Mark Krikorian Fears a World in Which People Speak Multiple Languages
Chateau Frontenac, Québec City (cc photo by Joe Shlabotnik)
Mark Krikorian visits Québec City (lovely, as I recall) and comes back with some typically bizarre thoughts:
Quebecois are a distinct people, a nation, who should have an independent state (though, I hasten to add, it’s none of our government’s business one way or the other). But what they have now seems better than that — all the advantages of independence without any of the responsibility, kind of like Puerto Rico. And the destructive effects of efforts to keep Quebec in the Canadian confederation (official national bilingualism and the attendant rise of bilingual, deracinated elites) should be a warning of the disaster that would result were Puerto Rico to become a state. Vive le Quebec libre! Viva Puerto Rico libre!
So . . . bilingualism clearly creates a lot of practical problems and Canada’s had various headaches around it. But the fact that many elite Canadians speak two languages hardly strikes me as a social and cultural crisis. The United States is a very big country and English is the world’s dominant language, so it’s totally viable for American elites to be monolingual. And good for us. But it’s actually quite typical for people to have multiple language competencies without becoming “deracinated” in any troubling way.
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that it’s hard to solve these issues through secession. Canada has a large Francophone minority. But if Québec were an independent country, it would be a country with a large Anglophone minority. Either way, human rights and a decent respect for the legitimate claims of minority groups winds up being indispensable. Krikorian’s dream of slicing the world into neat, tidy, perfectly homogeneous political units just bears very little resemblance to reality.
99 Responses to “Mark Krikorian Fears a World in Which People Speak Multiple Languages”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 7th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Why do you bother to publicize such stupidity? Are we reduced to needing treatises on the fact that things don’t fall up?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Krikorian’s dream of slicing the world into neat, tidy, perfectly homogeneous political units just bears very little resemblance to reality.
Matt, he’s definitely a fool, but how the hell do you think Europe turned into the place it is now? That is exactly what happened
Nearly every European country had huge numbers of minorities. That provoked a certain feeling of revanchism and led to some rather nasty dustups. The current model of Poles in Poland, Hungarians in Hungary, Germans in Germany, Danes in Denmark, and French in France only applies to the period post-1945.
Did you take a single fucking history or international relations class when you were lounging in the Yard?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Québecers settled the secession issue long ago by, of all things, voting against it.
Why pray tell should Mr.Krikorian suggest that he knows better than the Quebec citizens?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call a person that speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who only speaks one language? ‘Merican.
/I think its in the constitution (or at least the Beck/Blitzer version).
August 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
The problem is that most Canadains, especially English Canadians, aren’t bilingual. That includes most highly educated ones. So excluding them from federal government appointments is a problem — at least if you think it is important to get really good federal public servants. Maybe that assumption is wrong, and it is better to encourage smart ambitious people to get in the private sector.
Certainly, an independent Quebec would never have an official bilingualism policy, although it just might ease off on the suppression of the private use of English.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
“Krikorian’s dream of slicing the world into neat, tidy, perfectly homogeneous political units just bears very little resemblance to reality.”
What so now liberals are all anti-Woodrow Wilson? Good to know.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
all the advantages of independence without any of the responsibility, kind of like Puerto Rico
Why this sudden interest/terror of Puerto Rico? Could it have anything to do with Justicia Sotomayor? Maybe Kirkorian would prefer a Puerto Rico libre if that meant more judges who look like him?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Gotta love Krikorian’s generous usage of English words either derived directly from or cognate with French words when decrying Quebecois bilingualism. If he were a true Englishmun (or viking or whatever the hell he is) he would have said “the coming rise of two-tongued, uprooted high-borns”. But apparently the dirty Frenchers have gotten to Krikorian already.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Count me disappointed that you didn’t manage to work an Infinite Jest reference into this post, Matt.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
destructive effects of…the attendant rise of…deracinated elites
Because, as every student of history knows, what the world needs is more racinated elites. Nothing destructive ever happens when racinated elitism is given some lebensraum!
August 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Matt, how could post this without some kind of Infinite Jest reference? Very disappointing!
August 7th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Or, conservatives could stick to their guns and recognize the benefits of federalism. Quebec is able to have its own legal system, etc., en Francais, while the federal government can conduct its business in English. Montreal, with more-or-less successful aspirations of being a world city, parle beaucoup d’anglais (et de Chinois), while Quebec, une ville provencal, speaks French exclusivement. Qu’est-ce que c’est le problem?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
God damned BDEs! (shaking fist and turning red)
August 7th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Quebecois are a distinct people, a nation, who should have an independent state (though, I hasten to add, it’s none of our government’s business one way or the other).
Now that’s an interesting line for the National Review to take. If only that approach (especially the bit inside the brackets) could be applied more generally…
August 7th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I want to see Krikorian write in Anglish from now on.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Once he changes his surname to “Gregory”, and removes the terrible taint of his Armenian origins, then he’ll have a point.
“bilingual, deracinated elites”, indeed. What a dick.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Re: But it’s actually quite typical for people to have multiple language competencies without becoming “deracinated” in any troubling way.
Just what gives Mr. Yglesias the competence to opine on what makes people deracinated? Mr. Yglesias and his cosmopolitan confreres are virtually poster children for the spiritual and moral ills that accompany deracination. If I wanted to explain to someone what deracination was, I could not think of anything better to do than to point to the postmodern cosmopolites as an example. They are so deracinated they cannot understand the human thirst for greenery and trees, the human love for flowers, the human love for children, the human longing for God, the human drive to sacrifice one’s well-being for the greater good, the natural human impulse to be rooted in a place, connected with the past. Hearing the cosmopolite hipster elite offer their opinions on deracination, is like listening to an alcoholic opine about how best to stay on the wagon.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Also worth noting that the substantial Anglophone minority in Quebec, along with a sizeable First Nation population in the north of the province, has led to a lot of talk about what an independent Quebec would even look like – the north would certainly want to stay with Canada, along with many of the Anglophone border regions. I’ve seen some plans suggesting as much as half the population would stay behind (though that’s almost certainly too high), which would probably leave a rump too small to actually sustain independence.
