Montreal now a good place to learn European French as well

Here's something I didn't know was happening - apparently in under ten years the number of French citizens living in Montreal has increased by 45%, to approximately 110,000. That's a pretty huge number.

Then in this thread we see a number of stories such as this one:

En plus c'était à Paris, alors entre les types qui font la tronche dans le métro, les invasions de poussettes dans le RER (pas possible de la plier et de prendre ton mioche dans tes bras?), l'odeur de vomi dans le RER, les types qui te demandent une clope pour te vendre du shit et t'insultant quand tu refuses, les prix prohibitifs sur tout...

Interesting. Next question: what about the population in Quebec City? Wikipedia tells us a bit about the province but not about its second-largest city.

L'immigration au Québec suscite un réel engouement de la part des Français expatriés. 74,4 % des immigrants français venus au Canada choisissent de s'installer dans la province du Québec3. En 2011, 3 235 Français 4 (Français étant défini ici comme né en France) se sont installés au Québec avec un visa de résident permanent (RP). Le croisement des données des recensements de 2001 et 2006 5 et des chiffres du MICC 6 permettent de connaître l'accroissement de la population française au Québec et le taux de rétention de la province. Il en ressort que sur le long terme, 55 % des immigrants français venus avec le statut de RP restent au Québec.

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760 million Francophones in 2060

Another one of these studies on the future speaking population of French shows little surprise: French will continue to grow at the current rate of about 7 million speakers per year (slowing down somewhat later on), reaching 715 million by 2050 and 760 million ten years after that. The last time we saw an estimate of the current numbers it was 220 million in 2010, so the current number should be approaching 250 million soon.

All thanks to Africa of course: the article notes that in 2050 a full 85% of Francophones will be African, and in the age group 15-29 it will be even greater, 90%.

For a look at the current makeup, Francophonie.org has an interactive map here. Click on répartition par pays to see numbers by country, as well as sub-national group (Quebec, Saint Pierre et Miquelon etc. are treated separately). And the way things are going in Quebec (election on Monday), it won't be a country any time soon.

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Death per terawatt hour, the Pope's letter to la Repubblica, Quebec the oil producer

Three tabs to get rid of today:

This chart showing the number of deaths per TWh by energy source. Coal is of course right near the top at 161 deaths, oil is next at 36, natural gas is way behind at 4, biomass is 12, peat is 12. After that we have the final two stragglers: hydro at 1.4, and nuclear is the dunce of the deaths per TWh class at just 0.04.

This letter by Papa Francesco to La Repubblica made news a few weeks ago, as it's not very often that one of the letters to the editor is submitted by the Pope. The letter was submitted in response to another letter about secularism and non-belief.

Radio-Canada has a section containing a number of articles about the subject Le Québec, producteur de pétrole? which goes into much more detail than one would usually see on a website about the subject, with what appears to be about 30 links on Quebec's potential to join the 36 per TWh club.

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No need to translate Buonanotte story

A few days ago I noticed on a Google Alert that an Italian restaurant in Montreal had been investigated by the Office québécois de la langue française for having too much Italian on the menu, and planned to write on it while noting that it seems the OQLF is not just opposed to too much Germanic languages - it also investigates when there is too much of a language like Italian, which shares nearly 90% of the same vocabulary as French (albeit usually written and pronounced somewhat differently).

A few days later...and it turns out that this has developed into a full-blown pastagate, with a review pending at the office:

- Article 1
- Article 2
- Article 3
- Article 4
- Article 5

and many others. So looks like there's nothing in need of a translation here.

My favourite example of a problem with the menu: writing bottiglia instead of bouteille. Basically the same word written with different orthography.

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Italian consulate invests $110,000 in Italian language teaching in Montreal

Not sure how much $110,000 over two years equates to in PR or potential number of language learners, but here it is in Italian...and after a bit of searching, here's the FCCI's page on the donation.

(FCCI = Italian-Canadian Community Foundation, Fondazione Comunitaria Canadese-Italiana)

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French doing fine in the workplace in Quebec

From here in French. The numbers here are fairly interesting: while the usage of French in the workplace is either increasing, about the same, or in a very tiny decline, the usage of English on some occasion or another has also increased.

