10/20/2009

Decline and resistance in quebec

Many French-speaking observers of the French language in Quebec point out its decline over the last few decades. While this will be dismissed by some as a gimmick used to drum up French-Canadian resistance, studies paint the picture of an erosion that mass immigration from more or less Francophone countries hardly helps slow down.


source
En tant que président du Réseau de Résistance du Québécois (RRQ), Patrick Bourgeois tient à féliciter le citoyen Jean-Roch Villemaire pour le geste qu’il a posé contre la candidate Barbara Charlebois, elle dont l’équipe a osé poser des affiches unilingues anglaises dans le secteur d’Aylmer, en Outaouais.

Bien qu’il s’agisse ici d’une initiative personnelle de M. Villemaire, le Réseau tient à dire qu’il se sent solidaire et fier de ce patriote. Le Réseau est convaincu qu’il a bien fait de retirer une douzaine desdites affiches unilingues anglaises.

« Je partage l’opinion de M. Villemaire lorsqu’il dit que les citoyens, quand les élites politiques abdiquent, ont la responsabilité de combattre eux-mêmes les situations injustes. Lorsqu’il y aura des centaines et des milliers de Québécois qui imiteront Jean-Roch Villemaire, la question du français sera enfin réglée au Québec », a dit M. Bourgeois.

La question du français préoccupe au plus haut point la direction et les membres du Réseau de Résistance du Québécois. « Il est clair qu’il faut faire quelque chose de signifiant pour enfin renverser la tendance à laquelle on assiste depuis quelques décennies maintenant au Québec, tendance qui établit clairement le déclin de la langue française. Et la désobéissance civile est très certainement une des possibilités que nous envisageons pour assurer la pérennité du fait français au Québec », a soutenu M. Bourgeois. En cela, Jean-Roch Villemaire vient peut-être de lancer un mouvement.

10/19/2009

Abdou Acknowledges Decline

Prefacing an interesting document titled "Suivi Vade Mecum", Secretary General of la Francophonie Abdou Diouf dispenses with the buoyant tone that is de rigueur in such publications to take stock of the real status of French in international institutions. Apart from acknowledging the decline of French, this text gives a marvelous example of the impossible balancing act which la Francophonie has condemned itself to perform as it is seen forever shilling for diversity against monolinguisme all the while denying or plotting to deny smaller languages the same official recognition that French enjoys, be it in France, Africa or the European Union.
Well, if we are to believe the same document, we shall very soon be able to observe if the Francophone lobby still is in a position to force a lesser status on such languages as Spanish, Italian or Polish within the EU:
"Dans un communiqué, daté du 17 septembre 2008, annonçant la nouvelle stratégie de l’exécutif européen sur le multilinguisme de la Commission, M. Orban a indiqué que la « prochaine Commission décidera en novembre 2009 de l’ajout de nouvelles langues de travail, qui sont actuellement l’anglais, le français et l’allemand." (p. 83)