The other big issue Quebec independence would bring is that English Canada would suddenly be divided, with the Atlantic Provinces no longer contiguous, except, perhaps through Labrador, assuming northern Quebec stays behind.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
This is ridiculous. Sure, most Canadians, both Anglo- and Francophone, speak their first language fluently and are sort of slightly competent in the other language. But the goal of official bilingualism isn’t that everyone speak both languages fluently; it’s that we can speak to our government in either, with the side benefit that two Canadians probably have enough language in common to vaguely understand each other. But to me, it’s a joy that I can sit with friends, click through the channels on TV, and if we land on a french language station and like what we see, we can watch it.
All that aside, Canada is the stinging, crushing rebuke to the world, and to all those who believe that every language group, every ethnic group, every religious group, whatever, deserves its own state. Canada proves bulls*it the nonsense that Croats can’t live beside Serbs without massacring each other. Canada is bilingual, multicultural, polyethnic (see, e.g., Toronto’s 50% immigrant population), and though it’s a fractious federation, it proves that skin colour, language, religion, and culture notwithstanding, people are people, and with a little tolerance, can live side by side without needing to kill each other. And you can even get gay married there.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Re: Once he changes his surname to “Gregory”, and removes the terrible taint of his Armenian origins, then he’ll have a po
Armenia, as the world’s first Christian state and one that has fought for its freedom over the last 2000 years against Arabs, Turks, Persians and Russians, is virtually the opposite of the modern, deracinated cosmopolite West. The Armenians are so rooted that they have remembered and loved their homeland, even when exiled in Jerusalem, Tyre, Paris or Watertown. God bless the Armenian People.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I’m sure that everywhere Krikorian went, there were plenty of people speaking more than enough English to sell him food, drink, shelter, and cheesy tourist crap. This will be the case everywhere where enough American tourists visit to make speaking English an economically useful skill.
I’d like to see Krikorian take a cruise to Greece, and tell all the Greek cab drivers, who congregate around the ports when the American ships are docking, that they are somehow deracinated.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Gotta love Krikorian’s generous usage of English words either derived directly from or cognate with French words when decrying Quebecois bilingualism.
Particularly since, when we last heard from Krikorian, he was bemoaning the practice of pronouncing Sonia Sotomayor’s surname in something resembling the Spanish fashion instead of roughly like (his example) the way Americans typically say Niedermayer. Maybe there’s some Krikoran-approved, authentically American way of pronouncing words like “elite” and “deracinated”… Maybe with all long vowels?
August 7th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
In India I believe most citizens learn three languages: Hindi, then the language of the state they live in e.g. Punjabi, Tamil, etc, and English which is the common language that most everyone speaks to bridge the local state languages. Learning foreign languages is difficult for most after the age of 6-7. But it is most worth it. It would certainly aid Americans if they traveled more abroad and spoke or tried to speak the different languages they encounter.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Oh and I just realized that “deracinated” is a French-derived word. Perfect!
August 7th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I’m sure even in Armenia people are bilingual in Armenian and Russian.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Particularly since, when we last heard from Krikorian, he was bemoaning the practice of pronouncing Sonia Sotomayor’s surname in something resembling the Spanish fashion instead of roughly like (his example) the way Americans typically say Niedermayer. Maybe there’s some Krikoran-approved, authentically American way of pronouncing words like “elite” and “deracinated”… Maybe with all long vowels?
I was thinking the same thing, along with “I wonder if Krikorian has ever used the term “race pimp”?”
August 7th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
But the fact that many elite Canadians speak two languages hardly strikes me as a social and cultural crisis.
Well, the truth is only elite Quebecois speak two languages. I have met very few Anglo Canadians who can speak French with any competency, even, shockingly, including Anglos from Montreal.
Also Ben at #4 – it’s really time to retire that stupid joke. Go see how many multilingual people you can find in the UK (or Spain or Italy for that matter). I’m American – I speak multiple languages well. When I worked in Russia, Americans always spoke better Russian than the German or French people I knew. Germans in particular seem to think that once they’ve learned English they’ve done all the work they need to do. I’ve seen Germans get angry at Mexicans in Mexico because the Mexicans didn’t speak English! Americans are hardly alone in having a blinkered attitude towards language.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Also, the authour has a very narrow definition of nation.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Anonymous at #8 wins the thread. What does “deracinated” even mean? I can speak — or at least muddle through competently enough not to piss off the natives — four languages and remain the WASPy upper middle class elite I was raised as. Speaking multiple languages, in today’s world, is a frigging survival skill. By speaking English, French, and Spanish, there are very few places I can travel to and NOT find someone who can understand at least one of those.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Indeed, in the Seattle area as I frequent 7-11 convenience stores, restaurants, shopping areas I have the wonderful opportunity to speak (some very poorly) Thai, Russian, Egyptian Arabic, Tagalog, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Cantonese, Punjabi, Hindi, Vietnamese, Samoan, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, and Swahili just to name most I meet. Encountering the world about us with our English-centric blinders on is to deny ourselves rich and culturally diverse opportunities to approach others in their own models of the world e.g. their language. And to make new friends as well.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Ah, Quebec City. Lovely.
Best place in the Western Hemisphere to spend un Noel romantique.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
As usual, the people criticizing Matt’s knowledge only display their own ignorance, and illiteracy.
