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French is still a language spoken by a severe minority in Canada, so why speak French first during the Canada Day party? It sucked anyway, but the principle still stands. —Anglais, s.v.p
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.
38 Comments
I thought that was odd also. Next they’ll be throwing in Mandarin and Native languages.
canada day, bah fucking humbug to you sir.
severe french? hmm…like rene levesque?
Well, last time I checked Canada had TWO official languages, French AND English, both of which we are entitled to use. Does it really matter which one is spoken first on the Canada Day broadcast? As a Canadian, it always made perfect sense to me to know how to speak both official languages. Vive la difference!
Can I write a bitch about this bitch …
I also want to know what “severe minority” means. Are there also mild and moderate minority?
Population of the entire maritimes: 1,826,896
Population of quebec: 7,546,131
Go fuck yourself, OP.
Sorry PK, but french populations exist outside of Quebec. There are french communities in all the other provinces too. Lot’s of Les Acadiens in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Newfoundland has a french speaking population as do Ontario, the Prairies etc. Quebec merely has the largest francophone population, and the most vocal.
PK did you catch that? Good thing we’ve got an OceanBitch to set everyone straight, eh?
I don’t think PK’s point was to say the French population only existed in Quebec, Oceanlady. I think she was just pointing out the flaw in what the OP said.
Also, fuck you, OP. French is one of Canada’s official languages. Who the bloody hell cares if it’s spoken first or second or after Mandarin, Tamil, Guugu Yimidhirr or 5,000,000 other languages you’ve never heard of? What do you care?
Ugh. Hate this bitch (I mean the OP).
That wasn’t my point, OL, my point was there are more people in the solely french province than in all of the maritimes. I am aware that NB is bilingual and there are french components in other provinces, I was just using quebec to prove a point.
I’m getting pretty sick of all this politically correct pandering to the French too, especially on a holiday for a country which a high percentage of them don’t even want to be a part of! English is the main and dominant language of the world. It used to be French but hasn’t been for a long time, so get over it and get with the times. And what a waste of money in places like Alberta where the CBC has to have a French radio station because hey, it’s one of our official languages, even though only about 20 people listen to it.
And to say “well there are French-speaking communities everywhere in Canada” doesn’t really make much of a valid point. There are also Mandarin, German, Ukrainian, Italian, a wide variety of Native language, etc. -speaking communities across Canada, they just don’t whine as much about language laws and whatnot.
And I have French blood, I just don’t feel the need for all this focus on what really is a dying and unimportant language in the grand scheme of everything. Also, a lot of pretentious Anglophones try to speak French in an effort to sound sophisticated. Big turn-off.
The point *is* Canada has two official languages. The other language speaking communities you pointed out, q, aren’t an official language so there is no law governing its mandated use.
Quebec is a french province and has over a quarter of the entire population of this country. Sure not all of them speak french, and yes, as OL pointed out, there are other french parts of the country, but it’s the second most populated province and carries a HUGE chunk of the population. More than the maritime provinces combined (and I’m guessing more than the maritimes and NL combined too). That’s a huge chunk of people who speak a language.
And honestly, from spending time in quebec, I don’t really blame them for wanting to split. It’s like being in a different country, and it’s people like OP and you, q, who treat the french like shit who make them want to leave even more.
I am part french acadian myself and speak french conversationally – however, most of our country speaks english – english is our first language – so I think we should speak it first.
In regards to seperatism – how many english seperatists do you know?
hmmm – I love my french heritage but I’m very thankful that it doesn’t include seperatism but a sense of pride in being Canadian. That’s my experience.
In all seriousness, who the fuck cares? “Oh no, they spoke french to me! How insulting!” Get over it!
Maybe Canada should start using a language totally different from English or French and end this debate once and for all. Chinese, anyone?
“English is the main and dominant language of the world. “
???
Mandarin is spoken by over 100 000 000 more people than english…
though I’m not sure if any survey was checking first languages or total languages spoken where the bilingual throw their point in to both hats.
and PK, based on your stats, unless there are 5 000 000 people living in Newfoundland who ALL speak french…. Quebec FTW over the atlantic provinces… and since statsCan has the population @ about 1/2 million, there would have to be a lot of underground or frenchy, newf cavemen who’ve been off the radar all their lives to pull that off.
Or maybe they live in tunnels, like a breed of atlantic prairie dog.
who said anything about NFLD? Are you awake, zZz?
English separatists? OMG That would be anyone indifferent to PQ separating so that means you, superspud. Shame.
The Chinese language has the most native speakers on the planet (over 900,000,000), with Spanish coming in a distant second (approx 330,000,000) and English (near 320,000,000) pulling in third, at least that was the case when I studied language usage in my last year of school.
Once you consider into bi/tri & multilingual speakers the numbers change, but English, while widely used, falls short of top gun status in the language game.
The misconception comes from the geography in which English is used. Chinese is in high density pockets, but in most countries around the world you can find someone who speaks English. Anyway, regardless, CANADA is bilingual and as such, we should be able to have either language start off the CANADA Day festivities. Big frickin’ whoop.
Well if that is what you choose to think of me as – that is your choice, Kay.
