A few years ago the Canadian province of Quebec, which is predominently Francophone, passed a law called Bill 101, which was designed to protect the French language in that province from the onslaught of English. Since then, the law has provoked much debate from Anglophones and Francophones alike. I,m curious to know what everyone thinks of this law. Is it productive or counterproductive? What does everyone think? Grogie
I know the law has been watered down considerably, and it will probably continue in the same direction. In its original form, I think it was a mistake, It’s important for political reasons to preserve bilingualism, but it seemed more like an attempt to enforce the use of French, which will only cause more problems. And keeping English influence out isn’t possible. I don’t think anyone can legislate speech, especially in Canada.
I do remember reading some articles in The Montreal Gazette online several years ago about the law and some problems it creates. Signs must be posted in French, and French must be larger than any other language. In the case of English, the French must be at least twice the size of the English.
As for problems, in a hospital that serves a local area of primarily English-speaking patients, all signs must be in French. I’m not sure there is a provision requiring that English signs be available, even in addition to French.
At another hospital that served mostly elderly Chinese-speaking patients, the hospital was NOT required to hire someone that spoke Chinese, and preference could NOT be given to someone who was bi-lingual in Chinese and French versus someone who was francophone only.
The Gazette’s editorial cartoonist, Aislin (Terry Mosher), will sometimes skewer Law 101 and its minions.
I don’t think anyone can legislate speech, especially in Canada.
I would say: no one ought to legislate speech. But indeed it is done.
Catalonia and the Basque Country are examples of language legislation within Spain. In the first case, to restore a widely spoken language to a status of "normality of use" with respect to the vehicular language (Spanish). In the second to try and rescue an ancient tongue from the road of desappearence. Sadly, both efforts have been aimed (and this for a century already) to the construction of national identities that foster tensions in many respects comparable to those in Quebec, albeit, in the Basque case, with the added strain of a terrorist organisation trying to legislate, too, by means of bullets and car-bombs.
Not a much more eased situation occurs in Belgium. No one could say that neerlandophones and francophones are "so happy together": the disgregation in linguistic zone is really striking; a linguistic iron-curtain is the only element missing in the display.
Those are the problems of making of speech a confrontation token.
It is just that I have never heard "disgregation" used about people before, but it seems to fit!
My first understanding would be of chemical or materials coming apart, but I see now that it has been used about Yugoslavia, and about wildlife preserves, among other things.
Just that it’s a word I’ve never heard before, whether referring to people or Yugoslavian preserves. disgregación is the top Google hit, disintegration is probably the word to use in english without confusing 99% of english speakers. Most americans would just hear it as a mispronunciation of ‘desegregation’ or ‘diss integration’ ;)
I see, well, I studied chemistry… :D Maybe that’s why I came across that word when searching my lexikon (as Chomsky would say) for an appropriate term…
It’s also true that "segregation" is something I’m used to hear in English, but it sounded too racially connotated. Anyway, as Melissa points out, disgregación seems to be much more frequent in Spanish.