It is an indisputable fact the world is not actually divided up into homogeneous nation-states. Even the would-be homogeneous nation-states of the world have substantial minorities. Matt is absolutely correct to note this. The people taking exception to Matt for noting this are making themselves look foolish.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
And, of course, Canada’s bilingualism has very little to do with Quebec (which is officially monolingual), and much to do with the francophone enclaves around the country. New Brunswick, for instance, is officially bilingual.
I grew up in Windsor, across from Detroit (a french name, btw). Windsor is surrounded by the francophone communities of Belle Riviere, Puce, St. Joachim, LaSalle, Riviere-aux-Canards, etc. All of these francophone communities have as much to do with Quebec as the National Review does.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Oh yeah, one more thing:
Kirkorian, It’s Quebecois. Not Quebeckers.
Since you insist that people refer to you as “American” rather than “Douchebag Wingnut,” it’s polite to return the favor.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
WTF is “deracinated”?
Is the argument that if I learn Spanish, I’ll suddenly stop being a white person of northern European descent? Seriously?
In my case, this would be awesome, because I’m superpale and would love to be able to stand more than 15 minutes in the summer sun without burning. Most races are darker than mine, so it would be GREAT on a personal level to be deracinated. I can see where someone who is of a different background might be worried, though, that deracination would make them paler and less apt to enjoy the beach.
Somehow, I do not think this is what he means by deracination.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
“Well, the truth is only elite Quebecois speak two languages. I have met very few Anglo Canadians who can speak French with any competency, even, shockingly, including Anglos from Montreal.”
I live in Montreal, and that’s not really true. Just about every Anglo that grew up in Montreal from childhood can speak French fluently, although in my experience they don’t like to. People that grew up elsewhere though and move to Montreal often don’t often learn French, since its easy to survive without it. Montreal has a huge student population from the United States and Ontario, and they generally do not speak fluent French.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Shorter version:
It’s impossible to square Burkean sentiments with modern realities.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Kirkorian, It’s Quebecois. Not Quebeckers.
Not necessarily.
“Quebecois” is generally the term reserved by Canadians for those who believe in a Quebec nation, (and generally those proposing independence). A “Quebecker” encompasses anyone who hails from the province of Quebec, and can include both sovereignist francophones or federalist anglophones.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
i speak both french and english, and i don’t really see how there’s anything negative about it. i mean, i can’t even fathom how it would be a negative: what does monoligualism get you that could be better? it’s just strange.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Krikorian: “I haven’t sensed any snootiness about our use of English”
Yes – can you imagine, can you only imagine, the apoplexy (never mind snootiness) Krikorian and his ilk would exhibit if a francophone tourist tried to speak French on a visit to New York.
And then imagine the nuclear indignation that would follow if that tourist went home and complained about the snootiness of Americans about the use of French…
August 7th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Bah, show up a month later and you can hit the winter carnival. Double the fun, same low temperature.
I’m somewhat confused though about what advantages of independence that Quebec enjoys. It’s not like they’re able to make their own foreign policy, or that they don’t pay federal level taxes.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
…and remain the WASPy upper middle class elite I was raised as.
So says the guy named “Vanderhoff”. You must be one of Yglesias’ elitist deracinated cosmopolitan hipster confreres. You would be far more spiritually enhanced if you revered your dutcho-germanic whatever-ness more and didn’t seek to pollute the meaning of WASP. Better yet, spend some time giving Armenia(Woo!) some love rather than wallowing in the evils of decadent cosmopolite cultural miscegenation! Have you no respect for natural law?
August 7th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
““Quebecois” is generally the term reserved by Canadians for those who believe in a Quebec nation, (and generally those proposing independence). A “Quebecker” encompasses anyone who hails from the province of Quebec, and can include both sovereignist francophones or federalist anglophones.”
Its much simpler than that. Quebecois simply means a French-Canadian Quebecer (Quebecoise means a female french-canadian quebecer). “Quebecker” is usually an Anglo from Quebec, often from Montreal or the eastern townships.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
“Canada proves bulls*it the nonsense that Croats can’t live beside Serbs without massacring each other. Canada is bilingual, multicultural, polyethnic (see, e.g., Toronto’s 50% immigrant population), and though it’s a fractious federation, it proves that skin colour, language, religion, and culture notwithstanding, people are people, and with a little tolerance, can live side by side without needing to kill each other.”
Reminded me of that bit in The Outlaw Josey Wales:
Josey: That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Bah, show up a month later and you can hit the winter carnival. Double the fun, same low temperature.
Done that. Good time, but I’m a sucker for X-Mas.
Krikorian: “I haven’t sensed any snootiness about our use of English”
Why would Kirkorian even think that? Oh yeah, because it’s a lazy, pop culture stereotype, which also happen to be the “intellectual” foundations of the modern GOP. Sitting Supreme Court justices arguing in favor of torture because he’s seen it work on a TV show. Jeez Louise, modern conservatives really are a mess.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I don’t worry that everyone would be billingual(Obviously, it’s not) I worry that ONLY the elite will recieve a bilingual education, putting the children of normal people at an even more extreme disadvantage.
That’s not really an unrealistic fear in a nation with so little social mobility and a fairly extreme income distribution. Given the way we do education here, it’s highly likely that that this would be the result. Rich districts already get all the money, and are already prioritized on college entrance criteria.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
DeanP writes the truth.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
joe from Lowell Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
As usual, the people criticizing Matt’s knowledge only display their own ignorance, and illiteracy.
It is an indisputable fact the world is not actually divided up into homogeneous nation-states. Even the would-be homogeneous nation-states of the world have substantial minorities. Matt is absolutely correct to note this. The people taking exception to Matt for noting this are making themselves look foolish.