Adopté par le Sommet de Bucarest, en septembre 2006, le Vade-mecum relatif à l’usage de la langue française dans les organisations internationales est un texte de nature règlementaire qui s’impose à tous les États et gouvernements membres, associés ou observateurs de l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). Si les États et gouvernements ont souhaité son existence, c’est qu’ils ont mesuré à la fois le déclin du français dans les organisations internationales et l’importance que revêt le respect du multilinguisme pour un fonctionnement efficace et démocratique. En me demandant d’assurer le suivi de la mise en oeuvre de ce texte, les chefs d’État et de gouvernement se donnaient, au-delà de la déclaration politique, une obligation supplémentaire : celle de se doter des moyens de renforcer, en toutes circonstances, la présence de la langue française au service du multilinguisme. D’ailleurs, certains de nos pays membres reconnaissent d’autres langues officielles et utilisent ainsi l’arabe, l’espagnol, le portugais ou l’anglais. Notre conception de la diversité des expressions culturelles et linguistiques ne réfute, en effet, aucune langue, mais elle s’oppose avec force à la facilité réductrice qu’offre le monolinguisme. De même, l’OIF ne considère pas que telle langue aurait, par je ne sais quelle qualité intrinsèque supposée supérieure à celles des autres langues, ou par la force du nombre ou du fait accompli, plus de légitimité à être utilisée plutôt que telle autre. Concernant les organisations internationales et les échanges entre États, nous ne succombons pas à la tentation radicale consistant à revendiquer pour chaque langue le même statut. Si cette revendication est tout à fait légitime dans une approche patrimoniale de sauvegarde et de reconnaissance des milliers de langues que compte encore notre planète, elle nous conduirait, dans le contexte des organisations internationales, au résultat inverse de celui escompté. Le Vade-mecum a été adopté voilà deux ans. Cette « jeunesse » explique sans doute pourquoi si peu de nos États et gouvernements membres ont pu, jusqu’à maintenant, se doter de réels moyens de mise en oeuvre de ses principes. Cela étant, certains sont engagés, depuis plusieurs années parfois, dans des actions de formation de leurs fonctionnaires et de leurs diplomates, avec l’appui de l’OIF, mais aussi celui de la Communauté française de Belgique, de la France et du Luxembourg pour ce qui concerne l’Union européenne. De nombreux pays dont la langue officielle est le français, singulièrement en Afrique subsaharienne, par leur pratique irréprochable, renforcent le statut de langue internationale du français. Certains de nos membres ont même pris le soin d’émettre des directives prescrivant explicitement l’usage du français, parfois aux côtés d’une autre langue officielle.
Bien que plusieurs de nos États et gouvernements membres n’aient accordé au français qu’un statut de langue étrangère, certains d’entre eux font néanmoins de remarquables efforts pour la promotion de la langue française. Les Groupes des ambassadeurs francophones s’organisent et s’emploient à faire respecter le statut du français par des interventions auprès des organisations internationales. Des diplomates agissent parfois directement, lorsqu’ils sont en situation d’exiger une traduction ou une interprétation défaillante au cours de telle ou telle réunion. Ce sont là autant de faits encourageants. Mais nous devons être plus ambitieux encore. Car je dois constater que, malgré la lettre que j’ai adressée à nos États et gouvernements membres et à la lumière des réponses reçues, aucune nouvelle circulaire, instruction ou recommandation spécifiquement dédiée au Vade-mecum, ne nous a été signalée et son existence même est souvent ignorée par des représentants des États et gouvernements sensés l’appliquer. Je déplore, par ailleurs, l’existence de contre-exemples emblématiques du comportement de certains très hauts représentants de pays francophones, qui s’expriment systématiquement en anglais, brouillant ainsi un message que le Vade-mecum cherchait pourtant à rendre clair. Je compte donc sur la mobilisation de tous nos États et gouvernements. N’oublions jamais que la langue française est le socle de notre Organisation. Et je forme le voeu que le vade-mecum soit perçu par tous comme un levier puissant permettant de faire progresser notre langue en partage, plutôt que comme un instrument de contrôle tatillon. La langue française ne pourra rayonner que par l’adhésion responsable et enthousiaste de tous ceux qui l’ont acceptée en tant qu’outil de l’expression concrète de leur solidarité, dans le respect de la diversité linguistique.

Abdou Diouf, Sécrétaire Général de la Francophonie


French Verb Decaying

The below thesis work focuses on the decline of written accuracy in pupils' use of French verbs. As any linguist knows, the verb is the most difficult part of language, but also the one part that most clearly sets a language apart from the others. The verb, its constructions, its forms, are at the core of a language's identity. The rapid decay of the modern French verb is a clear sign of the rapidly changing nature of the French language.

The decline of written accuracy in pupils' use of French verbs
Authors: Peter Metcalfe a; Diana Laurillard a; Robin Mason a
Affiliation: a The Open University,
DOI: 10.1080/09571739585200431
source
This article presents a survey and analysis of Examiners' Reports on French written papers, looking specifically at difficulties in using verbs appropriately. It draws on evidence from second-language acquisition research to determine the nature of the problem and hypothesizes links between the decline in written accuracy and the rise in oral fluency. (25 references) (CK)
source

10/13/2009

English pushes aside French as the language of status in Lebanese capital

Lebanon has been particularly affected by the spread of English and the decline of French. The Lebanese can now be said to be in the phase of English- learning, the next phase being the near-total disappearance of French through disuse.

BEIRUT–There's a deal being offered on Mazda automobiles in this freneticMiddle Eastern capital, a city where little stays the same for long. "Turn me on," urges a billboard on Zalka St. in the east end of Beirut. "Zero down payment, 1.99 per cent interest. Limited quantity."

