My niece Klubnikis will start at a big – kid school next Fall, so her parents are searching for a school for her. They are a muti-lingual family of Russian – speaking Ukrainians and French/Spanish-speaking Peruvians and no they settled on English as the first language for Klubnikis.
The five-year – old Klubnikis has an incredible vocabulary and a fantastic command of very complex grammar structures in English, aside from speaking Russian, Spanish, and French. Her parents are prepared to pay an insane amount of money to buy their kid a right to study in the language of their choosing in Quebec. Today, they went to an open house at an English school in Montréal.
During the question and answer session, the teacher asked, “So are you interested in hearing about our bilingualism program?”
All of the parents responded with hostile silence.
I know that my Quebecois readers don’t like hearing this but we emigrated to Quebec with a great enthusiasm and a good knowledge of the French language. And it was all beaten out of us by the intense hostility of the local French-speakers. Language learning is a very sensitive process. Once learners begin to associate the language with unpleasantness and mistreatment, they stop learning. As a result, allophone immigrants in Quebec veer towards the much more open and accepting English-speaking community.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Language learning is a very sensitive process. Once learners begin to associate the language with unpleasantness and mistreatment, they stop learning.”
Indeed. This is the reason I stopped to learn French after reaching the intermediate level, and since then I don’t even care about the thousands of hours I put into learning it. I don’t understand why the French-speakers do that though. English-speakers don’t do that, just like the Germans and the Spanish. There are so many people who begin to learn French, then after a while they stop because of the same reason.
LikeLike
I quit speaking French because it was getting tiresome to keep being mocked for the slightest mistake or accent. Whenever I wanted to make a purchase, for instance, I had to put up with 5 minutes of, “Ha ha ha! Hey, Jacques, did you hear the funny way she pronounced jambon? Ha ha!” Like I’d even feel in the mood for jambon after that.
LikeLike
And it’s amazing how hard it is to break that sort of negative association, too. In my case, while I had no native speakers mocking me, I had a French teacher in primary school that utterly hated being a teacher and was quite unpleasant to us in consequence. After she left, I had 10 more years of French classes with teachers I loved, and I still can’t say/write more in French than parlez-vous anglais. I’ve read novels and poetry in French, mind. I just can’t speak or write it. The difference between my command of it and my command of English (a language I often dream in, and one I’ve written most of my teenage poems in, even though I’ve studied it less) is immense, and at least part of the reason for this is that I met no English-language shitheads in the easily impressionable phase of English learning.
LikeLike
This is the reason why I’m not wholly enthusiastic about study abroad programs. I’ve already had several great students with a stellar command of Spanish go on study abroad to Latin American countries, experience extreme sexism, and come back with much poorer Spanish than they left with plus a profound trauma.
LikeLike
“I quit speaking French because it was getting tiresome to keep being mocked for the slightest mistake or accent.”
Quebec French is to Parisian French as Appalachian English is to the Queen’s R.P. (Received Pronunciation.) “Le ticket” – come on.
Full disclosure – I had a Montréal girlfriend when I was young who I met in the Winston Churchill pub on Crescent Street in downtown Montréal. At the time, I was trying to seduce expat American transfer student s from McGill University posing as an exotic Coureur de Bois spouting Sartre and Proust while sipping Absinthe in the smoky environs of the bar and keeping an eye out for spies from the Office Québécois de la langue Française, the little Canadian brother of the French, Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie who were tasked with watching for Anglo predations on the language of Molière.
In some of its (Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie) most recent pronouncements (always on guard for those infiltrating Anglo neologisms), it has decided that words banned include “start-up”, which must be called “jeunes pousses”, a “blog” must be called a “bloc-note” and “podcasting” has been given the appellation “diffusion pour baladeur.” Neither any longer can you refer to a “talk show”, which has become “débat-spectacle” and “touchpad” a “pavé tactile.” “Peer to peer” has become “poste à poste” and “prime time” has become “heure de grande écoute.” Several years ago the (French) government decided that an e-mail should be called a “courriel” and e mail address called “adresse de courrier électronique”, neither of which has been adopted by most French, who continue to use the English version.
LikeLike
This is a hilarious story, N G. 🙂
LikeLike
From now on I will refer to this as Clarissa’s “bloc-note.”
LikeLike
Which is my favorite word in Russian. And my favorite object (a notebook ) .
LikeLike
I’m looking forward to the Bloc Party. 🙂
LikeLike
Many Parisians are the same, they sneer if you try to speak French and ignore you if you don’t! They have a very superior idea of their language. Andre Breton was a refugee in New York during WW II, but refused to learn any English because it would ‘contaminate’, his lovely French language.
LikeLike
This is a self-defensive posture of a culture that has lost its recent cultural hegemony.
LikeLike
Ugh yes. It really irked me in my teenage years that I couldn’t speak to a French speaker, native or not, without hearing some sort of variant of vulgar-English-is-contaminating-French-culture in 15 minutes or less. As someone who loved (and loves) English deeply and was trying, at that point in my life, to love French at least a little, you can imagine how I reacted to if-you-want-to-love-me-you-can’t-love-anyone-else rhetoric.
LikeLike
In the case of the Quebecois I imagine some of the negativity is due to the inferiority complex they have vis a vis Metropolitan French and the ridicule and disdain they regularly receive from Eruopean French speakers (much reduced now but still recent enough to sting).
To have so many immigrants to Quebec also turn their back on the language probably makes things worse (so they reject outsiders before they can be rejected themselves).
Personally I always thought that if I ever had to learn French I’d rather learn Quebecois just because it bugs European French speakers so much.