French at work has advanced in Quebec over the past 40 years, according to a study by the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). The OQLF has studied data on the usage of languages at work since 1971 in Quebec, and estimates that the percentage of workers that use French went from 83% in 1971 to 91% in 1989. In the region of Montreal the usage of French went from 69% to 83% over the same period. Following this was a slight decline over the next 20 years: in 2010, 89% of those in Quebec mostly used French at work, and 85% in Montreal.

French is the most common in firms with fewer than 50 employees.

French in the workplace has also increased steadily among allophones in the past 40 years. 42% of them in 1971 used French mostly at work; in 2010 the number was 68%.

The 2010 study reveals that it is a minority of those in Quebec that work only in French: 63% of workers have used English to one degree or another in their professional lives. This situation was more prevalent in Montreal (82%) than elsewhere in Quebec (53%).

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English hardly makes a dent in Laval in ten years

That's not the title of this article in French, but it could be. The actual title: Le français perd toujours du terrain. But to what? Answer: to other languages besides English and French. This is only a problem for French if the second language spoken by the growing population is English instead of French, and which language these people are most proficient in after their mother tongues is not indicated in the article. Non-English and -French speakers are generally easier targets than monolinguals, as they are already used to having one language at home and at least one used outside. On the other hand, good didactic materials are very important and may be lacking in other languages.

What it says:

The native French population in Laval has experienced a significant decrease in Laval in favour of English and other languages in the past ten years, acording to data published by Statistics Canada last week. The figures show that the French mother tongue population has gone from 74% in 2001 to 62% in 2011. English has increased slightly, from a bit under 7% to 8% in 2011. But it is other languages that have shown the largest increase (12%) in 10 years.

French is also spoken less at home, down to 67% after a decrease of 10%.

The data for the entire region show that French has lost ground in the island of Montreal, but less significantly than in Laval.

The other language population isn't indicated in the article, but is probably 30%, and 18% before.

For a proponent of French this is both a risk and an opportunity. The risk is that the 30% could end up relying on English, and the opportunity that they could be well integrated into the province and prefer to use French, which would mean an increase in the total number of proficient speakers, regardless of which language they prefer to use at home.

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Link roundup for 27 October 2012

Five things to share today.

--- A paper on the silent period hypothesis, the method whereby students learn a language through a silent period whereby they focus on exposure and comprehension, and only later begin to produce the language themselves. I usually have a silent period of my own simply because I find it more interesting to delve into the language on my own schedule and using content I prefer, but have no problems switching over to active usage whenever the need arises, and have never found a particularly long or short silent period to affect the speed at which I learn a language.

--- Sword fighting as it was for the Vikings. Interesting not just due to seeing true swordfighting but also because the dad shows us an interesting example of a mostly fluent but slightly halting English. He knows exactly what he wants to say, but it takes a few extra tenths of a second to formulate it.



--- Le PQ veut franciser Montreal (the PQ intends to make Montreal more French / Frenchify it).

--- Iranian character of the Armenian language (pdf). Politically sensitive I'm sure, but from the view of the student this list of similarities is nice to have if one knows the first and wants to learn the second.

--- Afrikaans vs. Zulu in schools. It seems that Afrikaans has two advantages in being chosen as a second language: 1) the perception that it is easy, and 2) the Zulu in exams is apparently set to quite a high standard. But then it continues by saying that 99% of those studying Zulu passed compared to 70% of those who chose Afrikaans, so I don't know what to conclude from this.

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Four days until a PQ majority, or minority, or something else

The election in Quebec is just a few days away, and threehundredeight is now predicting a slim PQ majority or possible slide into a minority. I won't pretend to have any special insight into the Quebec election but it is interesting to read from time to time what individual candidates are saying. This PQ candidate in Hull (just across the river from Ottawa) for example believes that the French language is threatened by English-speaking Ontarians who choose Outaouais for a residence to profit from Quebec's generous social programs and lower cost of living.

Quote: "French has been threatened for a long time in Outaouais. The cost of living and housing is lower and the services offered to families such as kindergartens at $7 is very attractive for more and more Ontarians. That is why one must take the necessary measures to protect our language, as much on the national as the local level. Ontarians are welcome, but they must understand that we are a nation with a francophone majority and where the official language is French."

