The government is preparing to adopt a new law to protect French in Quebec. If it starts from a good intention, it does not tackle the real causes of the decline of French. To better understand how we can have a real impact on French, we must look at what is currently happening among young people. Indeed, the reality of today’s young cohorts will be that of tomorrow’s Quebec.
Today, one in three sentences spoken by young people is in English. The other two sentences are pronounced in poor French, with no vocabulary. Young people cannot write without making gross mistakes, which their teachers dare or are no longer able to correct. Young people find it difficult to express an idea clearly, but they care less and less, encouraged to do so by the media and advertising in a kind of new normal.
This finding seems exaggerated and you are right: it probably concerns only 80% of the members of our generation.
In this context, has it never come to the reasoning of public decision-makers that it has almost become superhuman for an immigrant, for an Anglophone, to wish to join our French-speaking minority in America and to participate in the collective life in French?
In order for immigrants to learn and practice a language, they need motivation. But how can you be motivated to speak a language that is not loved and even less maintained by its first speakers?
This is the main issue, ignored by the government, the one that could allow us to continue to speak French in Quebec. Without newcomers, without anglophones, we will not be able to preserve French, any more than we will be able to survive at all. Quebec’s population is aging and no longer renewing itself. In the same way that we depend on the rest of the world to maintain our population, we depend on the attitude, on the outlook that newcomers and those who do not speak our language have on us, and on the behavior they adopt.
French will not survive in Quebec without a Francophone critical mass that masters, respects and loves its language, and that communicates its pride to newcomers and Anglophones. Any law that attempts to preserve French in Quebec without at the same time putting in place a dynamic that creates interest and motivation for the French language will not be able to generate positive results, any more than a bandage can cure a disease. gangrenous limb.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, ARCHIVES THE PRESS
Reading an excerpt from The swallow of the swallowed by Maxime Denommée, Sophie Cadieux and Louise Marleau
We offer you some suggestions to reverse the destructive spiral in which French finds itself in Quebec:
– Use the hours gained by the abolition of the ECR course to strengthen the learning of French. Mastering the language is the best way to strengthen the critical spirit, pride and self-esteem of Quebecers.
– Give a taste for reading from an early age through short texts, to be read at home with their parents and to be discussed in class. Mobilize parents to encourage reading and educate them to reduce the time allocated to the use of mobile phones and social networks.
– In high school, open the horizons of Quebecers by reading French-language works outside Quebec. There is no shame in reading French authors who are at the root of our national literature. In CEGEP, stop giving books to read written in Joual, which should remain a curiosity. All the literatures in the world make a difference between the spoken language and the written language, why should it be any different in Quebec?
– Strengthen the ranks of teachers by recruiting French-speaking or Francophile teachers abroad who are fluent in French. Let us also strengthen the language skills of the current teaching staff.
– Bring together the spoken and written media and question their role to make Francophones want to speak their language well and newcomers to learn and practice it. Give a linguistic capacity building mandate to the Office québécois de la langue française, which could work with the media and publicists on a voluntary basis. It is surely possible to preserve the quality of the language while maintaining a Quebec specificity.
Without such measures, we believe that the linguistic reality of Quebec in 20 years will have changed a lot. You will witness it, Mr. Prime Minister.
What do you think? Express your opinion