Sounds good – but what is most intriguing about this advertisement is not the nature of the offer. It is the nature of the language in which the offer is being made. The offer is being made in English – and only in English.
The same goes for much, if not most, of the brash outdoor advertising that sprouts like gaudy thickets of mercantilism along the boulevards and avenues of Beirut.
"The Chivas Life." "For Burger Lovers!" "Chicken Your Way." "Sally Hansen Line Freeze for Lips."
Never mind the absence of French – long the language of choice for cultured Lebanese – there isn't even a single Arabic character to be found on most of these signs.
"English is cool," said a Western diplomat in Beirut. "If you're hip and you're young, you speak English."
You do if you are Lebanese.
According to Christian Merville, an editorial writer at L'Orient Le Jour, Lebanon's only French-language daily newspaper, English has incontestablement (indisputably) supplanted French as the language of status in this resolutely status-conscious land. Or, as Merville, puts it: "Rambo has replaced Rimbaud."
He's referring, in the first instance, to the action hero played by American Sylvester Stallone in a series of 1980s movie thrillers and, in the second instance, to the mercurial 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
It's a play on words, but the point is clear. English – particularly American English – has muscled French aside in this Mediterranean land,whose capital was once known as le Paris du Moyen-Orient. The Paris of the Middle East.
In many ways, the sobriquet remains apt.
Despite the pummelling it has suffered during a succession of wars, Beirut continues to boast an array of continental charms, including fine restaurants, an exuberant nightlife, a sophisticated café culture, and enduring ties to a certain former imperial power whose capital is the Paris of Europe.
Increasingly, however, when les citoyens et citoyennes of Lebanon converse with the outside world – or even among themselves – they do so in English, not French.
Granted, Arabic remains the sole official tongue of the country properly known as Al-Joumhouriya al-Lubnaniya. But even Arabic is starting to buckle somewhat under the globalizing force of English.
This is Merville's view, anyway. He believes that Arabic speakers in Lebanon increasingly express themselves in an impoverished vocabulary and tired clichés.
"There's a decline in the quality of French," he said, "but there is also an extraordinary decline in Arabic."
Arabic, of course, has been spoken in these lands for millennia. French, however, arrived in the late 19th century, when Jesuit clergy in France sought to counter increasing Protestant influence in the region by dispatching legions of missionaries to the mountainous eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
Following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the territory now called Lebanon became a French protectorate, an arrangement that lasted only a quarter-century. But Parisian influence – linguistic and otherwise – endured long after Lebanon became an independent state in 1946. "Cultured Lebanese were all educated in French-speaking countries," said Ghassan Moukheiber, a Beirut lawyer.
Even families that could not afford to send their children abroad typically dispatched them to local schools where the language of instruction was French, not Arabic.
Explanations vary for the recent ascent of English.
Some observers here – oddly, these individuals tend to be native French speakers – advance the view that English is a "simpler," less challenging tongue than French.
But others note that English opens more doors nowadays than French ever could. It is the primary language of the Internet, for example, as well as the lingua franca of industrial and commercial globalization.
In Lebanon, as in much of the world, U.S. television and films are a powerful cultural force, easily exceeding the influence of their French counterparts.
At the same time, Lebanese citizens who may be contemplating an international move – as many do – are far more likely to be accepted as immigrants in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada or the United States than they are by France.
"English," said a French-speaking diplomat, "is a lot more useful if you want to go abroad."
Still, French is far from dead in Lebanon. Especially among gatherings of well-educated folk, it is not uncommon nowadays to hear the conversation shift easily from Arabic, to English, to French, and back again. "It's a wonderful trilingual country," said the Western diplomat. "In a single sentence, you will hear all three languages."
And, although dramatic and unmistakable, the current shift toward English is not uniformly spread among all of Lebanon's four million citizens.
Fluency in French is still highly prized in the affluent Ashrafiye district of Beirut, for example, a neighbourhood mostly populated by Maronite Christians, for whom the language of Voltaire continues to imply good breeding and high economic status.
The country's large Shia Muslim community, meanwhile, is said to be the sector of Lebanese society most drawn to English, but no group in the country is immune to the economic opportunities or the cultural appeal now associated with the language of – well, of Sylvester Stallone.
Repos dans la paix, Arthur Rimbaud. Rest in peace.

