Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!lrbartram
From: lrbartram@watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada: one or two cultures?
Message-ID: <10789@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 24 Jul 89 16:53:24 GMT
References: <232@ccu.UManitoba.CA> <362@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
Reply-To: lrbartram@watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram)
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 30

In article <362@fs1.ee.ubc.ca> mikeb@ee.ubc.ca writes:
>In article <232@ccu.UManitoba.CA> ndonald@ccu.UManitoba.CA (Nick Donaldson) writes:
>>
>>Belgium and Switzerland manage. If I'm not mistaken, Switzerland has 7 major
>>languages. I wonder if they have the same problems as Canada. I consider myself
>
>Four languages.   French, German, Italian and Romansch.
>
	Actually, Switzerland has four OFFICIAL languages, while Canada has
two. This does not determine how many other languages are in daily use
outside the individual homes in either country.  Unlike Canada, however,
the question of whether Swiss citizens of one language group should be
"forced" to study another language, and tolerate its use around them, doesn't
arise.  On the other hand, even though Romansch is an official language, its
use is declining and it is slowly being lost.  After all, outside Switzerland
Romansch is unknown -- merely another ancient language related to Sardi,
Etruscan and the Romany dialect of the gypsies.  Is this deliberate cultural
repression, or rather the effect of global communication unknown only a
generation ago?

	I consider myself a Quebecoise because my family has been there for
many generations, both French and English.  (Although my mother tongue is
English, i of course speak French.)  The strangest thing about the recent
language issues is Quebec is the overwhelming conviction on the part of my
French counterparts that association with the US is the answer.  They seem to
feel that the US will behave much as the Romans did, permitting local
cultural and linguistic institutions to thrive while imposing economic and
political Roman structures.  Examples to the contrary are either dismissed,
disbelieved or naively taken as inapplicable to the Quebec situation.  I don't
get it.  However, time alone will tell.