So after the 4th of September we may see more of this type of talk - how to protect French, strengthen Bill 101, how to keep immigrants to Quebec from moving to the rest of Canada, etc. etc.

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Quick link roundup: 15 August 2012

--- Curiosity scientists will be doing an AMA on Reddit tomorrow. AMA = ask me anything, so an AMA is a huge question and answer session. Given the volume of comments (always a few thousand) that usually means your question will probably only get answered if you ask near the beginning, or if it happens to be particularly interesting.

--- The ESA's proposed Venus Entry Probe. Not my preferred mission to Venus (a solar flyer would be more or less indefinite while this one would be about two weeks) but the tiny ballast probes the balloon drops during the mission is an interesting touch: it both allows it to survey the lower atmosphere as well as lighten the balloon itself, giving it a longer mission time.

--- The Economist on toilets without water that have been developed for a contest created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

--- The PLQ wants a new Loi 101 within a few months if they win the upcoming election in Quebec. Un article écrit en français, bien sûr.

--- The first school in New York to offer Portuguese as a language of study. Other languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and Latin.

--- The New York Times on the other Siberian railroad.

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Small link roundup: 1 August 2012

Five links to share today.

-- An article in German on the Ido Renkontro this year in Dessau, the same place where another renkontro was held back in 1922 - 90 years ago. The same article says there were about 25 people there.

-- An article in French musing on how best to promote French in North America - valorization said to be key, as is often the case in an article of this type. The article notes that 20% of French speakers live outside of Quebec. Quebec is having an election September 9th (Charest announced it today) so expect to see a lot of debate about this. On that note:

-- Another article in French from Quebec, on using English as a working language in Baie-James. Located next to Ontario and with a lot of Cree, how much influence the government in Quebec should have on such an autonomous region is another linguistic issue there.

-- An article in Portuguese also musing about how best to promote the language. This one is pro-orthographic accord.

-- An article in Korean about English and Chinese language camps in Wanju, a county south of Seoul. I've mentioned from time to time that it would be interesting to see if Korea adopts more or less the same approach with Chinese that it has with English, namely a lot of study within the country involving bringing teachers over on visas to teach classes, or whether China's proximity (50 minutes by plane to cities like Qingdao and Dalian) would mean students (or their parents) would simply elect to take the plane ride over to use it in person.

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Quebec companies want to talk to you in French

Interesting article here in English on customer service in Quebec, where it can sometimes be quite a challenge to find service in English. According to the article the way to get English service at the health insurance board in Quebec is by doing the following:

1) be told that the agency prefers French, wait for about half a minute of silence
2) finally be told that English is available by pressing 9
3) press 9 and be told in English that they prefer to deal with customers in French
4) agent comes to the phone, first using French
5) if your French is deemed to be bad enough then they will provide English service

Such things are annoying if you don't speak the language...great opportunity if you want to learn French. Calling agencies and stores around the province that have such policies to talk about whatever is a great way to speak French for free.

It might be worth it to create a list of agencies that seem callable for certain subjects. This one would require talking about health care, not the most enjoyable subject, but it would be interesting to see if anyone from the Office québécois de la langue française would deign to just chat in French about whatever due to their mission statement.

Their phone number is (888) 873-6202, by the way...

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More at the Forum mondial de la langue francaise: "France needs its own Bill 101"

From here in French:

A charter of the French languages inspired by Quebec which would limit English signage in shops has become "almost indispensable" in France due to the proliferation of "Americanism" in the country, said renowned linguist Claude Hagège on Wednesday.

If French has lost its attraction it is due partly to the decline of French industrial power which has resulted in an "imitation of the language of power", from which comes the proliferation of English in the streets of France.

Claude Hagège believes that France would do well to emulate Quebec, where in the late 1970s Quebec separatists (then in power) adopted loi 101 (Charter of the French language) which imposed unilingual French signage. Following legal challenges the law was watered down to make French "predominant" in signage which allowing other languages.

Should France adopt such a law to preserve its language? "20 years ago I would have said no, but now I regret to say yes. It is in France's interest to take up this marvelous Bill 101...in France until recently this was inconceivable, compared to Quebec which saw itself as an island of seven million in an Anglophone ocean." But today "a law comparable to Bill 101 has now become, I say openly, almost indispensable in France."