TheStar.com - News - English is cool in
trendy Beirut


October 08, 2007

10/10/2009

More and More Franco Enrolments in Quebec's English-Language Schools

In spite of strict language laws, English retains its attraction in Quebec and many a Francophone wishes his children to become Anglos. Those who can afford the costs of private education even send them in ever greater numbers to English-language schools:










10/09/2009

French Language Meets its Waterloo

This article by Ian Black is a bit old (March 2002), but has the merit of summing up a few useful facts about language trends in Eastern Europe:

Enlarging the EU is good news for the English language, confirming its victory over French as the classic medium of European integration.

Adding to the woes of the French, who fear an Anglo-Saxon plot to get the top jobs in Brussels and liberalise protected markets, a new survey shows that the language of Shakespeare is more popular than that of Molière in the candidate countries for union membership.

According to the European commission's polling arm, Eurobarometer, 86% of people in the 13 countries applying to join regard English as one of the two most useful languages to speak.

German is favoured by 58% per cent, largely in central and eastern Europe, and French by a paltry 17%.

(...)

"After years of armchair speculation about what the linguistic map of Europe will look like after enlargement, this survey is the answer," commission official said.

"It spells the end of a rearguard action to preserve French as the dominant working language."

English is the most-spoken foreign language in the candidate countries, scoring 16% compared with 14% for Russian, 10% for German and 4% for French.

(...)

Romania has most citizens who speak French as a second language, though there too, English is considered far more useful.

Cyprus and Malta, both former British colonies, are special cases, where 57% and 84% respectively speak English as a second language.

(...)

French dominated the European project from the 1950s until the 1980s but was set back when Finland, Austria and Sweden joined in 1995, and has suffered further from English's dominance on the internet. Today, two-thirds of commission documents are written in English.



French and English in Europe

Dr Svetlana Carsten, Deputy Director of the Center of Translation Studies and Director of Postgraduate programmes in Interpreting at the University of Leeds, has published a pdf document about main trends of language teaching in Europe. A few screenshots might be of interest before the presentation is taken offline. Click the thumbnails to enlarge:











I find it particularly interesting that French as a foreign language has all but disappeared from Eastern Europe except in Romania. Not really what Francophonie propaganda would have you believe.

10/04/2009

Further Erosion of French Teaching in UK

The Joint Council for Qualifications reported a further decline of French entries in British examinations in August 2009. Of all foreign languages, French has experienced the steepest fall over the last few years:

Entries in modern foreign languages continue to decline with French down by 13,252 or 6.6 per cent (from 201,940 in 2008 to 188,688), German, down by 3,226 or 4.2 per cent (from 76,695 in 2008 to 73,469). However, entries in Spanish are stable, only down by 22 (from 67,092 in 2008 to 67,070).
Other modern languages continue their upward trend, by 1,429 or 4.5 per cent (from 31,682 in 2008 to 33,111).

10/03/2009

Morocco and the Rise of English

Here is an interesting Facebook conversation about current language trends in Morocco, a very multilingual country, as I could witness myself some fifteen years ago. Language competition is fierce there, and English is making headways in spite of the elites doing all they can to entrench the French tongue as a means of maintaining the status quo.

SWITCH AWAY FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH IS IRREVERSIBLE

Some may have felt that the Rwandan authorities' decision to drop French in favor of English would be short-lived. Yet they are as resolute as ever to punish the genocidal ambitions of la Francophonie:

RWANDA SAYS ITS SWITCH AWAY FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH IS IRREVERSIBLE

KIGALI, Sept 15 (NNN-RNA) -- As the fallout over Rwanda's implementation of the shift from French to English as the medium of instruction in schools rages on, a top Cabinet official has made it clear that the road away from French is unstoppable.

The new Education Minister, Dr. Charles Murigande, has shut the door to any more discussion over the policy with the strongest comments ever made by a top government official. Dr. Murigande said Sunday that everything is on course for all schools to start teaching in English.

"There is no turning back to French as a language of instruction in this country," he said to an audience of journalists and stakeholders, while pounding the table. “We have switched to English forever."

