The tumultuous debates on the imposition of French courses on students in English-speaking CEGEPs who do not have sufficient language skills led me to lay this reflection.
I won’t dwell on allophones or anglophones, but of course on us, fearful francophones.
On us, fearful French speakers.
On us, French speakers, unable to speak French and even less able to defend this beautiful language.
He is to blame for his linguistic incompetence.
He is to blame for his closed-mindedness.
He is to blame for his inability to defend his tongue; to promote it; to make her loved and made known.
The francophone is at fault for the poor quality of his French in his text messages, in his emails, on social media, and on his “Libarté” signs.
If the francophone can neither speak nor write, the allophone has nothing to do with it.
If the Francophone perpetuates bad language, the Anglophone has nothing to do with it.
If the francophone ostracizes all those who don’t speak French as badly as he does, well, the francophone should be the first to be ostracized.
The first to be corrected. The first to be told that he should continue taking French lessons, at least until his retirement.
The racist francophone or the unilingual francophone has nothing to teach the allophones who understand very well the value of a language, its complexity, its usefulness and its beauty.
That being said, if the modern francophone often adopts a Neanderthal position, not to say colonist, he is not the only culprit.
The average French speaker, unable to spell three words without making mistakes or unable to agree their past participle, is the product of a failed system.
All the successive governments for 50 years are to blame. All the overhauls of school programs are only lamentable and perpetual fruitless attempts to correct poor quality French programs. All the successive bills over the years are nothing but unacknowledged failures. Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette and his Bill 96 are the perfect example.
Regardless of their ages and origins, Francophones, Allophones and Anglophones are the victims of the system.
Although the official language of Quebec is French, Quebecers speak dozens of different languages. Quebecers who do not have French as their mother tongue are not afraid to speak their language and make it live and evolve. Why do we, Quebeckers with French as a mother tongue, have to do things differently?
French is a complicated language, both spoken and written, and seeing how the average French-speaking Quebecer expresses themselves, it is easy to see how complex this language is. French-speaking Quebecers are the first to complain about it and the first to ask that we review, simplify and reduce linguistic requirements and grammatical rules. Not for the allophone or the Anglophone, but for the Francophone at the request of a Francophone government itself failing its own exams and its own standards.
The French speaker has no moral lesson to give. The francophone rather needs French lessons to increase his credibility.
It’s up to us, Francophones, to make people discover and love our language, our music, our literature and our culture, because if we don’t do it, no one will do it for us, except perhaps a perpetually inefficient system.
Courtesy picture
Kevyn GagneCRIA, M. Sc., Director of Human Resources, Montreal
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca