Bilingual two-step is part of our culture
Last summer, I walked into the Tim Hortons in Cap-Pelé, a predominantly French-speaking coastal community in New Brunswick, and decided to speak French while ordering a coffee.
The kid behind the counter just smiled and said: "It's okay, I speak English. I'm from Sackville."
If I had a nickel for every time this has happened over my 40-some years of living and travelling around southeast New Brunswick, I'd be able to buy a round of double-doubles for everyone in the region.
It seems that whenever I'm buying a coffee, pay for gas or order a burger and fries, I end up going through the bilingual two-step. The person can say hello in French, you can answer in English and they'll switch for the rest of the conversation. They hand you the change and you can say "thanks" or "merci." You say "g'day" and they say "bonne journee."
People who come from away shake their heads at this bizarre mish-mash of language. But to people who have lived here all their lives, it's just part of our culture here in southeast New Brunswick, where the lines between French and English seem to be getting progressively more blurred over time.
When I was a little kid in school, we were taught that Canada is a mosaic, as opposed to the "melting pot" in the United States. Canada is where people of different languages and cultures can co-exist in harmony while holding onto their own cultural identity. In the English school system in the 1970s and '80s, we had one class a day of French-language training. It was just another subject, like math or biology, and we struggled along to get through it.
Some students obviously picked it up better than others. Some of us still joke about the French textbooks with the pictures of Jacqueline and Francine going to the discotheque, or the petit chien who said "ouarf-ouarf."
After taking French all through school and college, I still had trouble making conversation in the second language. As a newspaper reporter, I've been to hundreds of news conferences and speeches where the presenters switch back and forth between the two official languages. And it never ceases to amaze me how some people can do it with such ease.
I think the true master is former premier Bernard Lord, who can answer a question in English from a reporter, then turn his head to the French-language microphone and repeat the answer again. Our current Premier, Shawn Graham, an English-speaking guy from Kent County, has gotten much better at it in the last year or so. My guess he's been getting a lot of coaching and practice.
I know many people who grew up in French-language homes who won't speak a word of French unless they really have to. I've met people who insist on speaking French just to make a point even though they are fluently bilingual. I've seen people in grocery stores turning soup cans around so their preferred language is displayed. I know people who grew up in English-speaking homes, took French immersion in school and now speak both languages fluently. And I know even more people who grew up in homes with both French and English and talk in the mish-mash language of Chiac.
I've met people who moved to Metro Moncton because they like the bilingual nature of the community. And I know people who ran away to Nova Scotia, Ontario or Alberta to escape it.
They taught us in school that to speak French properly, you have to "think" in French and the words will flow. Some of us have trouble with this, the same way many French-speaking people have trouble with English.
And the other important lesson was the idea that you must "use it or lose it."
Learning to speak another language is like swimming. You have to dive in and try to stay afloat. And those of us who have trouble learning deserve help if our government wants to maintain its dream of a politically-correct bilingual society.
How many kids in French immersion go home to their English-speaking homes and never speak a word of French to their parents or siblings, or try to use it when ordering a Big Mac?
When we dive into the language pool, should we go in so deeply that we compromise our ability to speak, read and write in our own mother tongue? Some of us may swim easily. Others might sink like a rock. Should those who sink be denied the opportunity to advance their careers? Should those who stumble be subject to jokes and ridicule to the point where they give up trying before they get over the hump and really start to learn?
Should people who are fed up with the debate over bilingualism have to leave the province to escape the madness?
Our brains in Fredericton have been trying for generations to come up with a second language program that works. They have changed it, tweaked it and last week set off another powder keg of debate by cancelling yet another program.
When will they come up with something that works and respects all of us?
n City Views appears daily, written by members of our staff. Alan Cochrane is an editor-at-large. His column appears each Friday. He can be reached by e-mail at cochrana@timestranscript.com
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should their careers be impeded? That would be from an anglophone perspective.
Would that equally apply to francophones? Would unilingual francophones ever be
allowed to have careers in N.B.?
I would think if a unilingual Francophone wanted a job in a predominantly English area, then he would have to learn English. If I wanted to work in a primarily French community, I would have to learn French. That is the way it works. Do you think if you went to Russia, for example, that people should bend to your language, be it English, French, or Spanish? In Moncton, I think 70% are English (maybe more or less). Does every employee in the service industry have to speak french to only serve a third or less of the population. There should absolutely be someone there to have the ability to give the service, but not everyone should need to speak french.
Anyway, the article is about schooling in French, and I think that when the dust settles, and people regain their sense, that history will show this is the right move.