============================================================
Matt is absolutely correct that the world is not divided into ethnically homogenous states. I think the point made rudely in #2 is valid to the extent that much of the relative peace we have seen in Europe since WWII is due to ethnic population resettlement. Eastern Europe and the Balkans were a mosaic of different language communities that was a legacy of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.
The tensions of this arrangment in the new countries set up in the area after WWI were one of the causes of WWII. After the war there was a huge resettlement of people, for example Germans from all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans were expelled and sent back to Germany. Much the same happened with Polish, Hungarian and Rumanian speakers.
The current countries of Europe are much more linguistically homogenous than they were pre- WWII. I think most agree that has helped reduce tensions everywhere but former Yugoslavia. There they are still at each other’s throats though they all speak Serbo-Croatian.
That still didn’t stop the break-up of Czechoslovakia or the problems Belgium still has.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Nearly every European country had huge numbers of minorities. That provoked a certain feeling of revanchism and led to some rather nasty dustups. The current model of Poles in Poland, Hungarians in Hungary, Germans in Germany, Danes in Denmark, and French in France only applies to the period post-1945.
Yeah, Matt, didn’t you take any of them history classes at Harvard?! The ones that tell you how post-1945, Switzerland and Belgium suddenly disappeared, along with all the Breton people in France, Catalan speakers from Spain, Italy suddenly became completely homogeneous, etc. etc. etc.
Matt, you’re so ignorant and dumb. Try to be smarter like Greg.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
So says the guy named “Vanderhoff”. You must be one of Yglesias’ elitist deracinated cosmopolitan hipster confreres.
It’s called a pseudonym, moron. “Erik Vanderhoff” is not my real name.
Oh, you were spoofing the real Hector. My bad.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
What all this “deracination” really comes down to is that capital ended up developing international class consciousness first.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“In India I believe most citizens learn three languages: Hindi, then the language of the state they live in e.g. Punjabi, Tamil, etc, and English which is the common language that most everyone speaks to bridge the local state languages.”
You’d be wrong. About 55% the people in India can speak Hindi. About 40% speak it as their native language, another 10% speak it as a second language, and another 5% speak Urdu which is basically the same. About 10% of the population can speak English. Hindi is spoken in legal proceedings,but government proceedings can be done in any of the 23 official languages, although nobody speaks Sanskrit (which is official for historical reasons). Only about 20% of the population is bilingual (roughly the same as in the US). As for English as a bridge between states, that’s only true in the South. There is great resistance to Hindi there, so they use English to communicate with those from the North. But in the North, Hindi is the main bridge language. A Punjabi speaker and a Bengali speaker will talk to each other in Hindi, not English. But it is true that a Kannada speaker and a Tamil speaker will talk to each other in English, but only because they refuse to speak Hindi. As for what people write in, English is pretty much everywhere. Only 60% of Indians can write in any language, and English speakers are the wealthy people you want in your store. So, businesses always write their signs in English and a local language. It is also not uncommon for someone to be literate in English but illiterate in their native language. My best friend in India is rare in that he can speak seven languages. But he can’t read Hindi, he can only read English and his native Tibetan.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
It’s annoying when bilingualism in Canada gets reduced to Québec v. the rest of Canada. I guess some people either don’t know that there are francophones from other provinces or don’t think they matter. Tabernouche
August 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Hearing the cosmopolite hipster elite offer their opinions on deracination, is like listening to an alcoholic opine about how best to stay on the wagon
Uhh, that’s exactly who I’d ask about how to stay on the wagon. Why would I want to hear about it from a non-alcoholic who doesn’t struggle with that addiction or compulsion?
the human longing for God, the human drive to sacrifice one’s well-being for the greater good, the natural human impulse to be rooted in a place, connected with the past.
Once again, Hector, you are a sick fuck. You really should stop projecting your sado-masochistic fantasies, especially the whipping ones, onto humanity or pretending that your perversions are deep human needs. As you might say, you are in grave error, asshole.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Matt,
As Pithlord, an actual Canadian, pointed out, you’re just revealing your ignorance about the laws in Canada, which give a huge boost to the civil service career of bilingual individuals even in monolingual parts of the country. The winners are the upper middle class (who can afford to be educated in a second language), Francophones (who are more likely to learn the world’s dominant language), and the tiny class of from-the-cradle bilinguals, such as Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney. The losers are everybody else.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
As for Puerto Rican independence, well, of course Puerto Rico should be independent. The U.S. ruling a populous Spanish-speaking island is just a leftover from the Teddy Roosevelt White Man’s Burden era of imperialism.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
The Armenians are so rooted that they have remembered and loved their homeland, even when exiled in Jerusalem, Tyre, Paris or Watertown.
Way to miss the point, Anachronism Boy: Krikorian exists in a mist of self-hatred towards his ethnic origins, lining up alongside other ladder-pulling bigots like Tom Tancredo.
In the meantime, there are some fun and smart things going on at UL in Lafayette to link up Cajun culture with old Acadie.
I haven’t yet seen Krikorian advocate for the ethnic cleansing of the various Mennonite and other long-standing linguistic minorities from the US. Only a matter of time, though.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Steve, a few points:
1) French immersion programmes, the most common way for Anglo children not from Quebec to learn French, are part of the public school system in all provinces except Quebec. In Ontario, you can even go to a publicly funded catholic french immersion school if you so desire. There is a small bias in these programs toward upper-middle class children, but not a major one.
2) Our current prime minister did not learn french until adulthood, and was not even close to fluent the first time he was elected. Granted, almost all our recent PM’s have been from Quebec, but that’s due to regional politics, not solely language.
3) The level of french required to be functionally bilingual for the purposes of government jobs is not super high outside quebec. a few night classes is usually enough.
