pete@uotcsi2.UUCP (Peter Hickey) (12/23/88)
I'm an american.... no, a New Yorker (there'a difference) living
in the province of quebec. Because of that, my views are those
of a biased outsider on the inside.
I think I understand the reasons for bill 101. Its based on feelings.
Consider the following. How would you *feel*, not what is right
pracitcal, logical, etc, How do you FEEL?
- A meeting with 20 french, and 1 anglo. The meeting must then
be held in english...... happens often.
- You are in your office in {Ontario, Alberta, B.C. ..} You get
a call from someone in Quebec. (S)he must speak english, after
all, this *is* {Ont,...}.
- A call is made from outside to Quebec. Maybe the chat with
the receptionist is in french, but in order to make sure you're
understood when speaking with the technical guy, there is a
switch to english.
- My kids go to school carrying their `boite a lunch'. Their
language is so currupted with english expressions that it is
funny. (which is sad).
- I had to use the letter a instead of a` (???) in the preceding
paragraph. Even if my machine would support french characters,
it won't go much further than my local disk & paper. On a network
to another machine???
- My kids speak english quite well (but with a N.Y. accent). The
*only* english speaking person around them is me. The neighborhood
(or neighbourhood :-)) is entirely french. The rest of the english
comes from TV. radio. Thats a *powerful* english influence.
- You go to your local Radio Shack, and inside (and outside) it
looks like any other one. Even though your town is 95% french.
How does this make you FEEL????
Quebec *does* have at least one all english university, and english
schools are all over the place. There are more english TV stations than
french ones in many places. The english culture in Quebec has
a *much* better chance of survival than french does in other provinces.
Its amusing to listen to franco-ontarians speaking their first language
with an english accent.
Pete Hickey
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
pete@uotcsi2.UofO.EDU ACNSL.UOTTAWA.BITNET
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Pete Hickey
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
pete@uotcsi2.UofO.EDU ACNSL.UOTTAWA.BITNET