I don’t know why the French are such jerks about other people speaking their language though (they really seem to be the best at making people actively dislike their language).
I do have to say (as a native speaker) English speakers are socialized to not make fun of non-native speakers….. to their faces. A lot of ridicule does go on when they’re (thought to be) not present. Also see the many Chinglish type sites.
I’ll also say that a minority of Hungarians can be really unpleasant at foreigners speaking badly. The majority are very nice and appreciate the effort but a minority are in the French leagues for unpleasantness.
The absolute nicest I’ve come across were Romanians who were invariably super nice and extremely helpful at even really piss poor attempts to use survival Romanian, and that in the capital (I mention that since capital dwellers usually have the reputation for being nasty).
LikeLike
I have to confess that I’m also not the nicest person in the world to people who try to speak Russian to me. If I see they are not native speakers, I just switch into English and keep speaking it even if they keep trying to speak in Russian. But I hate Russian, so what do I care if it doesn’t survive?
LikeLike
I don’t hate English but a lot depends on the variety. I despise “international” or “Euro” English (the most banal communication I’ve ever heard) and don’t much care for British varieties (Manchester and Birmingham accents make me want to stick ice picks in my ears).
I’m very nationalistic in terms of English. I’m very fond of American (including regional, AAVE and non-native versions) and if all the rest disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t care. I also care nothing about the international stature of English and if anything wish it were lower (so I wouldn’t have to listen to Euro politicians if nothing else).
LikeLike
I love the Canadian accent. When I hear “aboot”, it makes me weak in the knees.
LikeLike
LOL, I spent five years trying to learn French…but can remember drawing sketches in the dirt when two sweet girls from Belgium wanted info about where their bed and breakfasts rooms in the Yukon many years later. I can still read French, and possibly write it, but I do not pretend to hear or speak it worth a damn. Some fool had told them that Canadians were bilingual ;-D
LikeLike
I should say north American (since dialect boundaries aren’t the same as national boundaries).
LikeLike
“I’ll also say that a minority of Hungarians can be really unpleasant at foreigners speaking badly. The majority are very nice and appreciate the effort but a minority are in the French leagues for unpleasantness.”
Yes, I know the minority you talk about (and I hope it’s really only a minority), and they’re hostile towards everyone, even towards the rural people who speak some kind of dialect – which happened to me too after I moved from a smalltown to the capital with a slight rural dialect. Hungarian is a frustrated nation because of our history, just like the French who lost the position of the cultural leadership of the world, so yes, there’s a lot of hostility and inferiority complex indeed. If as many people wanted to learn Hungarian as French, most likely the attitude of Hungarians would be even worse. Btw cliff I’m sure you speak Hungarian very well, as you understood everything I once wrote. 😎
LikeLike
Along the lines of what you’re saying about Romanian, nobody expects that you’ll try to speak Finnish if you’re not Finnish …
It’s not a particularly easy language, so any attempt at all is generally seen as positive. In fact, the construction of the language makes Gaelic seem relatively simple.
Nearly everyone speaks English anyway, so it isn’t as if you necessarily need to make the effort …
LikeLike
Also …
“hONk si vous aimez le frONçais québécois …”
🙂
LikeLike
“know that my Quebecois readers don’t like hearing this but we emigrated to Quebec with a great enthusiasm and a good knowledge of the French language. And it was all beaten out of us by the intense hostility of the local French-speakers. ”
Quelle fromage!
LikeLike
Oui, le grande fromage ;-D
LikeLiked by 1 person
“As a result, allophone immigrants in Quebec veer towards the much more open and accepting English-speaking community.”
Or they move to Ontario and speak English, or they move to Saskatoon where there’s a healthier French community …
It probably does not help the Quebecois that their dialect is sometimes referred to as “Quebequack” or “Quackspeak” by English-speakers as well as people from France Metropolitain.
After all, they might develop an “identity complex” from such a thing. 🙂
“hONk if you speak quebecois frONch …” [grin]
LikeLike
I actually never heard these insults for the Quebecois. I’m very innocent.
LikeLike
In my experience, speakers of a language variety that’s derided by outsiders (like Quebecois) are often very…. touchy and may perceive mistakes as ridicule.
I’m sure your experiences were upsetting for you, but there was probably more going on than mean French speakers deliberately wanting you to feel bad.
LikeLike
No, actually, there’s a way to say this in any dialect …
[cranks up the backcountry bogan brashness]
“WHAAAR YA FRUMM MAYTE? YA SHAAR DEW TAWLK FUNNEH!”
[quietly realises I’ve just made fun of the “Cornwall accent” and takes refuge away from the pirate peninsula lest they try to fatten me up on a diet of Cornish pasties]
🙂
LikeLike
I’m sure you are right. But the thing is, if people want something from you (for instance, to help them preserve their language and culture ), they should make efforts to keep you content. The Quebecois are fretting that their language is receding into obscurity. But whose fault is this?
LikeLike
I went to Vanuatu and there were French people there and then I flew over New Caledonia and there were French people there. They weren’t great, that is on the ground level. Some woman was aging and incontinent at the dining table and server guy was a bit rude.
LikeLike
It’s what I actually saw. Sorry if seeing is offensive.
LikeLike
My mother was half French-Canadian and half Irish, and she grew up in Rhode Island in the 1920s. My poor French grandfather was a good man. (He spoke both French and English, but he couldn’t read or write. (He may have had dyslexia.) The family lived in grinding poverty during the 1930s. The French have had a hard way to go. I realize the bitterness goes back many years. My mother stereotyped French-Canadians as backward and clannish. It sounds as if the hostility just gets worse over time.
LikeLike
The Québec State should help them to assimilate.
LikeLike