4) Most provinces (maybe all) have a certain amount of mandatory french that all students must take. Its not usually enough to become functionally bilingual, but its enough that virtually every canadian student can muddle through a conversation with a francophone.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Quebecois are politically smarter than other Canadians. A separate state is not economically viable and they know it. Quebec continues to receive much more money from the feds than it pays in. They are smart enough to have their ake in Quebec, with icing, and not have to slug it out as an independent country.
As a kid growing up in Montreal, btw, bilingual meant a Quebecois who spoke English. Most anglos didn’t because they were too lazy or afraid to make a mistake. Situation is better now though although we have the reverse: Francophones who haven’t had English in schools courtesy of the provincial gov’t. Many of them are now confined to the francophone ghetto of North America with limited economic mobility.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Not “much more” money. Last year Manitoba, new brunswick, pei, newfoundland and nova scotia all received more in equalisation payments than did Quebec.
But its true what you say about how bilinguality switching in montreal from mostly quebecois to more anglos. A Quebecoise coworker of mine recently was lamenting about that exact same thing.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
We should start learning a second, or third language in kindergarten so that we can be truly fluent. Waiting until high school and spending three years ordering off menus and shopping in a second language is silly.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
*that was supposed to read “more in equalisation payments PER CAPITA than did Quebec.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I always thought Krikorian reminded me of Maurice Duplessis, and this clinches it.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“We should start learning a second, or third language in kindergarten so that we can be truly fluent.”
I’m all for that. But let’s learn the important languages. Spanish is a very good one to learn. But French and German aren’t very useful. Drop them, and add in Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Re: I always thought Krikorian reminded me of Maurice Duplessis, and this clinches it.
Maurice Duplessis was not a nice guy, but he was three or four times the man that Mark Krikorian will ever be.
Re: You really should stop projecting your sado-masochistic fantasies, especially the whipping ones, onto humanity or pretending that your perversions are deep human needs.
No, Anthony, you should stop pretending that just because your spirit is deficient in some regards, and that you do not share certain common human tendencies, that your deficiencies should be normative for society. I would submit that it is you who is the one who is in grave error. Do you think the fact that retributive and expiatory justice have been accepted as commonsense logical necessities by most societies and most thinkers through history, should tell us something? Or are the hipper-than-thou modern intellectuals so much smarter than their forebears, and then the bulk of human beings in the world today, that they need listen to nothing beyond the assorted writings of Mr. Michel Foucault and Ms. Judith Jarvis Thomsen? I suspect that this question answers itself.
Re: As for English as a bridge between states, that’s only true in the South. There is great resistance to Hindi there, so they use English to communicate with those from the North. But in the North, Hindi is the main bridge language. A Punjabi speaker and a Bengali speaker will talk to each other in Hindi, not English.
Fostert is correct. We Southerners do not like the Hindi language or its self-styled national supremacy.
Re: So says the guy named “Vanderhoff”. You must be one of Yglesias’ elitist deracinated cosmopolitan hipster confreres. You would be far more spiritually enhanced if you revered your dutcho-germanic whatever-ness more and didn’t seek to pollute the meaning of WASP. Better yet, spend some time giving Armenia(Woo!) some love rather than wallowing in the evils of decadent cosmopolite cultural miscegenation! Have you no respect for natural law?
This is a parody, of course, but it must be conceded that the parodists are getting better.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The winners are the upper middle class (who can afford to be educated in a second language), Francophones (who are more likely to learn the world’s dominant language), and the tiny class of from-the-cradle bilinguals, such as Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney. The losers are everybody else.
Steve Sailer, affordability isn’t so much an issue, at least not in the cities. Canadians are overwhelmingly publicly educated. It costs no more to send your child to a french immersion school than a regular school, and I believe french immersion schools are prohibited from declining admission on the basis of grades or ability.
You’re right that it is predominately upper(ish) middle class parents who send their kids to french immersion schools, but that’s a question of cultural and class mores rather than an issue of financial discrimination.
Yes, official bilingualism throws up another filter to separate “elites” from everybody else, but how is that different from any other kind of elite institution? Bilingualism favours those with time and diligence and intelligence; the same is true of attending Yale or Harvard (etc), which is no less a prerequisite for advancement in the US. That’s not to say you HAVE to attend an ivy league college to succeed; look at Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And then again, look at Stephen Harper, who ascended to opposition leader and THEN learned french. Jean Chretien muddled along as head of a number of ministries before learning English. Joe Clarke learned French as an adult. Very few premiers are bilingual. Etc. etc.
Considering that fully 1/3 of the country speaks french as a first language, bilingualism is hardly an arbitrary requirement. Why SHOULDN’T federal bureaucrats have to learn the language of 1/3 of their constituency?
August 7th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, Matt, didn’t you take any of them history classes at Harvard?! The ones that tell you how post-1945, Switzerland and Belgium suddenly disappeared, along with all the Breton people in France, Catalan speakers from Spain, Italy suddenly became completely homogeneous, etc. etc. etc.
1. Switzerland is the most decentralized first world country on the planet. Matt’s written about this many, many times.
2. Did you completely miss how dysfunctional Belgium is? Every single political party is split along ethno-linguistic lines. It took almost a year for them to form a government. The monarchy and the soccer team are probably the only unifying forces in the country (well, that latter one is true for many places!).
And how on earth does bringing up Catalans (gee, why didn’t you mention Basques?) prove your point? They both have major movements for independence – and the Italians have massive structural problems too.
By the way, do you know how many people speak Provençal or Breton? Something like a million tops. In a country of over 60 million. You think people just decided to start speaking French? The drive to turn everyone into a speaker of a Frankish dialect centered on a small Northeastern region (Île de France) has taken centuries, but it was still woefully unfinished at the time of the Revolution.
There’s a great literature about the Third Republic’s role in completing this, something that was incredibly helped by the Great War. When I was doing 19th Century French history, I started here
Oh, and go fuck yourself.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
“We Southerners do not like the Hindi language or its self-styled national supremacy.”
