"It's easy to understand why francophones think there's too much English ... on the Island of Montreal"

That's spelled "pedantic".

Rabelais wrote:

That's spelled "pedantic".

When someone opens a post by trying to establish their personal "credentials" as a "Québécois de souche", only in order to mock other people's concern about their language, and I correct their spelling of their own nationality, that's called "irony". I don't go around correcting people's spelling unless they deserve it.

Unionist wrote:

I don't go around correcting people's spelling unless they deserve it.

I could have been a typo, like "terpitude" vs "turpitude".

[For Windows XP users]

If you type French often (or even if you don't), the easiest way is simply to install a Canadian French keyboard and use Alt-Left Shift to toggle back and forth with your regular English keyboard. You only have to do the following once:

Go to Control Panel, then Regional and Language Options, then click the Languages tab, then Add..., then select French (Canada) as input language and Canadian French as keyboard, click OK, then click Key Settings, and make sure the "Switch between languages" shows as whatever key combination you want (the one I use, which is most common, is Left Alt + Shift). Then keep clicking OK till you're done. After that, you just toggle back and forth, as noted above.

Of course, you then need to know what is what on the French keyboard - such as / being é, and Shft-6 being ?, etc. You can find a map of the Canadian French keyboard by googling, I suppose. Let me know if you can't.

I find it difficult to believe that people would be "offended" or "threatened" by hearing people speak in another language.

Here in Toronto we hear people speaking in many different languages, even loudly. I don't feel threatened.

"I forget what the equivalent is on a Mac"

-- on a Mac, it's integrated into the default keyboard settings -- hit option-e (alt-e) to accent the next character (or option-` for è). Ditto for ñ/ã (option-n), ç (option-c), ü, (option-u), û (option-i), etc.

For some reason this reminds me of the Bengali taxi driver I had in NY a couple of years back.  I'd just missed my evening flight at Kennedy and was headed back into the city and ended up having a fascinating discussion / rant on the drive to my hotel.  The driver immediately picked up on my Canadian accent and, before I could say anything, asked me what I thought of the French language situation in Canada.  Before I could answer (which was pretty much the pattern for the entire ride) he started on about the only reason anyone would need laws to protect their language and culture was simple.  They had a weak culture.  I did manage to squeeze in a "what do you mean?" at this point and got told in no uncertain words that, if a culture or language is worth protecting it doesn't need laws to do so.  Somewhere in there I got a lecture (and I do mean lecture) about the language his grandparents speak at home not being an official language but it's still thriving.  He made it very clear that, in his opinion, if his native language, or any other language, lost out to English it was simply because the culture behind it was weak.  He went on to insist that French was a particularly bad example because, outside of those places where French was mandated by law (which includes France and Quebec) the language is dying.  I really wish I could have discussed it with him (as opposed to simply listening) since he was a very bright articulate individual but it was absolutely impossible to get a word in edgewise.

Old joke:

In Canada being bilingual means you can speak two languages.  In Switzerland it means you can't speak three.

abnormal wrote:

Old joke:

In Canada being bilingual means you can speak two languages.  In Switzerland it means you can't speak three.

As someone who had a Swiss grandmother, all I can say is "you're not kidding", and thanks for the chuckle.

500_Apples wrote:

I agree with the position that in an ideal world we would not be dividing people on arbitrary lines such as language or race.

With the increasing prevalence of interracial reproduction worldwide, and the power of global media, I think it's possible within a few hundred years these lines will be blended away. It will be good for the human species as well.

If only we could leave multilingualism to the archeologists.

actually not really because POC are dominant which means any racial mixing will lead to us and mixed kids more often take the identity and culture of the colored parent because they usually look like them more. If the entire world were to mix right now the kids would come out looking like south east asians proly dark looking africans but with east asian looking eyes. But then agen the khoisan tribe who carry the oldest human genes known look like that so u could say well just get bacc to the starting point.

If u wanna break it down to numbers then if u look at all countries where there europeans even ameriKKKa the white couples are having kids way below replacement in some places like italy it less then 1 kid on average per female. They even predict within the next 30-40 years france,italy,russia, and germany for example will all be 1/3-1/2 the size population wise they are now. On top of that the majority white population will proly be replaced. East asia is slowing down growing esp china cuz it starting to age partly because of the 1 child policy.