The government has argued that taking up English simply reinforces Rwanda’s position in the international system. However, critics accuse the government of abandoning a constitutional stipulation which makes Rwanda a country with three languages -- English, French and Kinyarwanda.

Last week, one of the fiercest critics of government, Paul Rusesabagina -– the exiled face behind the Hollywood movie "Hotel Rwanda", also launched his strongest attacks, claiming in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programme that a "small group of between 30,000 and 40,000 people who came from Uganda" is imposing English on the whole country.

Rusesabagina has launched a campaign to ensure that Rwanda is not allowed into the British Commonwealth group of nations. Officials just brushed off these latest actions by the man accused here of seeking to acquire fame from the country’s suffering.

Rwanda has been French-speaking for ages which completely disqualifies it outrightly from the British grouping, argues Rusesabagina but supporters of Kigali have branded him as irrelevant.

For Education Minister Dr. Murigande, who is not new to very strong comments against France, the road to ending French is no room for compromise. Rwanda, he told his audience Sunday, will never go back to French "unless France re-colonises Africa".

About two years ago, Dr. Murigande, when he was Foreign Affairs Minister, told RNA in a wide ranging interview: "We were killed by the French in the name of Francophonie", referring to the grouping of French colonies.

The government is finalizing plans to build thousands of new classrooms across the country in time for the start in January of the nine-year basic education programme. Education officials also want the expansion programme to come with a phasing-in of English in all schools as the language of instruction.

Science subjects are already being taught in English and universities have all switched all instruction to English. - NNN-RNA


EU Enlargement and Decline of French

Numbers speak for themselves:

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU enlargement is pushing German ahead of French on the European language ladder, with non-indigenous languages such as Russian and Turkish also on the rise, a new European Commission study has shown. The number of German speakers and English speakers jumped 6 percent each between 2001 and 2005, hitting 14 percent and 38 percent respectively, while the rate of French speakers rose just 3 points to 14 percent. "With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. Clearly more citizens in the new member states master German, while their skills in French and Spanish are scarce," the report stated. Almost two thirds of Europeans feel English is the most important foreign language for adults and children to learn. But support for learning French as a foreign language dived from 40 percent to 25 percent in the past five years, while support for German slipped just 1 point to 22 percent. France is fiercely protective of its linguistic heritage, with the Paris-based Academie Francaise sending out ambassadors to eastern Europe to promote French studies and awarding prizes to foreign francophones. The academie also enforces the so-called "loi Toubon" of 1994 against the usage of foreign terms in French public sector texts, providing French options for new words, such as "courriel" instead of "email." "We are aware of international trends, but we want to show that French is able to express reality equally well," academie lexicographer Jean-Matthieu Pasqualini told EUobserver. "There is a danger that the value of French could be forgotten in the language of international science and finance." Exotic tongues on the rise The new study also put Russian on the map as the joint-fourth most popular language in the EU, equal with Spanish on 6 percent. The Russian jump comes mainly from the Baltic States, with about one fifth of Latvians and Estonians citing Russian as their mother tongue while half of all Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians cite Russian as the most important foreign language to learn. Eight percent of Germans quoted non-indigenous languages, mostly Turkish, as their maternal language, with EU candidate Bulgaria also recording 8 percent Turkish mother tongue speakers. Non-indigenous mother tongues account for 5 percent of the British population and 3 percent of the French, with Indian languages and Arabic dominant. The report did not cover Chinese, but European Commission language policy director Jacques Delmoly predicted a "boom" in EU Chinese language learning in the next few years due to China's economic growth. Model Europeans The typical European speaking multiple languages is likely to be young, well-educated and working in a managerial-type position, the study says. The model polyglot is likely to have been born outside his country of residence and to live in a small member state that has more than one official language, such as Belgium, or in a country that has strong ties with neighbours, such as Slovenia. Anglophone and southern European countries came bottom of the class, with 66 percent of the Irish and 62 percent of Brits saying they do not speak any foreign language, while over 55 percent of Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards said the same. The commission itself recently came under fire for shedding Spanish, Italian and French translators in order to take on staff from new member states. With 21 official EU languages and 60 other regional and non-indigenous tongues present in Europe, Tuesday's (21 February) commission press briefing on multilingualism was conducted in English, German and French only. The study said 55 percent of EU citizens believe all EU communication should be handled in just one language, but ducked the sensitive question of "which one?