Just wondering, from your writings, I’d guess you’re Tamil. Am I right? I’d also guess that the resistance to Hindi originates in an earlier resistance to the Mughals and their imposition of Urdu as the state language. Obviously, the Southerners are angry at recent attempts force Hindi on everyone, but it seems to run deeper than that.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I’m all for that. But let’s learn the important languages. Spanish is a very good one to learn. But French and German aren’t very useful. Drop them, and add in Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic.
My new niece is going to be doing something like that.
My brother and sister-in-law (who’s Anglo-Canadian, amusingly enough) haven’t decided which in addition to Spanish.
Of course, she’s probably going to do Mandarin or Russian since her parents are research scientists, and they’ve got tons of cash-strapped grad students and post-docs who can speak those two.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Just wondering, from your writings, I’d guess you’re Tamil. Am I right? I’d also guess that the resistance to Hindi originates in an earlier resistance to the Mughals and their imposition of Urdu as the state language. Obviously, the Southerners are angry at recent attempts force Hindi on everyone, but it seems to run deeper than that.
Why stop with the Mughals? The Aryans have been beating up on the South for thousands of years. Come on, buddy, I know you know that!
August 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
“The Aryans have been beating up on the South for thousands of years.”
Fair enough. But the Mughals invented the Urdu language that eventually became Hindi. The Mughals created a common language for its army based on Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and the local languages. It spread because it was spoken in army camps, which were often the centers of commerce. The word ‘Urdu’ literally means ‘army’ in Turkish. Hindi is basically Urdu with a Sanskrit based alphabet and fewer Persian and Arabic words. So when it comes to animosity over Hindi, I tend to blame the Mughals.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
So are “attendant” and “elite”. And “bilingual” is a cognate derived from Latin.
But hey, we’ve still got “the”, “rise”, and “of” to our Germanic selves..
August 7th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
“Of course, she’s probably going to do Mandarin or Russian since her parents are research scientists”
Those are good choices for science. But Russian is a weird one these days. In Eastern Europe, many people can speak Russian, but will refuse to do so. The hatred of all things Russian runs deep and wide in Eastern Europe. Something about past invasions, it seems.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
IIRC, Canadians learn French (or take French) to graduate from university. Some Canadian in the house, is that correct?
Channeling my inner Steve Sailor, perhaps: I think it important for immigrants to take language classes in the dominant language(s) in the country to which they’re immigrating, as well as basic civics and the like. Immigration is a great thing, ghettoization not so much (I know we’ve always had it in America, but we shouldn’t.)
August 7th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
“IIRC, Canadians learn French (or take French) to graduate from university. Some Canadian in the house, is that correct?”
Not in my experience. When i was in school it was mandatory from grades 3-9, but not afterwards.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
#74: It was a requirement of the University of Ottawa (one of my alma maters) to achieve a second language proficiency (I was given a dispensation because I’d done my primary and secondary schooling in French (not French immersion, which is pretty much worthless)). But the University of Ottawa is a bilingual university. It isn’t generally a requirement of most universities.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
What is “deracination” and how do we stop it?
August 7th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Looking over wikipedia’s list of US territories several things strike me. We should make Puerto Rico a state along with DC, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Isleands, and American Samoa. Also Jamaca clames Bajo Nueva Bank, Columbia claims Serranilla Bank, and Haiti claims Navassa Island. Anybody know why we shouldn’t respect those claims?
August 7th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Ironies abound.
-It’s true that publicly-funded French immersion is widely available, but it is shunned by working-class Anglos and “new Canadians” (i.e.,non-whites). My daughter’s public school in Vancouver has a French and English stream. The English stream resembles the United Nations in racial composition, while the French stream resembles the Icelandic Parliament.
Sometimes I think this will create a problem. It will be fun in 2030 explaining to second- and third-generation Sikh Canadians that they can’t have federal government jobs. On the other hand, maybe they won’t want them.
-It’s true the federal bilingualism has never interested most pur laine Quebecois, and certainly can’t be blamed on the separatists. It’s also true that by weakening the appeal of the federal bureaucracy to Anglo meritocratic elites, it has probably strengthened both the provinces and the private sector — something the right should approve of.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Also Jamaca clames Bajo Nueva Bank, Columbia claims Serranilla Bank, and Haiti claims Navassa Island. Anybody know why we shouldn’t respect those claims?
It works both ways. Why shouldn’t they respect our claims? Sovereignty over mostly-uninhabited islands can be problematic because one country can claim an island, but if they do nothing with it, never secure it, never settle it, etc., then in what sense does that country really have a right to claim it?
A while back a friend of mine visited Nunavut, and he brought back some local newspapers that wrote of the “sovereignty patrol” team that would periodically visit Arctic lands claimed by Canada in order to practically demonstrate that yes, Canada does in fact control those lands and exercises their authority over them. Fail to do that, and you’re likely to run into problems involving disputed claims.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Re: The U.S. ruling a populous Spanish-speaking island is just a leftover from the Teddy Roosevelt White Man’s Burden era of imperialism.
The day Puerto Ricans vote to be independent, they will be.
Re: But the Mughals invented the Urdu language that eventually became Hindi.
No, the Mughals took the existing Hindi language and arabicized it (including giving it Arabic script) then called it Urdu. Hindi and Urdu are otherwise like Serbian and Croatian: same basic language but with different writing systems, different religions and different political histories.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
#79 Pithlord
I can guarantee you that your daughter’s experience with French Immersion is not even remotely representative. I know because my suburban Toronto French Immersion experience was the exact opposite – there was more diversity in the French stream than the English stream. And I grew up in one of the more multicultural enclaves in Southern Ontario (Brampton/Bramalea)
It most certainly was not “shunned” by anybody. In fact, if anything it appealed to the more intellectually curious students (who else would choose to put themselves through rigorous language training at the age of 10?)