South east asia and africa (historical) still havin kids and going strong and the only real region that at its basically max capacity for ppl is east ethiopia because itz over 1 billion there. Otherwise sub-saharan for example a lot of places got less ppl now then they did b4 the european slave traders came. So itz a numbers tip really.Horn too aint even got like 30 million total so u know.

If all the east asians and europeans were to mix (think it could happen cuz china the biggest one got more males and russia for example got more females) you would get some kids who would look white and pass for it but otherwise just realy lightskinned asian kids. If them and south east asian kids mix you get lighter skinned south east asians and if those n african mix you get africans. I know it more complicated then even 1 guy 1 girl but even then in the end yall know who dominant.

And as to the bengali driver what he meant by that was that it aint official but it going strong because people want it to. They speak it at home, make sure their kids learn it, (maybe not be literate in it thas 3rd world conditions tho nothing else) and make sure it aint forgotten. French aint really doing that. Just take the fact that ur supposed to learn it mandatory from grade 4-9. I did I never learned shit to be honest I proly know less french now then I started my lil bro who just started learning it knows more. N it aint just me I really dont know anybody but a few ppl my age who actually know or give a fucc about french.

But ye yall goin it was bound to happen if u think about it itz the reason why if a white women and a brotha were seen together they were both hung or atleast the brotha was. And think about it they always cut his penis off. Going into lynchings for a sec yall know they were public community events? White ppl used to post cards to each other about lynchings and afterwards ppl used to cut off and keep body parts as souvenirs. Picc a Nigga aka yall lets have a Picnic. Honestly, I can see laws against racial mixing start to come into place in a lot of countries where the population decreasing like france, germany, etc because theyll paint a us vs them and they're coming to get us mentality because they'll say they want their culture to survive but really they mean their race.

remind wrote:

Hmmm, a bit short sighted, but some salient points. But ya gotta remember, blond hair and blue eyes came from somewhere before. ;)

And personally I would like a world that did not think in terms of dominent in respect to one another.

I aint mean like that I was talking about genetically that for all the white supermists like to go on about shit they really just wrong. But yea blond hair and blue eyes came with the albino mutation well albinos have red eyes because they have no melanin in their eyes but they got blond hair. The blue eyes proly came because albinos usually have really poor eyesight and blue would be the color that offers the least melanin but still the lighest b4 red.

abnormal wrote:

For some reason this reminds me of the Bengali taxi driver I had in NY a couple of years back.  I'd just missed my evening flight at Kennedy and was headed back into the city and ended up having a fascinating discussion / rant on the drive to my hotel.  The driver immediately picked up on my Canadian accent and, before I could say anything, asked me what I thought of the French language situation in Canada.  Before I could answer (which was pretty much the pattern for the entire ride) he started on about the only reason anyone would need laws to protect their language and culture was simple.  They had a weak culture.  I did manage to squeeze in a "what do you mean?" at this point and got told in no uncertain words that, if a culture or language is worth protecting it doesn't need laws to do so.  Somewhere in there I got a lecture (and I do mean lecture) about the language his grandparents speak at home not being an official language but it's still thriving.  He made it very clear that, in his opinion, if his native language, or any other language, lost out to English it was simply because the culture behind it was weak.  He went on to insist that French was a particularly bad example because, outside of those places where French was mandated by law (which includes France and Quebec) the language is dying.  I really wish I could have discussed it with him (as opposed to simply listening) since he was a very bright articulate individual but it was absolutely impossible to get a word in edgewise.

That's a great story, abnormal.  Very interesting.

As a side question, is French largely fading outside of France and Quebec?  At one time, French was the second language to learn in the U.S.   Now, it's clearly Spanish.  Something tells me that Mandarin Chinese will soon be a key language to learn (not just in the U.S. but worldwide).

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Rexdale_Punjabi wrote:

sven not really cuz chinaz economic strench is overestimated it relies hugely on buying us debt as well as keep their own currency low to help exporters if the US goes down chinaz goes down harder cuz they have all that debt which will be worthless when the dollar crashes.

China's not going anywhere.  And, it will continue to increase in influence in the world.  Bank on it.

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]