had separated several decades ago. I would not have to today see any french on my Corn Flakes cereal box.  

As for the Francophone university, a simple solution would be to grant school vouchers. This would allow a studnet to present an electronic voucher to the participating post-secondary institution of his choice and allow each participating institution to teach in the official or unofficial language of its choice as per market supply and demand.unfortunately, some Franco-Ontarians would oppose that since it would put them on an equal footing with Chinese and Italian Ontarians.

As for the new Ministry of Francophone Affairs, I would rename it the Ministry for Language Rights and expand its mandate to include Deaf, indigenous, and other unofficial language rights too. If we can't reduce its budget, then let's at least expand its mandate to get a bigger bang for the buck. Besides, I'd be more in favour of its spending that money to study how we can make life easier for the Deaf who might need key services in a sign language myself. But again, some Franco-Ontarians might oppose that since it would put them on a more equal footing with Deaf and indigenous Ontarians.

[Machjo]

One problem that I see has to do with both English and French Canadians complaining but no one actually offering a solution. The core problem is that both English and French are too difficult to learn and stats bear that fact out. From a purely technocratic perspective, the solution would be to promote an easier second language.

[Rue]

On 12/2/2018 at 8:52 PM, Machjo said:

The fact of the matter is that English and French are both too difficult for most to learn well.

Come on Machjo. That is an overstatement.

You know French immersion schools prove that wrong . https://www.todaysparent.com/family/should-you-put-your-kids-in-french-immersion/

As well  Immigrants prove everyday out of necessity  they can and will  learn new languages and "do well". They have no choice.

Surely your comments would be laughed at by Europeans.

You are also well aware if you start children at a young age and expose them to different languages they can learn languages easier, i.e.,https://www.businessinsider.com/learn-a-new-language-2018-4

Sure in later life some of us find it hard if not impossible to learn a new language, conceded, but to say what you did is over-kill.

Come on man the majority of the world has to learn more than one language to function particular in the global markets.

Je suis né au Québec (Montreal). Je suis un Juif et an un Anglophone, pas "purelaines".  J'ai été élevé pour parler les deux langues. Je suis un disciple de les Habs. Jean Beliveau est mon hero.  Mon grand-père parlait 12 langues. Lol, Machjo c'est possible de parler Francais et Anglais et Yiddish, Swahili, etc. Rusty Staub parlait Francais.. tu souviens les Expos?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Rue

[taxme]

5 hours ago, cannuck said:

I could write a book about the things I have found regarding this topic.  Long ago, I did a quick assessment of where military contracts were awarded - and at that time about 95% went to Quebec.  As I traveled around the world for work, I found that Canadian embassies were extremely francophone - in every country.  When on one project, our partners had at their own expense brought an ambulance  built in NS designed specifically for their country's needs.  When their government contacted Canada for the endless and well known freebies from Canada, the tender to supply was circulated ONLY in Quebec - the NS manufacturer left completely out of the loop.  The PQ company supplied pieces of shyte, and that country swore off buying any more ambulances at all from Canada.  After running into similar  BS in another country, I came home and looked up a fellow who was at the time "Minister of Everything".  In his words, the ENTIRE purpose of every federal "business development" agency and effort was to pander to Quebec.  I later found out from an engineering friend (who was ADM of Ec Dev for SK before going into private business) that he had discovered that decades ago when trying to bring business here.  EVERY contact he made and tried to develop would evaporate, not into thin air, but into very French air.  ALL of his information once it hit a Federal office was dispensed to Quebec, and ONLY Quebec - where more often than not, the potential business proponent would get pissed off and simply not bother coming to Canada.  I once did a fairly significant and extremely private project with member companies from 4 different countries.  The lead had sent me on several critical missions to be conducted in absolute secrecy.   I was given only one specific condition:  if I got into trouble, DO NOT go to a Canadian embassy, go to theirs first or second choice a US embassy.  When I asked why, they were very clear that any business information and secrets that I might possess would be lost to others (polite way of saying Quebec) the moment I walked or got dragged into a Canadian embassy anywhere in the world.

