Language tendencies in Quebec 1960 until 2000

Is French going to remain the predominant language in Quebec, or are the first steps towards a replacement by English already done?

Susanne Schalch

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9783640168873
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, 0, LMU Munich (Amerikanistik Institut), course: Canada Today, language: English, abstract: This research paper wants to discuss the question, whether French is able toremain the predominant language in Canada´s province Quebec, or if there is a shifttowards replacement by the English language.Obviously, the number of the French speaking population in Quebec is a lothigher than the one that speaks English. Currently, about 9% of world´sFrancophones are Canadians and of those, around 30% are Quebecers. French isthe mother tongue of over 80% of the Quebecois population, and of only 13%, it isEnglish (Gentsch 142). It seems as if the roles in Quebec are assigned.But English is the world language and is spoken in the rest of Canada as wellas by 280 million inhabitants of its huge southern neighbor, the United States ofAmerica. Quebec is surrounded by English speaking countries. Will a small provincelike Quebec be able to preserve its culture and its language or is it going to beoverswept by the wave of "anglicization" after all?Canadians are very proud of their culture and language. It is very important forforeigners, who visit Quebec, to speak French. In an newspaper article about a winterfestival in Quebec, a German boy said about himself and his friends: "Wir alle könnenkein Französisch" (Tourisme du Quebec) and therefore implicated that it is notpossible to manage a visit in the Canadian province without knowing any French. ButQuebec is not an only-French speaking province, is it? In almost all parts of theworld, tourists, who visit other countries, are able to correspond in English there. InQuebec, although about 11% of all inhabitants are Anglophones, people preferleading a conversation in French. They are proud of their culture and their languageand therefore, they are looking down on everything that could endanger it. Quebecoisare very much afraid of English replacing their beloved French language.The key component of Quebec´s national culture is their French language.René Lévesque, leader of the Parti Québécois from 1976 until 1981, explained this in1968: "Being ourselves is essentially a matter of developing and keeping apersonality that has survived for three and a half centuries.