well...what about the language laws before that French became the official language of Quebec?
Let's be honest . The Canadian Federal Governments was not fair to Quebecois in the past. so a bit of resentment is understandable
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Multiculturalism:Your Opinion
- Thread starter Phil25
- Start date
well...what about the language laws before that French became the official language of Quebec?
Let's be honest . The Canadian Federal Governments was not fair to Quebecois in the past. so a bit of resentment is understandable
illykitty
RF's pet cat
Well I'll put in my two cents as a Quebecoise, I don't see what the fuss is, what's the big deal? It seems to me that some seem to think Quebec can close off to everyone else (well perhaps except France) and that just won't work. Every time I hear issues going on about it all I can do is
.I think someone being in Quebec should learn French of course, but to impose that everything must be changed to "preserve" it... I don't see the point of doing this. If people love French, they will continue speaking French regardless.
I grew up hearing 3 languages, doesn't make me any less Quebecoise and I gained so much from it. I found it a lot easier to learn other languages than my peers who only knew French growing up. Of course though I don't get the impression that those nationalistic Quebecois are even interested in learning anything else but French. That mentality, frankly, scares me.
I'm hoping this isn't too incoherent it's 6 and I've been up since 4.
And is incredibly outdated.
It doesn't have any real rules. A single word might be able to express such a sentence in one dialect, but in all others would fail to do so. We have a very inefficient and inconsistent method of spelling that also basically has no rules, even though school teachers pretend there are. There's no way to know for sure if your phonetic reading of a word is correct, because there is no phonetic spelling.
We have SPELLING COMPETITIONS for crying out loud! Frankly, the very existence of such a thing frustrates me to no end!
Now, I'm not saying other languages are all perfect and English is just the terrible, ugly child of the bunch. I've always hated the idea of arbitrarily gendered nouns in Romance languages, which I understand also exist optionally in German, and while I like the idea of Kanji characters in East Asian languages, the fact that they're necessary to read makes reading in those countries so much more difficult. Nor am I saying that English shouldn't exist; from what I understand, Old English (Anglo-Saxon English) was even more grammatically arbitrary than Modern English. I don't speak any other languages, so I don't really have much of a comparison. But from what I've seen, the problems I see in Modern English simply don't exist in a lot of other languages.
s2a
Heretic and part-time (skinny) Santa impersonator
My couple of pennies (which may have already been introduced/discussed), centers upon one fact here in the United States.
Unless you can prove yourself to be an original Native American, you are born of an immigrant too.
Yes, you. English, Irish, German, Italian, Mexican, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese, African, etc.
The ONLY distinction and difference is numbers of "generations".
Yes, my own grand-father got off the boat from Scotland. Many (most) jumped ship earlier from the "West" (Ireland and England). More than a few generations ago (nearly back to days of the Revolution), I was born an "American".
But what kills me today is this renewed anti-immigrant sentiment harbored against primarily central-American kids (and their resident parental draws). I've head it all lately...
..like, GO HOME! I'm an "ameruican, and was born here!". You know, just like those "americun" heroes like Einstein, Columbus, Galileo, Hawking, Picasso, et al. None were actually born here, and most were never citizens, but "great Americans" all.
Funny story, but true. I met more than a few "Red-blooded Americans", until very recently, INSISTED that Steven Hawking was an American, because his computer translated, synthesized "voice" in "the Simpsons" was, "americun". Reminding these otherwise informed people that Hawking was in fact born in the UK, and never renounced his UK citizenship actually seemed astounding to them.
The fact that many of our "founders" were born in the UK still befuddles daily revisionists to no end.
*sigh*
Bottom line is this. "Multiculturalism" defines who we are today, as a nation and a people. And inevitably (sadly) each generation rebels against anyone/anything new/different. Ww can see the current results of our collective strengths in embracing "multiculturalism", and no one disagrees...now.
But HEY! Any NEW immigrants are now dangerous, and maybe even diseased!
Like all those Italians, Jews, or dirt-worshiping Asians used to be! Remember?
Maybe they're all potentially infected zombies!
Danger Will Robertson, DANGER!
Sheesh.
Not all white people are bigots, nor afraid.Please bear that in mind.
Even Ronald Regan (was president here in the US of A once) gave total amnesty to millions of "illegal" immigrants here. Go figure.
Unless you can prove yourself to be an original Native American, you are born of an immigrant too.
Yes, you. English, Irish, German, Italian, Mexican, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese, African, etc.
The ONLY distinction and difference is numbers of "generations".
Yes, my own grand-father got off the boat from Scotland. Many (most) jumped ship earlier from the "West" (Ireland and England). More than a few generations ago (nearly back to days of the Revolution), I was born an "American".
But what kills me today is this renewed anti-immigrant sentiment harbored against primarily central-American kids (and their resident parental draws). I've head it all lately...
..like, GO HOME! I'm an "ameruican, and was born here!". You know, just like those "americun" heroes like Einstein, Columbus, Galileo, Hawking, Picasso, et al. None were actually born here, and most were never citizens, but "great Americans" all.
Funny story, but true. I met more than a few "Red-blooded Americans", until very recently, INSISTED that Steven Hawking was an American, because his computer translated, synthesized "voice" in "the Simpsons" was, "americun". Reminding these otherwise informed people that Hawking was in fact born in the UK, and never renounced his UK citizenship actually seemed astounding to them.
The fact that many of our "founders" were born in the UK still befuddles daily revisionists to no end.
*sigh*
Bottom line is this. "Multiculturalism" defines who we are today, as a nation and a people. And inevitably (sadly) each generation rebels against anyone/anything new/different. Ww can see the current results of our collective strengths in embracing "multiculturalism", and no one disagrees...now.