Seems that everyone else knows what is wrong here - we just don't.

It has always been about Quebec. As you said, embassies are extremely french controlled. French on top of English or English to the right on a government plaque. The sad part is that when we do get an Anglophone prime minister once in awhile like Harper he does nothing to try and change anything. He just goes with the pro Quebec flow. The Anglophone politicians and the Anglophone media will always pander to Quebec. They all want to be seen kissing Quebec's french ass. Why? I don't know nor get it.

For a province that has declared itself unilingual french with no backlash from the rest of the provinces and always has about 40% of the population that always wants to separate why is there more meetings done in Quebec than any other province. Everything done in Canada appears to have to be done in Quebec. Even the last G7 summit was in Quebec and not say heaven forbid Manitoba or Regina. The majority of Canadian and world meetings are mostly done in Quebec. In Quebec there is a law that says that all products sold in grocery stores french must be shown up front with English facing the back wall. How is that for showing bigotry and intolerance and hatred towards an identifiable group? 

It just goes on and on and I can go on with more but the reality is that English Canada and it would appear that the majority of Anglophone Canada could care less. I guess they are all once again afraid to say anything because they may get called anti-Quebec. A bunch of Anglophone bloody cowards and wimps. Even our own Anglophone politicians and the Anglophone media will attack any Anglophone that points these things mentioned above out.

C'est la vie, mon ami.  

[Machjo]

1 hour ago, Rue said:

Come on Machjo. That is an overstatement.

You know French immersion schools prove that wrong . https://www.todaysparent.com/family/should-you-put-your-kids-in-french-immersion/

As wekk Immigrants prove everyday out of necessity  they can and will  learn new languages and "do well". They have no choice.

Surely your comments would be laughed at by Europeans.

You are also well aware if you start children at a young age and expose them to different languages they can learn languages easier, i.e.,https://www.businessinsider.com/learn-a-new-language-2018-4

Sure in later life some of us find it hard if not impossible to learn a new language, conceded, but to say what you did is over-kill.

Come on man the majority of the world has to learn more than one language to function particular in the global markets.

Je suis né au Québec (Montreal). Je suis un Juif et an un Anglophone, pas "purelaines".  J'ai été élevé pour parler les deux langues. Je suis un disciple de les Habs. Jean Beliveau est mon hero.  Mon grand-père parlait 12 langues. Lol, Machjo c'est possible de parler Francais et Anglais et Yiddish, Swahili, etc. Rusty Staub parlait Francais.. tu souviens les Expos?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Success rates in French immersion even in New Brunswick sit at around 10%. In core French, 1%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Success_rates_in_second-language_instruction

Both Quebec and Ontario can't find enough competent second-language teachers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Access_to_adequate_teaching_resources

In my like of work, I sometimes have to call businesses around the world. I know four languages (English, French, Chinese, and Esperanto), and occasionally face a language barrier when calling a hotel in Austria or a regional airline in Brazil for example.

 

Having taken an interest in language policy, I'm reasonably well read on the subject. Research shows that on an hourly basis, all other factors being equal, an adult learns a second language faster than a child does since he can refer to his own linguistic knowledge for help. What some people ignore is that the hardest language to learn is your first language since you have no point of reference. The reason a child learns his first language seemingly easily is because firstly, he has no choice and secondly, he's totally immersed in it. When a family moves abroad, the child spends his day at school just learning his second language whereas the parent might be working in English for some multinational company in the day and then might just take a weekly course on weekends. That still doesn't change the fact that the father would be learning more quickly on an hourly basis, but his child would just be investing many more hours daily in learning the language. That's why experts in pedagogy recommend that for the sake of efficient use of a child's time, the child start to learn his second language at the age of 11 or so. Some recommend 10, some 12. One exception is Helmar Frank who makes distinctions between languages and suggests that a child could efficiently learn Esperanto quite efficiently starting at the age of eight and more difficult languages starting at the age of 10, after he has some grounding in his first language as a point of reference.

