Within the landscape of a predominantly anglophone country, situated in a predominantly francophone province, Montreal has historically been torn between the two languages. From the British conquest, which minimized Quebec’s linguistic, religious, and political power, to Bill 101, which reclaimed French as the province’s official language, the tensions between the dominance of English or French have been a central debate among Quebec residents, visitors, and policymakers.
As a major urban hub in Canada and the most populous city in Quebec, Montreal differs from the rest of the province in terms of its vast linguistic and cultural plurality. This diversity is often perceived as either a threat to the French language, or as an opportunity to embrace the privilege of multilingualism.
If there’s one thing I have learned in my three years studying linguistics, it’s that language changes. All languages spoken today are merely a result of countless natural transformations throughout human development, in spite of longstanding anti- change narratives. These range from Plato’s complaints about the deterioration of Ancient Greek, to Cicero regarding Latin, to critics of Shakespeare’s neologisms. I have also been well trained to notice red flags whenever conservative discourse about language emerges: be it when people claim that contemporary slang is corrupting our speech, or attempt to police how people should and shouldn’t talk. Quebec’s recent Bill 96, which aims to minimize foreign language use in product labels and business signs, raised one of these red flags.
While the history of the French language in the province should be respected and assimilation into Quebecois(e) culture should be encouraged, using a tape measure to check if French writing occupies over 50 per cent of every sign’s surface area is definitely not the way to achieve this. Fining business owners $30,000 CAD for failing to conform to these guidelines is ineffective as a method to foster a new francophone community. The same goes for censoring the cheerful “Go Habs go!” signs in buses for “promoting anglicism,” which not only ignores an attempt to nurture a communal sense of pride among Montrealers, but also inspires more division than unity.
In my conversation with Dr. Charles Boberg, a professor of sociolinguistics at McGill, he explains how both sides of the French language debate are valid. On one hand, he points to the fact that our new mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, born in Chile, describes herself as a “daughter of Bill 101,” exemplifying the law’s success at integrating immigrants in Montreal using French. On the other hand, he argues that the tens of millions of dollars spent by the “language police” to reinforce the use of French could instead be allocated to paying bus drivers, supplying hospitals, and improving our schools.
Dr. Boberg also raises the question of how, in Quebec, there is an “ethnocentric nationalist protection of French and only French.” Despite being spoken by 85 per cent of the inhabitants of Quebec, French has been granted far more safeguarding measures than Cree, Mohawk, and Innu-aimun, endangered languages threatened on a larger scale due to historical marginalization.
This leads us to the problematic nature of Quebec’s nationalist approach of equating language to culture. Defining Quebec through the French language alone rids the province of the opportunity to further recognize its rich and diverse culture. This overemphasis on the French language erases the history of immigration and diversity that has been prevalent in the province for generations, particularly in the construction of Montreal. If being Quebecois(e) is defined only in terms of speaking French, what does this mean for the status of new immigrants and anglophones that have resided in Montreal for centuries?
From the standpoint of an outsider, when I hang out with my proud Quebecois(e) friends and observe the cultural unison of francophones, it doesn’t seem to me like French is going anywhere anytime soon. The conservation of the province’s astonishing culture, though, can only be attained from within: from the people’s motivation to speak the language of their grandparents and to keep the tradition going for generations to come. And this can be accomplished alongside welcoming change and the opportunities that new languages can bring.
In the city of “Bonjour Hi,” the eternal English/French debate should be settled by embracing the power in the metropolis’ bilingual identity.