But HEY! Any NEW immigrants are now dangerous, and maybe even diseased!
Like all those Italians, Jews, or dirt-worshiping Asians used to be! Remember?
Maybe they're all potentially infected zombies!
Danger Will Robertson, DANGER!
Sheesh.
Not all white people are bigots, nor afraid.Please bear that in mind.
Even Ronald Regan (was president here in the US of A once) gave total amnesty to millions of "illegal" immigrants here. Go figure.
well... as for spelling, we agree on that. English is maybe the most difficult language ever, because it has no pronunciation rules. so a learner is supposed to learn the pronunciation of each word by heart.
This doesn't happen in languages like Spanish, Italian, French. There are established and unchangeable rules. For example in Spanish O will always be read as aw in saw.
always. no exceptions.
well...precisely. That's what international languages are for. Also known as linguae francae. I think that the cultural diversity of the Francophonie is amazing.
By the way, I think that the Québécois should learn how to speak European French, too. That wouldn't diminish la dignité de la prononciation québécoise
Because sometimes there are words which are difficult to understand for a person who only speaks European French. Like me.
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I actually want to try coming up with a way English might look if we had consistent spelling/pronunciation rules, with an added layer of consistent grammar.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Even as an atheist I think that the KJV has a certain majesty. It is one of the greatest literary works in the English language - I believe it was some forty of the greatest minds of their time collaborating in a truly epic feat of scholarship.
The KJV was written to be spoken aloud, it is as mesmerising a text as human intelligence can muster. I understand to your objecting to it's lack of precision - but perhaps that is a part of the power it's brilliant authors invested in it.
It is a work of art, that like all such great works teaches us much about the society that created it.
I enjoy the development of my own culture with the influence of the positive aspects of foreign culture. (I love eating out in Melbourne China Town) However, I do believe in the importance of a coherent cultural identity of society as a whole. By immigrating you choose to take on a cultural identity and not simply create your own little segregated communities that treat the very people who welcomed you as suspicious foreigners. And yes, certain groups are more guilty of this than others.
I had a co-worker who, despite being a third generation Australian, considered his national identity to be Maltese. You're not Maltese! You're an Australian with Maltese decent.
I had a co-worker who, despite being a third generation Australian, considered his national identity to be Maltese. You're not Maltese! You're an Australian with Maltese decent.
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wow. I love having dinner in Chinese restaurants too. Chinese food is terrific
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I actually prefer Korean and Thai myself. China Town offers much more than just Chinese.
:clap
I have a KJ Bible in my bookcase. I prefer to read the KJV than an Italian Bible.
illykitty
RF's pet cat
Well, I've got a French friend here and when speaking to him in French I do apply myself for him to understand, unless he specifically asks me to speak full on Quebecois. He gets me perfectly. I'm not from a region with a thick accent but do use a lot of Anglicism though, which the government tried to stop (clavardage instead of "chatter" for example for chat/instant messaging).
I grew up hearing European French pronunciation because all I had was free channels and they tend to put up any Francophone program... Not to mention most kids cartoons are with that accent rather than a Quebecois accent. The media nowadays is also a lot more neutral than it used to be. When I left Canada, it was becoming rarer to find full blown thick accents on anymore.
I have a strong identity connection with my European ancestry, and generally refer to myself as "Americaborn", since I don't really feel comfortable calling myself "American"(no, I don't know why), but I'm certainly not Irish in the same sense as my trans-Atlantic cousins.
well...precisely. sometimes immigrants contribute unconsciously and unwillingly to influence the pop culture of the host country.
Once a Londoner and I held a conversation about the Us. I asked him to be sincere about the Americans. He confessed me that most British people think that American pop culture is a bit loud and tawdry (compared to the British one) because of the massive Italian immigration, which turned the original British identity of the New England into a new original culture.
well...I told him I didn't agree with that view.
by the by....as a matter of fact. I have no difficulties in understanding the American accent. Even if they talk very fast.
Au contraire, if an Aussie or a British talked very fast, their language would sound like Arabic to me.
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Riverwolf said:
Noun gender is worse in German as you have three way gender system as opposed to the Romance two. (Except Romanian, which has three) Not only that, but each gender has a different declension pattern for grammatical case. That's why there are sixteen possible forms of the definite article in German. (Granted there's overlap of forms across the different genders) And don't get me started on all the ways to form a plural. So not only do you need to memorise the gender, but also what ending each noun takes in the plural.
Chinese is pretty straightforward grammatically; it's no more complex than English. But the writing and tone system is a lot to overcome. Also there's counter words, which in some ways, can be considered as the asian language equivalent of noun gender.
French is not so bad. Like English, the writing system is conservative. Pronunciation is not the easiest either. Grammatically however, it's actually a pretty easy language to grasp and you get a nice vocabulary discount as an English speaker.
As far as Indo-European languages go, English has been very stripped down of its once deep morphological complexity. It's also among the richest languages as far as vocabulary goes. It is a great, flexible, relatively straightforward language. There's nothing distinctly bad or illogical about English. It's actually free of some of the seemly pointless aspects of other languages in the European family such as grammatical gender, adjectival agreement, case declension (except for the genitive 's and pronouns) verbs that take to be as an auxiliary in the past tense, and so on.
But I myself like grammar so it's not so bad for me.
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I didn't say that I don't understand the Québécois pronunciation. but I need to concentrate more than when I talk to a Parisian.
I think that it is very useful for a French speaker to be able to speak in both accents.
as for anglicisms...well...I don't think that the government was doing a bad thing.
.
what do you mean by arbitrarily gendered nouns?