If you read the statistics, even in Europe, only around half of Europeans know a second language, and it's not necessarily English, and it's often only at a conversational level. travel off of the beaten path, and most Europeans don't know English well at all.

We need to distinguish between individual language knowledge and language policy. There's a reason for example that we don't encourage multilingualism in aeronautical and maritime radio communication. There's a reason why different organizations will adopt a common language of internal communication. I know four languages, but I use only one at a time according to my environment and circumstances. When we talk about language policy, the government can't take someone with a knowledge of fifty languages as an example for the rest. It has to look at statistics. Statistically, most fail to learn their second language well, and that has real-life consequences. I don't care that I know four languages. All I care about is that I share at least one common language with the person with whom I'm communicating. When I read police or CBSA reports or IRB hearing transcripts in broken English, that's not acceptable. When I witness colleagues in the same office in the Government of Canada struggling to communicate with one another, that's not acceptable. They might individually be multilingual, I don't know. But all I care about is how well they know their language of work.

I work in the language industry, so I know what's actually happening. Again, you can't take one multingual person as the basis on which to base state language policy.

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[taxme]

2 hours ago, Machjo said:

As for the Francophone university, a simple solution would be to grant school vouchers. This would allow a studnet to present an electronic voucher to the participating post-secondary institution of his choice and allow each participating institution to teach in the official or unofficial language of its choice as per market supply and demand.unfortunately, some Franco-Ontarians would oppose that since it would put them on an equal footing with Chinese and Italian Ontarians.

As for the new Ministry of Francophone Affairs, I would rename it the Ministry for Language Rights and expand its mandate to include Deaf, indigenous, and other unofficial language rights too. If we can't reduce its budget, then let's at least expand its mandate to get a bigger bang for the buck. Besides, I'd be more in favour of its spending that money to study how we can make life easier for the Deaf who might need key services in a sign language myself. But again, some Franco-Ontarians might oppose that since it would put them on a more equal footing with Deaf and indigenous Ontarians.

Maybe they should not be allowed to have a french university. All that will happen if a french university was built would be to promote french and french Quebec and a place for the french to attack Anglophones and demand even more rights. The french language needs to stay in Quebec only. Bilingualism has not done a thing to promote unity but has divided both people instead. And not to forget to mention that bilingualism has probably cost the Canadian taxpayer's trillions in tax dollars by now. The french have always been running and pretty much ruining the rest of Canada. Quebec serves no purpose in Canada. They have become a pain in the Anglo ass. 

Maybe Quebec should give back the Anglophones their rights in Quebec. It seems that it's always about french rights in Canada but never Anglophone rights in Quebec. Quebec should not be allowed to call itself a unilingual french speaking province only and get away with it. I know dam well that if an English speaking province did the same thing they would be attacked right away by the Anglophone media and Anglophone politicians. The Anglophones in this country are their own worse enemy. 

If Quebec was all concerned about saving their language then all they had to do was to create a law that says that everything done in Quebec would be done in English and french. There was no need to make Anglophones not feel at home in their own home and province. The french are kicking the Anglophones asses every day and they could care leas about it. Bloody sad indeed. 

[Bonam]

The solution to this problem, as to most social problems, is technology. In 10 years, automatic realtime translation will be seamless and extremely accurate. Once technology allows an anglophone who has never learned a word of French to interact as effectively with a francophone as another francophone, there will be no need for bilingualism requirements. Then it will just be a matter of governments changing policies to accept the new reality. They will be slow and resistant to do this, but sooner or later reality triumphs over politics. 

[DogOnPorch]

7 minutes ago, Bonam said:

The solution to this problem, as to most social problems, is technology. In 10 years, automatic realtime translation will be seamless and extremely accurate. Once technology allows an anglophone who has never learned a word of French to interact as effectively with a francophone as another francophone, there will be no need for bilingualism requirements. Then it will just be a matter of governments changing policies to accept the new reality. They will be slow and resistant to do this, but sooner or later reality triumphs over politics. 