August 7th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Canadians are not required to take French to graduate from uni.
#75 aqua regia
Each uni has its own rules and unis in Canada are governed by the provinces where they are located. The feds have no say in their curricula and academic requirements.
French Immersion is free. Period. My daughter went through it because we had lived in France and planned to return. Many other parents opted for it because
1) they felt it would be easier for their child to get a cushy fed gov’t job
2)overall smaller class sizes, important for those who can’t afford private schools
We noticed that students in F.I. had more positive attitudes toward school. Their parents had made an active choice about their kids’ education instead of the passive school-as-dumping-ground choice of apathetic parents.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Thanks for the correction. Thinking back on it now, it was for a faculty position (and there’s a long route (which I will spare you the details of) to that that I thought).
August 7th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
“No, the Mughals took the existing Hindi language and arabicized it (including giving it Arabic script) then called it Urdu.”
Umm, then how did Hindi come to have so many Persian and Turkish words prior to the Mughal invasion that introduced those languages? The answer is, it didn’t. What happened is that the Khari Boli dialect of Prakrit absorbed Persian, Arabic, and Turkish words from the Mughal invaders and was eventually adopted by the Mughals as the army language (around Shah Jahan’s time). While the Mughal government adopted an Arabic script, the Hindus used the more familiar Sanskrit. But either way, Prakrit is a different language and is the partial origin of both. And while Prakrit was a localized language, Hindi/Urdu was spread far and wide by the Mughals. Perhaps ‘invented’ was a bad term, but there is no question that the Mughals encouraged the spread of the language far beyond the region that Prakrit had spread.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
neilt,
Sounds like what we need are statistics.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
My God, Steve Sailer is ignorant.
Every public school in Canada teaches its students French.
“Upper middle class who can afford to learn a second language” my ass.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Re: “The Aryans have been beating up on the South for thousands of years.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there considerable debate about whether the Aryan invasion was ever an actual historical event? I know that some Indians, of a more nationalist persuasion, contend that there were never distinct Aryan and Dravidian ‘races’ and that the Indo-European languages originated in India. This is not my area of expertise so I have no idea what the historical merits of this theory are.
As for the dislike of Hindi in the South: Fostert, I suspect it’s also partly because its easier for Northerners to learn Hindi. Most of the Northern languages are related to Hindi (and Sanskrit) and share some common vocabulary and grammar. This isn’t the case for the Southern languages which are in their own language family. It’s harder for them to learn Hindi, in the same way that it’s easier for a English speaker to learn, say, Italian than Finnish.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
No, Quebec need not be an independent state just because 80% of the population are descendants of French settlers of 400 years ago, and most of the population speaks French. Multilingual and multi-ethnic states are the norm in the world.
No, English Canadian elites are not deracinated because some (a very small minority) speak French. They are being deracinated by the ideology of multiculturalism.
Canadians can feel quite rooted to Canada, and still respect the cultures of the French speakers, English speakers and native communities.
If the government did not try so hard to force Canadians to speak French, perhaps more would. But it all has nothing to do with the country staying together. Strange.
August 7th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
“I know that some Indians, of a more nationalist persuasion, contend that there were never distinct Aryan and Dravidian ‘races’ and that the Indo-European languages originated in India.”
The current consensus seems to be that the Indo-European languages originated in Turkey and traveled both directions. This seems to makes sense having listened to a lot of Hindi. Hindi sounds very vaguely like German, but only the very basic words are similar. ‘Mein’ in German and ‘mein’ in Hindi (’my’ in English). ‘Mutter’ in German and ‘Muthar’ in (’mother’ in English). These are words that develop very early in civilization. That they are basically the same indicates an early common history. But later words aren’t the same, indicating a split that occurred before development of agriculture. And given the large differences in European and South Asian alphabets, the split occurred before the development of writing. So I don’t think the European languages came from India. But they do share a common ancestor with the Indian languages. The Dravidian languages are obviously completely unrelated.
“It’s harder for them to learn Hindi, in the same way that it’s easier for a English speaker to learn, say, Italian than Finnish.”
That doesn’t really add up. Hindi and English are both Indo-European languages and are both so different from the Dravidian languages that you already have no context to start with. I think English is more popular because it is more useful. Jobs for English speakers pay more. That and an animosity towards Northern India. As for Hindi being easier for North Indians, well most of them speak it anyway. But yes, the other Northern languages are similar enough that it is easy to learn Hindi. Kind of like learning Italian if you already speak Spanish. Well, unless you speak Bodo or Kashmiri. Those are different language families as well.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Firstly: A separated Quebec isn’t happening any more. Even their separatist parties have moved away from the issue due to it becoming an electoral liability. It doesn’t have popular support.
Bilingualism is in some ways valuable, but it does have its drawbacks. Firstly, it excludes a lot of Western Canada from government positions – people here don’t speak French a lot because very little of the population did (now, if Chinese was the second language, that would be useful to us), so it’s hard to maintain even if you do learn it.
As importantly, bilingualism seems likely to prevent us from having, in the near future, any non-white minority as PM. Because although many are fluently bilingual, it’s more likely to be in English and Chinese, or English and Punjab, or or something along those lines. The effective requirement of trilingualism excludes a lot of people.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
IIRC, Canadians learn French (or take French) to graduate from university. Some Canadian in the house, is that correct?
Nope. You need French up to Grade 11 to graduate (unless you have another second language: no point in making life even harder for the ESL kids), and that’s all. And if you don’t speak it, you forget it. I retain enough French to talk about the weather and that’s about it.