The first problem with this idea: France has a great many regional languages that are not interested in seeing French become even more predominant over them in a country that has been even less permissive to regional tongues than most others in Europe. It looks like France will actually ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Hollande said he would do this if elected and now he has a majority in parliament) so a law putting French at the forefront would likely not be possible. On the other hand, a Charter of French Languages (plural) could be possible, since this law is directed entirely at English anyway and stating something to the effect that French languages must be given priority in signage (i.e. French or Breton in Brittany but not any language besides these two) would easily solve this...if France decides to take up such a bill in the first place, that is.

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First Forum mondial de la langue francaise now taking place in Quebec

The first Forum mondial de la langue française is now taking place (it goes from 2 to 6 July) in Quebec City. Protesters interrupting the speeches of Stephen Harper and Jean Charest during the opening has made some news, but what is actually going on during the forum is more interesting. Wikipedia for example has some representation there from a few countries, and some of the possible topics they were discussing were:

Sujets possibles :

• Démonstration
  • de l'utilisation de la liste de suivi
  • de l'utilisation de LiveRC
  • d'une course wikipédienne
  • de l'utilisation de Wikimedia Commons
  • de la traduction d'un article de l'anglais dans Wikipédia en français
  • de l'écriture d'un article sur Wikinews (concernant le FMLF, avec quelques photos ?)
  • de correction de textes sur Wikisource (le recensement de Jean Talon par exemple, ou Jour à jour d'Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
  • de création d'articles sur le Wiktionnaire (peut-être des mots de français africain ?)

Wikisource is one of the easiest ways to participate in improving French content on the web, since it is just typing out what one sees in scanned images of old documents, or checking what someone else has typed for errors. It doesn't require any knowledge of page formatting (as Wiktionary often does), or any specialized knowledge or ability to write in an encyclopedic style (as Wikipedia does).

Most of the other events and talks there seem to be more or less what one would expect: talks on linguistic diversity, economic value of French, multilingualism, orthography, etc. Let me know if anything else stands out that should be mentioned.

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OQLF shows slight increase of French signage in Montreal between 2010 and 2012

From the OQLF website here; here is one part:

The Quebec Office of the French Language (OQLF) published five studies today on the language of commerce and business as well as languages used on the internet.

The display of company names shows a slight improvement between 2010 and 2012. The studies show that in 2012, 82% of shops had a company name that complies with the Charter of the French language in downtown Montreal, compared to 77% in 2020. This is a slight increase, especially with shops on the street, where compliance went from 78% to 85%.

The studies also reveal that French service in 2012 was available 95% of the time, about the same as that in 2010.

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Link roundup: 12 May 2012

--- We'll begin with this article from BBC, one of many on the recent Dawn press conference detailing what they know about the protoplanet so far. The term protoplanet seems to be being used more and more to describe it, as the term asteroid just doesn't seem to fit quite as well considering its makeup. One look at Vesta compared to all the other asteroids we've visited so far shows this to a certain extent:

--- An article on rogue planets - their huge number (many more rogue planets than stars) and the possibility of life by scooping it up when passing by other locations. Note all the debate below.

--- On the Mouvement Montréal Français, complete with video.

--- More Spanish videos for the US election, this time from Obama's side:




 --- More on the official languages bill in South Africa: Afriforum welcomes some modifications made.

 --- Also in South Africa: the ANC's efforts to woo Afrikaners.

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Infographic on the number of French citizens in Quebec

Radio-Canada has an interesting infographic here on the number of French citizens in Quebec, their rate of increase, and what they do in the province. Some of the information:

-----

Nos Français - This refers to all people that were born in France, who live in or have permanent residence in Quebec.

At the moment in Quebec there is a total of 59,210 French immigrants.

40% of them arrived before 1981,
11% arrived between 1981 and 1990,
24% arrived between 1991 and 2000,
and 25% arrived between 2001 and 2006.

An average of 3,000 people immigrate from France to Quebec each year, representing one immigrant per 13. They are the third-largest group after Algerians and Morrocans.

69.6% of them live in the region of Montreal,
8.5% in the region of Quebec (City),
21.9% in other parts of Quebec.

65.4% of them are employed; the provincial average is 60.4%.