 

And don't forget those post singularity robot butlers. 

[Machjo]

21 minutes ago, Bonam said:

The solution to this problem, as to most social problems, is technology. In 10 years, automatic realtime translation will be seamless and extremely accurate. Once technology allows an anglophone who has never learned a word of French to interact as effectively with a francophone as another francophone, there will be no need for bilingualism requirements. Then it will just be a matter of governments changing policies to accept the new reality. They will be slow and resistant to do this, but sooner or later reality triumphs over politics. 

The problem is not with the technology but with the language itself. For example, we already possess the necessary technology to create a program that could produce a reliable academic machine translation from Lojban to another language. The reason for this is that while Lojban is a human language, it is also designed as a cybernetic language, so grammatically hyperprecise to be precise enough to avoid ambiguities. Even that would not allow literary translations, but it certainly could produce reliable scholarly ones.

English stands among the grammatically vaguest languages. English speakers rely more on context to understand the meaning, and even English speakers can misunderstand one another outside of the needed context. The technology today is already advanced enough to tell the machine that the phrase can mean different things. Then we need to choose how to program it. Most machine translators will make the machine choose the more common meaning by default. In other words, it's programmed to guess. I suppose we could create a system whereby the machine would interact with the English speaker to ask for clarification as to which of different possible meanings he means. That would greatly frustrate translation but certainly increase its reliability. If we're looking for speed and efficiency though, we can't have the machine asking us at every sentence which of different possible meanings we intend. For that, we'd probably all want to learn Lojban and machine-translate from that. The government could invest in producing a high-quality translation system from Lojban for the purpose. But then that raises another question. If English and French Canadians would all need to learn Lojban so that they could use machine-translators more efficiently, then why could they not just communicate directly in Lojban as a common language?

And if they have to learn a common languge anyway, then given how the average person doesn't need such a grammatically precise language (except maybe for machine translation) and Esperanto is easier to learn than Lojban, then why not just have them all learn Esperanto instead, leaving more difficult cyber-languages like Lojban to the experts?

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[Machjo]

And even to produce the technology, we'll need people who possess the necessary linguistic and technical skills. Just like budgets don't balance themselves, technology doesn't just produce itself either.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[Bonam]

12 minutes ago, Machjo said:

The problem is not with the technology but with the language itself. For example, we already possess the necessary technology to create a program that could produce a reliable academic machine translation from Lojban to another language. The reason for this is that while Lojban is a human language, it is also designed as a cybernetic language, so grammatically hyperprecise to be precise enough to avoid ambiguities. Even that would not allow literary translations, but it certainly could produce reliable scholarly ones.

English stands among the grammatically vaguest languages. English speakers rely more on context to understand the meaning, and even English speakers can misunderstand one another outside of the needed context. The technology today is already advanced enough to tell the machine that the phrase can mean different things. Then we need to choose how to program it. Most machine translators will make the machine choose the more common meaning by default. In other words, it's programmed to guess.

Real people also have to guess which of the possible meanings of a phrase is actually meant when speaking to each other in the same language. This guessing is based on the context. There is no reason that machine translation cannot, with further development, be able to use context as deeply as humans do to inform its understanding (and therefore translation) of phrase meanings. That's why I gave a time of 10 years in the future, not this year or next year, because there's still a ways to go until the algorithms exist to do deeply context-aware translation. 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Bonam

[Bonam]

7 minutes ago, Machjo said:

And even to produce the technology, we'll need people who possess the necessary linguistic and technical skills. Just like bugets don't balance themselves, technology doesn't just produce itself either.

That's true but that's the power of technology and computation. You only need one set of experts with the right linguistic and technical skills to solve the problem once. After that, the power of what they have created is available to everyone else, expert or not. 