I actually love Canada and if acadians want to be proud to be Canadians – that is wonderful! If you want to leave the country – leave it!
I would not say that I am indifferent at all – I would rather Quebec stay a part of Canada and be proud to be. It just makes sense that the most spoken language in a country be spoken first on the day that celebrates it’s birthday – logic, mabye?
Kay — I had mentioned NL in my post and didn’t look at NL’s stats but I stated that I was sure that there are more people in quebec than all of the atlantic provinces, but didn’t have the pop numbers for NL. That’s where zZz got that from.
English is the most DOMINANT language in world of international commerce even though it’s only the third most spoken (natively) in the world. Anyone ever read Germs, Guns and Steel? Explains how, despite the numbers in other civilizations, European civilizations became “dominant.” In the grand scheme of things, environmental factors contributed to the growth of european and eventually english dominance, really, and the nature of their societies and inclination to explore and expand, while other civilizations (chinese for example), didn’t really have any inclination to expand on such a level. I mean how many former chinese colonies in africa are there? And it wasn’t the chinese who colonized north america…The big misconception is that these societies were just not as advanced as european societies, when in reality it was a middle eastern society that invented the fork, and the chinese were ingenious as well. The europeans borrowed/stole a lot from other societies.
It’s not necessarily about numbers, it’s about technological advances, environmental factors and desire to expand, really.
I learned all that during my BA in history studies. Glad it’s useful for SOMETHING (heh, posting on ltwwb haha).
Who the fuck cares which language is spoken first. If this is all people have to bitch about then maybe some priorities need to be evaluated.
Just sayin’
Agreed PK.
English is the main language spoken by approximately 75% of the country, so perhaps that’s why we should be first and stop this politically correct ass-kissing to our small French minority who mostly hate us English speakers anyway. In Quebec they can speak French, they can speak whatever language they want, anyone can speak whatever language they want, fine, but the fact remains that English is the most dominant language not only in Canada, but the world.
I agree it’s not the most important issue in the grand scheme of things, it’s just principle, and money, since we probably spend billions of dollars a year “promoting the French language in Canada.”
Q, so fucking what! The bottom line is that the french culture is still and will always be an integral part of this country. This country was founded thanks to both English and French and that is why we keep both as the official languages. Get over it please.
“English is the most dominant language not only in Canada, but the world.”
we’ve obviously taught you nothing.
unless by dominant you mean how the people who it represents have a history of being oppressive, controlling, and flat-out philandering.
‘most prevalent’… still not even so.
One trip to the east and you’d be a little more informed… and lost in the ocean of the vast quantity of people there who look at you puzzlingly because they have no fucking clue what you’re saying in your ‘dominant’ language.
Canada Day 2060 – the muezzin will call the faithful to prayers from the top of the Peace Tower and people will be whingeing and moaning about why the celebrations were introduced in Mandarin rather than Urdu.
And as for philandering Z-man, my money is on the Moors. They did so much fucking with Sicilian women…
See, I’m old and senile – so that’s “cute” heh heh heh.
Ha ha ha… definitely cute, Mr. Ivan, the-deceased-promoter-of-stateless-society. Though why not Arabic? I think it’s poised for a definite run at being a top language in Canada 2060. And it’s script is so preeeetty. Give folks somethign ELSE to bitch about too! They’d have to learn a whole new way of writing.
And as you said, they’re excellent philanderers…
I’ll do all right when we become the worlds coldest, snowiest islamic republic.
Grow a beard, take 3 more wives, set one of them on fire the first time dinners late – pour encourager les autres. As long as they don’t fuck with my beer and my baby backs I’ll be happier than a pig in whiskey.
Disclaimer: if you can’t tell, my tongue is planted firmly in cheek. I treat those who fear the islamization of our country with the same derision I expend on those who fervently dream of a global caliphate and worldwide imposition of sharia law. Rainbow coalition of wankers. >: )
the beard is a good idea i like beardos…your tongue is sticking through the cheek. snort
do pigs really enjoy whiskey that much? I mean enough so that they are actually ‘in’ it?
I mean, I’ve heard of marinating your pork chops… but surely it starts post-massacre… and not while in the happy place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpuJvkNMoKs
Beer I found, but not whiskey.
Duh – it’s called Kobe Pork and it’s real spensive.
… and that is one cool looking hog Newto. SOBova said it was like deja vu all over again. Ain’t she a cut-up?
You mean Kurobuta pork? The one on the video didn’t look like it was meant for eating. (Looked like a pet.) I’ve tried Kurobuta once and didn’t really care for it, although it tastes far better than pork meat sold around here. (Although, pork in Halifax tastes better than pork I ate in BC.) Kobe beef on the other hand, that’s just MMMMMMMMMMMMM yum. Kobe beef Teppanyaki….holy crap it is worth every penny (or Yen if you eat it in Japan).
What was this thread about? Oh…French.
So we’re agreed – Kobe beef and a big jar of French’s mustard. Hamburgers don’t need to cost $100.00 bucks. Jeez-Louise!
yes it definitely looked like a pet nth…from french to pork what a segue