Quebec: French in Canada

Brief history

• Early seventeenth century
  • France founds two colonies in North America
    • Acadie on the Atlantic seaboard – roughly modern Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island
    • New France – the strip of land extending along the banks of the St. Lawrence, loosely known as Canada – French population calls themselves canadiens/habitants
    • Early settlers of Acadie and New France come chiefly from western France
      • Dialects reflect the linguistic situation in 17^th and 18^th centuries
    • Over half of the Acadians came from south of the Loire
    • Half of Canadians originated north of the Loire
    • Many immigrants were younger sons of noble or bourgeois families and therefore educated – their French closer to Standard French
• 1713 Treaty of Utrecht
  • France cedes Acadie to England
• 1755 le grand derangement
  • England deports two thirds of the acadiens to New England
  • Some of these find their way down to Louisiana - descendants are still called Cajuns [kadʒɛ̃n]
    • Many exiles later return and settle in Acadie – 1981 census: 16.6% of the population of the three provinces claim French as mother tiongue
• 1763 the Treaty of Paris
  • Canada becomes a British colony
  • French in contact and conflict with Canadian English
• 1791 the Constitutional Act
  • Canada divided into
    • Anglophone Upper Canada
    • Francophone Lower Canada
• 1837 the patriotes’ rebellion
• 1840 the Act of Union
  • the Province of Canada established
  • single Assembly – equal representation from Upper and (more populated) Lower Canada
  • English the only official language – French population and language ‘minorised’
• 1867 the British North America Act
  • Canada becomes a Dominion comprising four Provinces
    • Ontario
    • Quebec
    • Nova Scotia
    • New Brunswick
  • French becomes an official language with English but there is no question of making the Federal Government bilingual
• 1871 the first Census
  • total population 3,700,000 of which 30% is of French origin
• 1890 Manitoba (the fifth Province – 1870) abolishes the use of French in its schools – Ontario does the same later on
• revanche des berceaux
  • Francophones survive, thanks to a very high birth-rate (65⁰/₀₀₀) despite emigration (approx 500,00 are estimated to have emigrated between 1860-1900) to western Canada or the USA, high infant mortality and epidemics of small pox, typhus, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever and typhoid
• 1931 the Statute of Westminster
  • Canada acquires full autonomy
    • 80% of Francophones voted against entering into WW2 but are outvoted by the Anglophones
• 1959 the beginning of la Révolution tranquille (FLQ)
• 1968 Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister
  • he proclaims French and English official languages (1969)
    • ‘Canada was witnessing a growing geographical concentration and separation of the two official language communities. This territorial polarisation has crucial implications for language planning. The state, whether federal or provincial, has two possible solutions: it can either guarantee individual rights, e.g. the right to education in the language of one’s choice; or it can separate the two communities, each with its own language, with guarantees for linguistic minorities. The first option was and still is the federal institutional response. The second was Quebec’s solution.’
  • The Official Languages Act declares Canada to be a bilingual country
  • instigates and ambitious project to revise the Canadian Constitution (but is opposed to Quebec independence
• Quebec makes French the the sole official language and the language of work in a series of Bills
  • 1969 Bill 63
  • 1974 Bill 74 (?Loi 22)
  • 1977 Bill 101 – the Charter of the French language
• French becomes
  • an instrument of power –
  • a way of gaining control of the economy and education by securing its future and that of French culture
• Language planning implemented through three governmental agencies
  • Office de la Langue Française (OLF)
    • Defines policy and carries out research into socio-linguistics, neology and terminology – issues or cancels ‘francisation’ certificates’ (required by firms for doing business in Quebec.
    • In 2003 the OLF becomes the Office Québecois de la Langue Française
  • The OLF also monitors difficulties encountered in the implementation of Bill 101
  • The Commission de Surveillance et des Enquêtes deals with violations of the language laws