Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Multiculturalism and language

There are calls in today's media for New Canadians to be required to speak English or French well.

The suggestion is that the Canadian tradition is to learn the language of the people here before you.

Of course, there's a flaw in this argument.

The English and French who settled in Canada did not adopt the language of those who were here before them. I haven't heard much Wyandot spoken in Quebec recently.

5 comments:

Scott MacNeil said...

re: "The suggestion ... [one] learn the language of the people here before you [....] there's a flaw in this argument [....] I haven't heard much Wyandot spoken in Quebec recently."

An odd thing in today's blog-o-world, this is was funny as it is true.

Here in Winnipeg though, I perversely find that - because of my early life up North- I actually know more Cree than most of the 13-15 year old First Nations kids who are friends with my children. And I am not a First Nations person... weird!

Anonymous said...

The problem is that now we have official languages.

Without language skills there isn't integration in society.It is becoming a bigger problem.

Everything from military service,jury duty, to parent teacher interviews becomes impossible. These things are not trivial IMHO.

The Rat said...

That's disingenuous, Mr. Morton, we didn't learn the language(s) of the people because we conquered them. Sorry if that sounds just a little colonialist and imperialist but whey would we learn the language of stone age cultures? When we are conquered I am sure my descendants will learn the language of our new Overlords.

James C Morton said...

Rat,

You make a good (if politically incorrect) point. But that goes to the multicultural point -- people learn English/French not because of "tradition" but because of power. And the settlement of North America was really the conquest of same. In a way, the High Arctic is most "unconquered" because it was the least desired. I should note the First Nations weren't "stone age" -- but they did lag technologically (and weren't accustomed to smallpox) and that's one reason they were conquered in a way that, say, India, was not.

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