[Machjo]

15 minutes ago, Bonam said:

Real people also have to guess which of the possible meanings of a phrase is actually meant when speaking to each other in the same language. This guessing is based on the context. There is no reason that machine translation cannot, with further development, be able to use context as deeply as humans do to inform its understanding (and therefore translation) of phrase meanings. That's why I gave a time of 10 years in the future, not this year or next year, because there's still a ways to go until the algorithms exist to do deeply context-aware translation. 

Even a human might need to ask the original speaker which he meant between different possibilities, though we could program a machine to do the same.

Now if you want a machine that has the same interpretive capabilities as a human, you'd have to walk around everywhere with a GPS cap on your head with audio and video to record every aspect of your life so that when you refer to an inside joke  you heard, or referring to the party you attended yesterday, etc. it could always know which you meant between different possible meanings. That would be an extremely expensive system. Also, I can't imagine government employees consenting to walking around with these things strapped to their heads daily and I can't imagine the taxpayer being willing to pay for it. If we want a world with efficient machine translation, we'd all need to learn Lojban, but that would defeat the whole point of machine translation, wouldn't it?

[Machjo]

34 minutes ago, Bonam said:

That's true but that's the power of technology and computation. You only need one set of experts with the right linguistic and technical skills to solve the problem once. After that, the power of what they have created is available to everyone else, expert or not. 

But you leave out one point. Most human languages, and especially English, are too grammatically vague for the purpose. If I worked in the field of professional machine translation, I'd focus on translation from Lojban and expect professionals to learn that language. When precise translation is less important (i.e. where misunderstanding wouldn't risk a person's safety in anyway and at most could cause some inconveniences), then translation from ambiguous languages like English would suffice. Again, the problem is not with the tech (we have that already), it's with the language itself. English is not suited for cybernetic communication.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[Machjo]

Also, what happens when the machine breaks down in an emergency? Would we accept pilots and ships' captains relying on this technology with the possibility of the battery dying all of a sudden or the machine getting damaged due to rain or impact, etc. It would need to be a physically robust system too, which would just add to the cost.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo

[Bonam]

2 hours ago, Machjo said:

Even a human might need to ask the original speaker which he meant between different possibilities, though we could program a machine to do the same.

Now if you want a machine that has the same interpretive capabilities as a human, you'd have to walk around everywhere with a GPS cap on your head with audio and video to record every aspect of your life so that when you refer to an inside joke  you heard, or referring to the party you attended yesterday, etc. it could always know which you meant between different possible meanings. That would be an extremely expensive system.

You mean like the cell phones that everyone already carries around almost everywhere?

[Machjo]

12 minutes ago, Bonam said:

You mean like the cell phones that everyone already carries around almost everywhere?

That would not be enough. The machine would need input from both visual and audio contexts too. Your phone is not recording your every move, is it? Unless it is, then the machine translator would be missing context.

Now, a simple solution to that would be to program the translator to request clarification; but especially for a language like English where nearly every word can mean severeal things, for the machine to correctly translate one sentence might require multiple requests for clarification. That could be a very tedious process, especially in an industry in which time is money.

Beyond language, the machine must also understand cultural context, which again could vary somewhat even between municipalities. The input required would be phenomenal.

Now of course some solutions exist. For example, we could learn a language like Lojban and machine-translate from that. Since Lojban is so semantically precise, all necessary linguistic input would already be included in the sentence. But then if everyone must learn Lojban,  why not just skip machine translation altogether and just communicate in Lojban? And if we all need to learn a common second language anyway, then why not an easier one like Espeanto (since except for cybernetic communication like machine translation, Lojban is far more precise than most people would need in their daily lives anyway)?

Anyone who knows a second language understands the complexities involved in communication. It involves not only grammar and lexis but context too. And context itself is far more complex than many realise. While the human brain can compute it instantly based on a lifetime of accumlated personal knowledge, how do you program that kind of data into a computer system individually for each person? Even English contains different dialects and different accents exist across the English-speaking world and even English-speakers might have lived very different life experiences which can afect the meaning of their sentence. It's far more complicated than some seem to realize.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Machjo