Speakez-you franglais?

Photo courtesy

Josée Legault

Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 13:57

UPDATE
Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 14:14

Look at this article

“Right Proud” – A slogan in franglais for the Games of the canadian francophonie in 2017? Since my colleague Sophie Durocher reported the news in his column of July 14 last, I am not yet returned.

And as if that wasn’t enough, by a funny coincidence – painful, in fact-a few hours later, I was in a shop in the city centre of Montreal, a greeting card “humorous” whose cover mimics the logo of the government of Québec with the following statement, that, and ironic : “Office québécois de la langue franglais“… It will be invented, not even…

This is the slogan franglais Games of the canadian francophonie, not that I’m particularly surprised.

After all, except for Quebec and the communities of franco-canadian, the mastery of the French language in Canada is only a view of the mind. Only the institutional bilingualism is minimally functional at the federal level.

What amazes me, however, is the sans-gêne with which this gesture unsightly has been laid. Absolute disgrace and deeply disrespectful.

***

“Stay tuned”?

However, in his chronicle, Sophie Durocher states :

“The most ridiculous in all this, is that the slogan has been chosen by young people to represent the way in which they express themselves. Melissa Martel, president of the Games of the canadian francophonie 2017, told Radio-Canada :

“It is not that they are silent in French. They are talking about when even in French. It is for this reason that we need to enhance the way they speak.”

Worse yet, if it is, it even learns that :

“In her video-tour of Moncton, the minister of canadian Heritage and official Languages Mélanie Joly we announced :” Tomorrow, I comes to you with good news, so stay tuned “.

How does it “stay tuned?”?

The franglais, this bouillabaisse bâtardisée where we are mixing two languages to create a new one quite undrinkable. Anglicisms, syntax, anglicized, etc… Because in fact, the franglais is especially baragouiné by francophones.

The franglais, however, is the irrefutable sign of a conquest in the language of the French by the English. The whole, with the approval of those who are French-speaking, give in blissfully to this mode infuriating and culturally suicidal. Point.

In Montreal, as soon as one crosses the Saint-Laurent boulevard to the west, the franglais means more and more. Since a few months, it also intends to settle gradually to the east of the same boulevard.

***

A surrender

The franglais, it is a surrender. A surrender linguistic, cultural, intellectual, economic, and political. How can we not denounce such a practice?

I myself grew up and studied in a working-class district of Montreal in the 60’s and 70’s, I never hesitate a second to invest all the efforts possible to better master the French language.

What, never no more, never has prevented me from mastering English as early as the age of 8-9 years. What I have done so, incidentally, entirely self-taught.

Gold, learn to be proficient in two languages, first of all, the siena, is to be open to multiple cultures, multiple literacies, multiple artists, etc

To the opposite, to mix these two languages in order to better dissolve his own in the most “powerful”, it is close to everything. It is to lose everything.

It is also possible to turn the back on all these women and all these men who, for centuries, in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, have to hold the fort of the French language in the face of an English-language, easily assimilating.

The franglais, it is to deny oneself.

It is to succumb to the ease. It is to embrace the void. It is a pride of its own lack aberrant vocabulary in his own language.

In short, it is to feed the ignorance and the dilution of cultural “talking French” of America, wherever they come from.

***

And France?

I will may-be that “it is much worse in France” with their anglicisms become chronic. Yada yada yada…

No one knows quite why, but this vision of things is quite prevalent in Quebec.

Yet the reality is the latter.

If it is true that the French are many of them to sprinkle their sentences, names and words in the English language, an essential element however remains unchanged.

Regardless of education levels and social conditions, in general, their mastery of the French language is still and always excellent, and their syntax is strictly French.

The franglais in France, is essentially a fashion which, in any way, threatens the sustainability of the French at our cousins.

In Quebec and in Canada, it is a different story.

Because the French-speaking, from all sources, are bathed in an ocean of English language – both geographically and culturally -the franglais weakens much more than a language course international, but eternally precarious among us.

Or to say it differently, let me quote a former colleague and ex-columnist for The Gazette, who, in the 90s, from memory, summed up the whole in these graphic terms and with gusto :

“In Quebec and Canada, French speakers are afraid to see their language drowning in a sea of English, while English speakers are afraid to see them drown in a small basin of French”…