French in Canada

Since the enactment of the Official Languages Act in 1969 is French in Canada in addition to English equal official language for all government agencies at the federal level. The provinces can independently decide which languages are used in the area of their jurisdiction. French is the only official language in Québec , while New Brunswick is an officially bilingual province. In the other provinces there are regulations that allow the francophone minorities e.g. B. allow the establishment of a francophone school system, etc.

Because of its great distance from the rest of the Francophonie , French in Canada differs significantly from European French. But there are also different variants within French in Canada:

Quebec French is spoken by the francophone residents of Québec , Ontario, and Western Canada .
The Acadians in the Maritime Provinces ( provinces maritimes ) New Brunswick , Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island speak Acadian French .
In Newfoundland, in addition to Acadian French, which is more common nowadays, Newfoundland French is still occasionally spoken.
Michif , a mixture of French and Cree , is the language of the Métis .
There are also numerous variants such as Haitian or French from France, which are spoken by recent immigrants.

6.4 million Canadians (24% of the total population) use French as their first language ( Francophone Canadians ). A total of 8.9 million Canadians (31%) can speak French fluently (1996 census).

literature

Virginie Robert: Vers une francophonie multiculturelle au Canada. Les Échos , November 4, 2014 Online . On Hollande's visit to Canada, with reflections on the future development of French in the country
Elke Laur (Montréal): “Je me nomme, donc je suis”. Quelques repères sur les identités linguistiques et culturelles à Montréal , in “Border Crossings . Contributions to a modern Romance studies ”. 12th year 2005, no . 24 ISSN 0944-8594 in the section "Romance Studies and Society".

Web links

State official language commissioner , either French (as here) or English.
- including: Current version of the language law in Canada, valid since 2005 (paraphrase, in chapters), a total of 91 §§, optionally in French / English
English and French original versions of the law, constantly updated
Linguistic atlases from Ressources Naturelles Canada
Language is the Key: The Canadian Language Benchmarks Model , by Monika Jezak, 2017. Full text on the University of Ottawa server . For the optional, systematic acquisition of both official languages by adult immigrants: legal situation, methodology, measurability, successes

notes

↑ It deals with the “key issue of identity” in the Quebec (migration) society. For the period from 1986 to 2004, she analyzes the self-designations Canadien français, Français, Québécois, Francophone, Allophone, Anglophone, Canadian and others, which are considered emblematic, in order to examine the cultural and identity processes of change in the area of tension between the social classification intended for language policy and the multilingual identities of the people of Québec.

In Canada, 13.3% of the population speak French. 85% of French Canadians live in the French stronghold of Quebec.

French is the main language spoken in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Because of its bilingual history, people in Canada are mainly of English and French origin. To emphasize equality, there are two official languages: English and French

[1] It deals with the “key issue of identity” in the Quebec (migration) society. For the period from 1986 to 2004, she analyzes the self-designations Canadien français, Français, Québécois, Francophone, Allophone, Anglophone, Canadian and others, which are considered emblematic, in order to examine the cultural and identity processes of change in the area of tension between the social classification intended for language policy and the multilingual identities of the people of Québec.