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A dozen thoughts on language
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| 1. I didn’t know at first that there
were two languages in Canada. I just thought that there
was one way to speak to my father and another to talk to
my mother.
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This candid admission comes from
Louis St-Laurent,
twelfth prime minister of Canada, whose mother was Irish and whose
father was Québécois. The story goes that he was a teenager before he
realized that speaking both languages at home was not the norm for every
Canadian family. It’s not surprising, then, that he was supported and
admired by both language groups! |
| Louis St. Laurent
© Public Domain
Source: National Archives of Canada, C-010461
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| 2. In any world menu, Canada must be considered the
vichyssoise of nations: it’s cold, half-French, and difficult to
stir.
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| Although this culinary metaphor
by Canadian journalist Stuart Keate may not stir up
national patriotism, the image still brings a smile to
any self-effacing Canadian.
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| 3. [translation] The Latin tradition is to the Anglo-Saxon
tradition as oil is to vinegar. You need both to make the
dressing, otherwise the salad is not complete.
(La tradition latine
est à la tradition anglo-saxonne ce que l’huile est au vinaigre.
Il faut les deux pour faire la sauce, sinon, la salade est mal
assaisonnée.) |
Speaking of gastronomic stylings, here’s another one!
Queen Elizabeth II, on a visit to France, was speaking about England and
France, but the image is also a fitting description of Canada.
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| Princess Elizabeth, aged 3 © Public Domain
Source : Time Magazine
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| 4. [translation] When you have two
languages, you always have the option of hiding behind
one of them. (Quand t’as deux langues,
t’as toujours la possibilité de te cacher dans l’autre.)
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| Sometimes, your second language can be your refuge, as evidenced by this
excerpt from a work by Franco-Ontarian playwright Michel Ouellette.
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5.
Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a
unilingual one—but it is a richer state. |
Just before the Official Languages Act was passed,
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada,
fired back this response to critics of official bilingualism. We
couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Mr. Trudeau! |
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Pierre Elliott Trudeau
© National Archives of
Canada
Source: National Archives of Canada, C-046600
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6. [translation] An accent is not in the mouth of the speaker, it’s
in the ears of the listener!
(L’accent,
c'est pas dans la gorge des uns, c'est dans l’oreille des
autres!) |
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| According to Quebec singer-songwriter
Plume Latraverse,
accents are like beauty: they’re in the eye (or ears) of the beholder.
Maybe this variation will inspire the self-conscious and the
self-deprecating to speak up and let their accent be heard, whether in
their own language or in their second language! |
7.
I think you are fools to speak French . . .
I think you are fools to speak English . . .
Surrender now surrender to each other
your loveliest useless aspects
and live with me in this and other voices
like the wind harps you were meant to be . . . |
This excerpt from English and French, a poem by Montréal
songwriter, novelist and poet
Leonard Cohen,
starts with a biting satire of Francophones and Anglophones that
includes all the old clichés associated with the two language groups.
Having lived in Quebec when language tensions were high, Leonard Cohen
calls on English- and French-speaking Canadians to rise above language
differences and tired clichés to find a peaceful solution through
communication and music.
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Leonard Cohen
by
jonl1973
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| 8.
[translation] I’m so terrified of using an anglicism that there
are some words I just won’t use anymore. Like “apprécier.”
Before, I would use “apprécier” for all kinds of things. Not
anymore. I don’t dare.
(J’ai tellement peur de commettre un anglicisme qu’il y a des
mots que je dis même plus. Tiens, “apprécier”. Avant,
j’appréciais certaines choses, plus maintenant. J’ose pas.) |
Daniel Poliquin is a Franco-Ontarian translator, interpreter and writer
who has translated such noted authors as Matt Cohen, Mordecai Richler,
Douglas Glover and Jack Kerouac. In this quote, the author describes his
paranoia about using anglicisms, the scourge of North American French.
If you’d like to learn more about the proper way to use “apprécier,”
read the
sage advice (in French only) of the Office québécois de la langue française.
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Daniel Poliquin
Source: Étienne Morin, Le Droit. University of Ottawa,
CRCCF, Le Droit Fonds (C71), Ph92-9-091194POL18.
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| 9.
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that
goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes
to his heart. |
These are the words of
Nelson Mandela,
former president of South Africa and symbol of the anti-apartheid
movement. Their eloquence shows the strong connection between language
and identity, and the power that comes with knowing another language.
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Nelson Mandela by
South Africa The Good News
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| 10.
The reason I handle English words so easily is because it
is not my own language. I refashion it to fit French images. |
Noted American novelist
Jack Kerouac was born in the United States to French-Canadian
parents and didn’t learn English until he was six years old. As this
statement shows, the early predominance of French and the later
acquisition of English fuelled the creativity of this literary
iconoclast.
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Jack Kerouac
by
Tom Palumbo |
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| 11.
[translation]
It was only at the moment when nothing was coming naturally from
inside—words, syntax, style, especially—at the moment when the
false familiarity of the mother tongue had been eradicated, that
I found my voice. My career as a writer is intrinsically linked
with the French language. And it’s not that I find it prettier
or more expressive than English, just its strangeness makes it
sufficiently foreign to stimulate my curiosity.
(Ce
n’est qu’à partir du moment où plus rien n’allait de soi – ni le
vocabulaire, ni la syntaxe, ni surtout le style –, à partir du
moment où était aboli le faux naturel de la langue maternelle,
que j’ai trouvé des choses à dire. Ma
“venue
à l'écriture”
est intrinsèquement liée à la langue française. Non pas que je
la trouve plus belle ni plus expressive que la langue anglaise,
mais étrangère, elle est suffisamment étrange pour stimuler ma
curiosité.) |
For
Nancy Huston,
an Anglophone Canadian author who has published more widely in French
than in English, the situation is the same as Jack Kerouac’s, only
different. The learned language provides freedom of expression; its
foreignness offers a safe place to be uninhibited, experimental.
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Nancy Huston by
Elena Torre
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12. [translation]
I believe in a Québécois language. . . . A living language, in
any case, a language of invention, a French that explodes in the
mouth, that doesn’t taste of grammar, but that opens itself up
to evolution, to invention.
(Moi, je crois à une langue québécoise. […] Une langue vivante,
en tout cas, une langue d’invention, un français qui explose
dans la bouche pis qui goûte pas juste la feuille de grammaire,
mais qui est ouvert à l’évolution, à l’invention.) |
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| And so we let
Fred Pellerin (in French only),
Saint‑Élie‑de‑Caxton’s storyteller extraordinaire, have the last
word. Pellerin is passionate about language and bends the rules with
abandon, mixing up all kinds of made-up words, archaic words and
plays on words. The result is a rich language, both poetic and
playful, that has thrown off the shackles of convention. Listening
to Pellerin, you feel suddenly lighter, as if the weight of the
grammarian has been lifted from your shoulders. |
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Do you have any favourite quotations on language? Send them to us
and
tell us what they mean to you and why they resonate with you. A
selection of readers’ responses will be published in a future issue of
Beyond Words.
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