Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[dleung]

Originally Posted by lio45

I find I nowadays am not bothered by the completely-disconnected-from-reality "charges" that unhinged participants sometimes throw with a straight face at me and others SSPers like me who don't adhere to their crazy views.

If I can shrug off being apparently a full-fledged racist according to some, I sure can also shrug off being called a Trump Supporter, a Trudeau Supporter, a Kenney supporter, etc.

I've been called equally bad things by less irrelevant people than you... so you're not even on my radar here, sorry. I've pointed out reality to a few times, if you don't want to accept it, well, okay, I can't realistically do much more. You also are on record doubting I'm actually in the real estate business... which IMO totally dwarfs your charge of MAGAhood, i.e. if you genuinely believe lio45 is a guy on welfare who likes to pretend he owns real estate on this architecture/urban affairs online forum, then while at it you may as well believe lio45 is a guy on welfare who's a Rabid Trump Supporter, it's approximately the same level of disconnection from reality at that point.

Whatever you say "unhinged" has lost its meaning long before you accused a fox business writer of TDS for saying something bad about your beloved Trump administration

[esquire]

^ By this point I think we've all gotten used to lio using "unhinged" as shorthand for "a person who sees things differently than I do"

[lio45]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ By this point I think we've all gotten used to lio using "unhinged" as shorthand for "a person who sees things differently than I do"

Not true at all, I reserve the term for the actually unhinged. The amount of SSPers who've been on the receiving end of that adjective from me is quite minimal. In the Canada section, I can only think of dleung at first sight. The number grows to ~5-7 (certainly <10) if we include Current Events (which seems to be a natural habitat for the unhinged).

[Denscity]

I was thinking just how much and how little French is spoken in each province and found this ranking list from WorldAtlas:

1 Quebec 79.95%

2 New Brunswick 28.36%

3 Canada (country wide) 20.61%

4 Yukon 2.43%

5 Ontario 2.23%

6 PEI 1.78%

7 Nova Scotia 1.75%

8 Manitoba 1.5%

9 Northwest Territories 1.35%

10 Nunavut 0.77%

11 Alberta 0.68%

12 Saskatchewan 0.42%

13 British Columbia 0.38%

14 Newfoundland 0.22%

I knew BC was very low and I was right but look at Newfoundland at the bottom and Yukon in 3rd!?

[jamincan]

I would have thought Manitoba would be higher.

[kwoldtimer]

Ontario is double that figure, no?

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Ontario is double that figure, no?

Ya figured Ontario would be higher but it is based on overall population so ??

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Ontario is double that figure, no?

I thought Ontario had 600,000 francophones. At least, it had that number at some point.

Edit: 622,000 or 4.7% of the population in 2016

[jamincan]

It seems to be Language spoken most often at home from the 2016 Census: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...=1&rl=1&SO=10D

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jamincan

It seems to be Language spoken most often at home from the 2016 Census: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...=1&rl=1&SO=10D

If so then the figure for Quebec might be a bit too low.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by Acajack

If so then the figure for Quebec might be a bit too low.

So you think Statistics Canada is wrong?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jamincan

So you think Statistics Canada is wrong?

No, it just seems that the numbers quoted are mother tongue for QC but language spoken at home for provinces like NB and ON.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

No, it just seems that the numbers quoted are mother tongue for QC but language spoken at home for provinces like NB and ON.

Language spoken at home and mother tongue are different things. Seems strange to blend them.

[jamincan]

The link to the table is right there...

Most of the remainder speak English or a non-official language and then a small number a variety of combinations. Combinations including French would bring it up roughly 3%.

Since you're curious, stats for Mother tongue in Quebec can be viewed here: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...TABID=1&type=1

French: 77.1
Engligh: 7.5
Non-official: 13.2
(combinations fill the remainder)

[mousquet]

I'll tell you what, I have a slight feeling that one of these days, Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese will be gradually replacing English and Spanish in French schools. Lol, so I'm not going to bother reading this whole thread or fight.

Admittedly, Asian languages will be quite a challenge, much much harder to learn than colloquial English. It will be a whole different story...

[MonctonRad]

Mandarin and Russian are, and will continue to be important regional languages in central and east Asia, but since neither country developed worldwide empires, they will never be "world" languages. The world languages are, and will continue to be English, Spanish and French.

North America - English and Spanish
South America - Spanish and Portuguese
Europe - English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian
Asia - Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Arabic and Indonesian
Africa - English, French and Arabic
Oceania - English and French

Continental Spread:

English - 4
French - 3
Spanish - 3
Russian - 2
Arabic - 2
Mandarin - 1
Portuguese - 1
German - 1
Italian - 1
Hindi - 1

[esquire]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I would have thought Manitoba would be higher.

I know that the French language doesn't have a huge presence here, but the number given for Manitoba is lower than I would have expected.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Mandarin and Russian are, and will continue to be important regional languages in central and east Asia, but since neither country developed worldwide empires, they will never be "world" languages. The world languages are, and will continue to be English, Spanish and French.

Well, that might only be the past, but can you really tell about the future? It is hard to predict anything these days.

The thing is China's changing way faster, to a larger scale than anything before. Their rapid growth is something never seen before in human history, and they're aware of it.
This is no longer the sadistic Mao Zedong age when they all were supposed to starve and shut their mouths.
Their dictatorship (read their Chinese Communist Party that's actually nothing much so communist any longer) manages to raise a incredibly large and productive middle class that will seek economic expansion beyond their borders at some point.

I remember when I was a kid, people used to say - they're only uneducated workers. They're meant for low added value and cheap business. Ah, bad idea, pretty bad mistake to scorn them that patronizing way, because that is no longer the case already. We should've been more leery.
They can train some highly skilled workforce in their country and develop some advanced tech now. It barely took 20 years for them to go this normally long way.
They acted very smartly by protecting their domestic market from products made in USA or in Europe, and they stole a lot of knowledge from us by requiring production to be relocated in their country.

Now, their influence is noticeably growing here in Europe. So I wouldn't take Western languages as anything so comfortably or forever established.
Again, we've misjudged their workforce and ability to get it more educated, that might cause some difficulties to us in the coming decades.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

What has made you so focused on ethnic minorities and transgendered issues? Why have you taken up this cross to bear? Is it a direct result of the need to squelch any cognitive dissonance for the apologies and excuses offered for a sordid politician in the current events thread? What got you triggered?

That’s a great question.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ By this point I think we've all gotten used to lio using "unhinged" as shorthand for "a person who sees things differently than I do"

Also his insult for anyone who shows compassion for children in detention centers or who points out other morally bankrupt policies of the Trump Administration. Not to mention anyone who questions the logical inconsistencies of Quebec’s anti face covering law.