The four largest sectors of employment for them are:
-- sales and services: 20%
-- finance / administration: 16.5%
-- social services / teaching: 14%
-- management: 13.5%

Salary compared to the average Quebec worker:

French men: $42000
Quebec men: $39000
French women: $30000
Quebec women: $26000

5787 French students were registered at universities in autumn, representing 1 student in 4. This makes them the largest group; following them are Americans and Chinese.

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Independent MP Pierre Curzi wants to strengthen the Quebec Charter of the French Language

From here in French a bit over a week ago:

Independent MP Pierre Curzi filed a bill in Quebec that significantly changes the Quebec Charter of the French Language adopted in 1977 by the government of René Lévesque.

Concerned about the anglicization of the region of Montreal, he believes that one must reverse the current trend. For this, he proposes that French be declared the common language, that company names must also have a generic French name (e.g. Les magasins Canadian Tire) and that a company obtains a certificate of conformity with the Charter in order to get public contracts.

The bill would also lower the number of employees needed for the Charter to apply to a company from 50 to 25.

The private member's bill has little chance of being called, but Pierre Curzi believes that it will at least serve as the basis for a public discussion, especially in terms of the future of the French language in Montreal. "In less than 20 years, the number of people who use French at home will fall to 43% in the greater region of Montreal. In other words, the greater Montreal area will become a bilingual region in fact. There is an urgent need to act." he said in a press conference.

Amir Khadir from Québec solidaire welcomed the presentation of the bill, which incorporates many proposals of his party. The Parti québécois also welcomed the initiative.

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Link roundup for 30 March 2012

This week was full of articles to mention in a link roundup. Here they are:

--- Denmark aims to get 35% of its total energy from renewables by 2020 and 100% by 2050 - pretty self-explanatory.

--- Japan Airlines now has its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, giving the world a total of seven of these airplanes so far.

--- Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com billionaire and the guy behind Blue Origin) has found the original Apollo 11 rocket engines and intends to raise them from the ocean floor. They should end up in a museum (they are still NASA property, even if Bezos recovers them), and hopefully their age and original appearance when first lifted up will remind the world of just how long ago Apollo 11 took place - in other words, we didn't go to the moon, a previous generation that has now mostly died away did. We have only been to Low Earth Orbit, no farther.

--- An article on why young Americans are less and less interested in buying cars, and even in getting driver's licenses.

--- An article on the checks and balances in the US system vs. the Canadian parliamentary approach. Americans by and large do not seem to be aware of how weak a president is compared to the Prime Ministers in other nations, and are frequently disappointed when the country has not changed 180 degrees in the two or four years after a presidential election. Remembering back to the passing of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the idea of a Prime Minister having to negotiate and negotiate again with his own party to pass a single bill is laughable.

--- From December - an interesting article on a French language program for Spanish speakers in Cal State.

--- The Office québécoise de la langue française, now with 246 staff, is adding another 69 (an increase of about 25%).

--- On Will Ferrell's Spanish immersion when filming Casa de mi padre and his language-learning ability. Will Ferrell is fluent in Swedish thanks to his wife, and so this is not the first time learning another language for him.

--- The PVV in the Netherlands on nomenclature in South Africa again.

--- An interesting brown dwarf has been discovered 29 light years away, trailing a star in the big dipper. I would prefer 1 light year away, but 29 is acceptable for now.

--- Votes and vowels: an interesting article on the pronunciation of certain vowels in parts of the US and how it affects the way a person comes across politically, plus a number of other things. I won't try to summarize it here, except to note that it's quite reminiscent of a Malcolm Gladwell book.

--- Finally, a small site with Italian etymology that I like. It seems to be just a number of images cobbled together from an old Italian dictionary, but being able to quickly search one word at a time is nice. The etymology for sbagliare (to be wrong) for example comes from Latin varius.

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One more Greek translation, an old book on the history of French

Very little time to write today, so here are two things to note.

One - this blog post is the second Page F30 post translated into Greek. It's the one on Chinese learning French to immigrate to Quebec (and often then into English-speaking Canada).

The second thing to note is this book from archive.org called grammaire historique de la langue française from 1899, which turned up in a Google Alert of all places. I only glanced at it but it seems worth another longer look.

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