August 8th, 2009 at 2:29 am
As Pith well knows, it’s as much of a mistake to extrapolate about Canada on the basis of his tony Vancouver ‘hood as it is to extrapolate based on a francophone village in farm country in anglophone Manitoba. And I’m sure that’s a good thing. Consider, Pith: our home province attracted so many *other* cultures partly as a legacy of previous decisions to reject Krikorian’s attitude, even if those decisions were first targeted at french minorities hundreds of miles away.
Katherine, our last two Governors-General: one, born in Hong Kong, the other born in Haiti; neither is white, and both sharpened the ‘other’ official language working in that most unilingual of professions; the media. Rahim Jaffer’s problem wasn’t speaking French (which he does), it was getting re-elected. And visible minorities can’t handle french? There are hundreds of Vietnamese immigrants, West Africans and franco-Metis living blocks from where I sit who might disagree. 10% of Manitobans are bilingual; over 40% of students are enrolled in french classes, and another 19% in french immersion.
Harper, Prentice, Day and Kenney are perhaps the four whitest, WASPiest, most anglo dudes on the planet, and even they managed to learn to parle la langue well enough to prosper in national politics – so I don’t think it’s too much to expect senior anglo public servants, general officers and so on to do so, especially since millions of Quebecois seem to have had no trouble learning English.
This might make it harder for me to get the Deputy Minister post I’ve always craved. Oh well. But funny, I thought we wanted the “educated elite” in the senior ranks of the public service, no? Or does Steve want us to reserve some director-general positions for high school dropouts just to be sensitive?
Jesus, aren’t we Canucks hilarious. Matt was attacking an article that complained about the “deracinated” Canadian elite – Krikorian’s word, not Matt’s. And here we are quibbling over whether enrollment in our massive *second*-language immersion system is diverse enough.
Colice!
August 8th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Jean Chretien muddled along as head of a number of ministries before learning English.
Or French.
Sorry…had to get that one out.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:31 am
It’s the deracinated elite that Krikorian objects to, not the bilingualism. Which would take about three seconds of reading Krikorian’s past work to figure out. He’s big into tradition, localism, and people having an ethnic identity tied to those things.
What he’s saying is that the continued presence of Quebec in Canada leads to the creation of elites who have the trappings that appear to respect traditions-like bilingualism-but no actual rooted identity, coupled with an active hostility to the actual ethnic identities present in Canada. Michaelle Jean, the governor general, would be a good example: her official motto is a pledge to break down those identities.
Now, this can still be criticized, but doing so would require a more than superficial knowledge of Canada, and wouldn’t be as simple as claiming that Krikorian is terrified by people speaking more than one language.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Fostert,
I wasn’t necessarily endorsing the ‘Out of India’ hypothesis, just pointing out that there are some Indian nationalists who would deny that an Aryan Invasion (or for that matter a separate Aryan ethnic group) ever existed. It’s true that the linguistic evidence seems week.
The idea with preferring English to Hindi, I think, is that while learning Hindi is MUCH easier for a Punjabi speaker than a Tamil, learning English is only a little easier. Also, northerners who speak Hindi natively (40%) would have an advantage if Hindi was the only national language.
A lot of Southerners do speak other Southern languages, particularly if they have lived in other states or close to the border- the southern languages are fairly similar.
I agree with A Nonny Mouse at #95.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Hardly. Nonny, you’re giving Krikorian too much credit. The guy did start his National Review blog post by joking that Quebec “seemed to have a different word for everything.” Har har har.
To your point, I think G-G Jean’s lofty “motto,” in practice, is nothing more than Joe Clark’s remark that Canada is a community of communities with an accent on both the first and the second community. That’s not “active hostility” to actual ethnic identities, nor has she delivered any “active hostility” during the four years that have transpired since Colby posted those comments. On the contrary; if anything, our seal blubber munching viceroy has done quite the opposite. Quite the Canadian balancing act, if you ask me – and not at all the submersion you seem to imply she’d deliver if she truly was an iconic example of ethnic submersion.
How long before someone brings John Ralston Saul’s Canada-is-metis-nation theory into this and says that’s what Krikorian really meant? Come on, guys – the subject of Matt’s original post wrote a book in 2008 called The New Case Against Immigration – Both Legal and Illegal. I guess merely bashing illegal immigration doesn’t sell books to the paleosphere anymore…
This isn’t some guy starting a conversation comparing Madisonian federalism to the nuances of Canadian cultural policy. It’s the latest rewrite of a career-long cheap shot on the back of America’s minority cultures, conveniently masked behind the sights and smells of a steak frites vacation moment.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
@wiley
I had English in private kindergarten and 12 years of English in school. I got good grades, but was nowhere near fluent. I couldn’t have followed the conversation on this blog for example.
I am fluent now, but school only gave me a foot in the door.
Children learn the language they need in their daily environment. They don’t care about their lazy parents multilingual aspirations. If you aren’t learning a second language yourself, and you could, given enough devotion, kids won’t do either.
Mark Krikorian should have used the EU as an example. The overwhelming majority of Europeans is completely oblivious as to what the political elites are doing. There is no bidirectional dialogue between decision makers in Brussels, Strasbourg and the Eu commission in particular.
And the language barrier is the main reason for that.
Most Europeans are monolingual, contrary to popular American belief. What English skills Europeans have, is enough to give directions or engage in limited, job-related conversations with foreigners, but is in no way sufficient to follow, say, this blog.
It seems to me that monolingual Americans underestimate the difficulties multilingualism brings into the equation, precisely because they don’t understand what a language barrier really means and feels like.
Americans think that what the heck, those Europeans are all Multilingualists anyway and the hotel clerk was able to comprehend me, so how difficult can it be?
August 8th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
But French and German aren’t very useful. Drop them, and add in Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic.
What, pray tell, is your definition of “useful”? Must be mighty odd.