Linguist Jean-Claude Corbeil is dead. This scholar was behind the development and implementation of the main language laws adopted in Quebec, namely the Official Language Act (1974) and the Charter of the French Language (1977). “It was at his instigation that a vocabulary was developed allowing people to work in French, in their field”, summarizes the Duty linguist Marie-Éva de Villers.
“It was he who desanglicized Quebec,” argues linguist Nadine Vincent, from the University of Sherbrooke. “He never stopped saying that the individual alone could not face the drama of Anglicization and that the State in this regard played a fundamental role”.
Since 1986, Jean-Claude Corbeil had been known to a wide audience as the author of Visual, an original dictionary that is one of the greatest successes in Quebec publishing. Published in more than 35 European languages, but also in Japanese, Chinese and Arabic, the book has sold millions of copies to date.
Former Minister Louise Beaudoin does not hesitate to present this former linguistic director of the Office québécois de la langue française as “this absolutely admirable man” being at the source “of all Quebec language policies”.
Linguist Nadine Vincent observes that not only Quebec, but also Catalonia and several African countries have relied on him. “He has made Quebec a lot of progress,” notes Nadine Vincent. “With Guy Rocher, he is one of the builders of modern Quebec, that’s undeniable. It is to him that we owe the concept of “linguistic planning”.
Overcome shortcomings
Born in 1932 in Tétreaultville, a popular neighborhood in the east of Montreal, he taught Latin and French at the École Normale Jacques-Cartier. It was then that “he discovered both the insufficiencies of traditional grammar in explaining linguistic facts and the importance of school in the acquisition of a quality language by children”, observes the Center of interuniversity research on French in use in Quebec (CRIFUQ) of the University of Sherbrooke.
Alongside his teaching, Corbeil pursued graduate studies in linguistics at the University of Montreal. He obtained a doctorate in the same discipline in France, at the University of Strasbourg. From 1968, he was a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Université de Montréal.
“Each year, starting in the early 1970s, he invited the greatest linguists in the world, Alain Rey, Jean Dubois and many others, to Quebec in the fall to try to create a bank of specialized terms in French” , recalls the linguist Marie-Éva de Villers.
At the heart of politics
A keen interest in sociolinguistics encouraged him, in 1971, to accept the linguistic directorship of the Office de la langue française. “He participates in the work of the Gendron commission”, the Commission of Inquiry on the situation of the French language and on linguistic rights in Quebec, notes the former minister Louise Beaudoin.
“In fact, Jean-Claude Corbeil has been at the heart of Quebec’s language policies since the time of Daniel Johnson senior,” observes former CSN president Gérald Larose.
In 2000-2001, at the time of the Estates General on the situation and future of the French language in Quebec, also known as the Larose commission, Jean-Claude Corbeil was the secretary of this team whose mandate was “to identify and analyze the main factors influencing the situation and the future”. For the former president of the CSN, “Jean-Claude Corbeil was a man who is one of the few great architects of Quebec’s language policies. He was, with regard to language but also to international linguistic policies, a veritable living encyclopaedia. It is to him, during the work of our committee, that we send all our questions. »
At the invitation of Minister Louise Beaudoin, in 1995, Jean-Claude Corbeil agreed to prepare a new policy statement for the benefit of the Government of Quebec, with a view to renewing the Charter of the French language. Thereafter, until 2000, he was Deputy Minister responsible for the application of the language policy. The same year, he was made an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
From 1980 to 1988, Jean-Claude Corbeil also served as Secretary General of the International Council for Research and Study in Fundamental and Applied Linguistics (CIRELFA). “This function puts him in close contact with all the countries where the French language is used, in particular the African countries and the Creole-speaking countries”, comments the CRIFUQ of the University of Sherbrooke. From 1988 to 1991, Jean-Claude Corbeil acted as an advisor to the president of the Conseil de la langue française du Québec.
Choose your fights
It was at this time that he launched, with the publisher Québec Amérique, a first version of his most famous work, in collaboration with Ariane Archambault: the Visual thematic dictionary will soon be known by the sole name of Visual.
With Marie-Éva de Villers, he will also participate in the publication, under the same banner, of Multidictionary of the difficulties of the French language, which is also very successful.
In 2007, in a book prefaced by Louise Beaudoin entitled The Embarrassment of Languages, Jean-Claude Corbeil summed up his experience in terms of language policies. “He wanted to explain to the youngest where the need for Bill 101 came from, what all that had meant,” recalls Louise Beaudoin.
The Grande Medal of the Francophonie was awarded to him in 2010, which adds to several other recognitions for his work. “At the end of his life, notes the linguist Nadine Vincent, “he had the generosity, when speaking to the students, to tell them that they too had battles to fight and that they had the right to choose them”.